The Minimum Wage, Eugenics, and the NAACP

This morning on NC Spin, the panelists were addressing the NAACP in North Carolina and their effectiveness, after their rally in Raleigh, in which they presented their 14 point agenda. Included was the following item:

Restitution for the 1891 Wilmington race riots and sterilization of poor, black women in the first half of the 20th century

The sterilization part is in reference to a horrid, dark period in our state's history. Long after eugenics had fallen out of favor, the North Carolina eugenics program continued into the late 70s!

As you can expect, the NAACP is rightly denouncing this horrible practice. And if any of the people affected by this program remain, then I hope they seek restitution.

But there is an irony here for the NAACP. As mentioned by Chris Fitzsimon, the NAACP fought especially hard for the minimum wage increase in the state in the last session. And the historical impetus for the minimum wage is not too distant from that of Eugenics, as I first saw here. As Sidney Webb, early minimum wage warrior, put it:

Of all ways of dealing with these unfortunate parasites [undesirable classes], the most ruinous to the community is to allow them unrestrainedly to compete as wage earners.

The minimum wage would price the 'undesirables' out of the labor market. Eugenics through economics. So it just seems funny to me to see the NAACP simultaneously condemning (rightly) eugenics with the one hand, and unwittingly attempting to advance it with the other.

We're from the government, and we're here to fix your soul.

Alternate title: Theocracy on the Left

Since I just had a post about Obama as demigod, this needed a post on here.

Michelle Obama, during a speech at UCLA about a month ago, said:

That before we can work on the problems, we have to fix our souls - our souls are broken in this nation.

Creepy stuff.

Great quote

So my roommate and I are watching one of the ESPN Top 20 list shows, and they're doing Top 20 NFL Postseason Performances. On the list was Desmond Howard from Super Bowl XXXI. In reference to a kickoff return for a touchdown, he said:

I'm actually looking up at the Jumbotron to make sure no one's gaining ground because I wanted to get to the end zone and do my robot dance.

Under construction

Monkeying with the template, but time to go to work. So it'll look a little crappy for at least today.

You folks know I LOATHE the phrase, "GIT R DONE"

But darn if I can't come up with a better thing to say after reading this story:

Johnston County Homeowner Beats Up Burglar

YES WE CAN (walk on water?)

Ok. This is scary. On first brush, I don't know if the author of that blog is being tongue-in-cheek or not. But the compilation of earnest quotes tells the story all the same.

Yikes.

HT: Ed Lasky at American Thinker via Hal Young at JLF