NDP founder Tommy Douglas under review as national historic figure 'The Historic Sites and Monuments Board noted that Tommy Douglas wrote a master's thesis on eugenics'

[CdnFox]

https://torontosun.com/news/national/ndp-founder-tommy-douglas-under-review-as-national-historic-figure

The Historic Sites and Monuments Board is taking a second look at his “controversial beliefs and behaviour,” which included advocating for unwed mothers to be sterilized.

The Historic Sites and Monuments Board also said it was checking about 2,100 historic commemorations dating from 1919 for “outdated or offensive terms or word choices” and “an absence of a significant layer of history most frequently associated with the exclusion of Indigenous peoples.”

 

Ohhhh tommy.

 

This is what happens when we review history's leaders as if they should be held to today's moral standards or cancelled.

[Michael Hardner]

We knew that about him and that Eugenics was a very unpalatable aspect of extreme socialism, the echoes of which still reverberate today sometimes.  I have seen people post on web groups that people should get a "license" in order to have kids.

What do we do with such people ?  I agree with the implication of your last sentence.  Lincoln was a racist but also was a progressive who improved the lives of millions.  We can hold those two thoughts in our head and not be confused.  It's possible to do that.

[I am Groot]

This is why we got a black hairdresser put on the ten-dollar bill.

The Liberals were determined to replace MacDonald and had already announced they wanted to put a woman on the bill. Problem is all the known women lived in past times and thus weren't politically correct. They had things to say and beliefs that would be, er, troublesome to the great woke pretender. 

So they selected a woman who had never been quoted about anything. Of course, that was because she was basically a nobody with no influence on Canada's culture and history. And, rather embarrassingly, she decided to emigrate to the US. WHich is a difficult blend with the Liberals' attempt to portray her as the noble victim and combatant against racism. I mean, she preferred to move to the US in the 1950s... But on the upside, hey, she was black! And whatever her opinions were nobody knew them!

The perfect person for Trudeau's style over substance government. "Look everyone! I put a woman on the ten-dollar bill! And a BLACK woman at that! See how sensitive and anti-racist and feministic I am! What did she do? Uh, she got a ticket once for sitting in the wrong place in a movie theater. More than enough to make her a national hero! Did I mention she was black!?"

 

[Nefarious Banana]

While roaming the back alleys of downtown Calgary, old chief 'Slack'n the Pants' refuses to pick up that Sir John A. Macdonald $10 bill he's spotted  . . .?

Thinking Dougie93 is right . . . . we don't have a country anymore.

[herbie]

I wouldn't label eugenics as extreme socialism. Sure it was a social engineering concept, but was endorsed by many 'scientific' minds on all sides of the political spectrum  It didn't take on the 'breeding of a master race' or the killing of the unwanted.connotations until after the war  years.

Forced sterilizations carried on here until the 1960s. And pressuring some people to be sterilized voluntarily continues to this day.
Many sates had miscegnegation laws much later - all are forms of 'eugenics'

[West]

7 hours ago, Michael Hardner said:

We knew that about him and that Eugenics was a very unpalatable aspect of extreme socialism, the echoes of which still reverberate today sometimes.  I have seen people post on web groups that people should get a "license" in order to have kids.

What do we do with such people ?  I agree with the implication of your last sentence.  Lincoln was a racist but also was a progressive who improved the lives of millions.  We can hold those two thoughts in our head and not be confused.  It's possible to do that.

You are right. Many leftists believe the world is overpopulated which is why they support baby murder and use the mother being poor as an excuse 

[West]

49 minutes ago, herbie said:

I wouldn't label eugenics as extreme socialism. Sure it was a social engineering concept, but was endorsed by many 'scientific' minds on all sides of the political spectrum  It didn't take on the 'breeding of a master race' or the killing of the unwanted.connotations until after the war  years.

Forced sterilizations carried on here until the 1960s. And pressuring some people to be sterilized voluntarily continues to this day.
Many sates had miscegnegation laws much later - all are forms of 'eugenics'

The eugenics movement is still alive and well in modern day leftist thought. Just been rebranded.

[Zeitgeist]

This is about erasing all history and extolling today’s radical left zealots who are actually the most destructive forces in our history.  Douglas was of course a progressive for his time.  Today’s so called progressives hate the progressives of the past the most.  Anyone who isn’t part of today’s radical left is labeled racist or colonial or misogynist.  The statues are removed and history is rewritten, because the radicals don’t believe in looking at historical context or the fact that people are complex. The virtues and achievements of the past are denigrated because the people who exemplified them are guilty of other sins by today’s standards.  The baby is thrown out with the bath water.   If this pattern isn’t painfully obvious to people by now, they must be blind.  

Edited July 20, 2023 by Zeitgeist

[SpankyMcFarland]

18 hours ago, Michael Hardner said:

What do we do with such people ?  I agree with the implication of your last sentence.  Lincoln was a racist but also was a progressive who improved the lives of millions.  We can hold those two thoughts in our head and not be confused.  It's possible to do that.

Does the historical figure leave the lot of man better than he found it? That’s the key question. Take the example of Thomas Jefferson, the intellectual mover behind the founding of the American state. Revelations about his personal life have given the term ‘Jeffersonian democracy’ an ironic twist but there’s no question he was a force for human progress and liberty overall. Or Aristotle, perhaps the greatest thinker in human history, who was keen on both slavery and the oppression of women while taking a dim view of the barbarians beyond Greece. I believe tribalism is a fundamental human impulse that each generation must struggle to master. If we put it up there with other sins we are heir to, we’ll waste less indignation on our forebears. 

Edited July 20, 2023 by SpankyMcFarland

[WestCanMan]

2 hours ago, SpankyMcFarland said:

Does the historical figure leave the lot of man better than he found it? That’s the key question. Take the example of Thomas Jefferson, the intellectual mover behind the founding of the American state. Revelations about his personal life have given the term ‘Jeffersonian democracy’ an ironic twist but there’s no question he was a force for human progress and liberty overall. Or Aristotle, perhaps the greatest thinker in human history, who was keen on both slavery and the oppression of women while taking a dim view of the barbarians beyond Greece. I believe tribalism is a fundamental human impulse that each generation must struggle to master. If we put it up there with other sins we are heir to, we’ll waste less indignation on our forebears. 

It's weird to see a leftist use common sense, and to display an understanding of the concept of presentism. 

[Michael Hardner]

16 hours ago, herbie said:

I wouldn't label eugenics as extreme socialism.  

I had a general understanding that there was some traditional associations there.  This article outlines some of this.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/from-the-archive-blog/2019/may/01/eugenics-founding-fathers-british-socialism-archive-1997

[herbie]

As I pointed out 'eugenics' was not associated with 'euthanasia' until the Nazis took things to the extreme. The object was to improve society by 'filtering out' mental and physical imperfections from the gene pool by preventing them from 'breeding".
Unfortunately, many of which are no longer labelled as such. Criminality is not genetic, homosexuality is not genetic, and people with physical defects can still have a quality of life. Some mental illnesses and serious physical illnesses are genetic, and people are warned but not forcibly sterilized now.

So attempting to pigeonhole someone from that era in a negative way with today's standards is NOT like condemning someone who believed in genocide, imperialism or slavery. The concept is not evil or destructive, and most people today believe that people with things that are spread genetically should be discouraged from having children. That is still a form of eugenics.

[Michael Hardner]

30 minutes ago, herbie said:

1. So attempting to pigeonhole someone from that era in a negative way with today's standards is NOT like condemning someone who believed in genocide, imperialism or slavery.

2. The concept is not evil or destructive, and most people today believe that people with things that are spread genetically should be discouraged from having children. That is still a form of eugenics.

1. Of course not.  You have put a pretty good dividing line here with these examples.

2.  The application, though.  Anyway, the best thing about this example is that it shows that not all ideas are taken up by "the" public as some allege.  People argue that anything submitted by an 'activist' will necessarily come to pass with time and that isn't so.

[SpankyMcFarland]

6 hours ago, herbie said:

Criminality is not genetic, homosexuality is not genetic, and people with physical defects can still have a quality of life. Some mental illnesses and serious physical illnesses are genetic, and people are warned but not forcibly sterilized now.

Maybe I’m too much of a pessimist but I do see a larger role for nature than that and a smaller one for nurture. For example, I have seen striking examples of violent criminality within families and they are well described in the literature. However, we can accept the power of genes in our lives without giving up on our own responsibility to take ownership of what we do. And we have all seen kids who never got a chance because of their upbringing. 

Homosexuality? A big topic I know nothing of but holding forth on such matters seems to be what this site is for. If it isn’t entirely genetic it certainly starts very early in life. 

No question on concerns for euthanasia. In threads on the topic here, I was surprised how liberal, ie enthusiastic, many would be on letting people go. For me it should be a last resort and under no circumstances should anybody with a physical challenge feel pressured to do the ‘decent thing’. Nobody under 40 with just a serious psychiatric condition, e.g. bipolar disorder, should be offered it. I’d be more OK with older, previously healthy, people taking the off ramp. We’ve had our fun. 
 

 

Edited July 21, 2023 by SpankyMcFarland

[blackbird]

On 7/19/2023 at 11:32 AM, CdnFox said:

This is what happens when we review history's leaders as if they should be held to today's moral standards or cancelled.

Tommy Douglas will never be cancelled because he is considered as a kind of god by NDPers, Socialists, and progressives.  He apparently became a minister but sadly it appears he believed in a social gospel (Socialism) rather than what the Bible teaches, which is individual charity rather than state-controlled wealth redistribution (Socialism and Communism).  He is considered by the NDP as the father of socialized health care.

[CdnFox]

12 minutes ago, blackbird said:

Tommy Douglas will never be cancelled because he is considered as a kind of god by NDPers, Socialists, and progressives.  He apparently became a minister but sadly it appears he believed in a social gospel (Socialism) rather than what the Bible teaches, which is individual charity rather than state-controlled wealth redistribution (Socialism and Communism).  He is considered by the NDP as the father of socialized health care.

Well they're considering cancelling him right now - the ndp might hate it but it could be a real thing.  And that will force them to consider their policy of hating on historical figures for failing to live up to today's standards.

[herbie]

"They" are not cancelling shit. Someone pointed out a simple fact hoping to discredit him.

 

[CdnFox]

21 minutes ago, herbie said:

"They" are not cancelling shit. Someone pointed out a simple fact hoping to discredit him.

 

Well the article says:

The Historic Sites and Monuments Board is taking a second look at his “controversial beliefs and behaviour,”

So it would appear that yes THEY are considering doing so.

[herbie]

6 minutes ago, CdnFox said:

The Historic Sites and Monuments Board

Oh yes, they are the massive they that cancels things. What's their quorum, 200,000 or is it maybe 4?

[CdnFox]

43 minutes ago, herbie said:

Oh yes, they are the massive they that cancels things.

They're the ones who cancel historic sites and monuments