I'm sure Christians and non-Christians alike would agree that a true and sincere follower of
Jesus Christ's teachings would -- upon seeing the dismal living conditions of poverty-stricken people -- say:
"There but for the grace of God go I."
Malthusian cultists and social Darwinists, on the other hand, self-righteously proclaim:
"There but for the grace of my
innate superiority go I."
That's all the eugenics or "neo-Malthusian" movement is really about: a bunch of modern-day
aristocrats who have been so rich for so long, and who consequently have become so drunk on their own self-righteous arrogance, they actually believe that the only reason they're that much wealthier than the average person is that their genes are that much "superior" to those of the average person. Nothing to do with the sheer luck of having been born to rich parents, nor with the
privileges that allow them to extract ridiculously large amounts wealth and income from the economy while rendering little or no service in return; only with the "superior" genes they were blessed with at birth.
Corollary to this is the self-serving belief that the reason why the lower and middle classes exhibit so much stupid behavior is "inferior" genes. Nothing to do with a
compulsory school system designed to dumb people down, nor with any of the mass mind control conducted via
television, nor with the
chemical lobotomizations to which the masses have been criminally and increasingly subjected; only with the "inferior" genes they were cursed with at birth.
"They who have put out the people’s eyes, reproach them of their blindness." -- John Milton
And because the genes of modern-day aristocrats and robber barons are (according to them) so "superior" to everyone else's, they believe they're literally
entitled to all of the earth's resources and to the lion's share of whatever wealth is produced by the "inferiors" whom they generously allow to inhabit "
their" planet. In that sense, they're like ticks who've come to believe they literally "own" the dog on whose life blood they parasitically feed.
This is why I don't automatically do the "Sieg Heil!" whenever someone utters the term "private property rights," because that term always
begs a question that is rarely if ever addressed by the right-wing ideologues and aristocrat wannabes who incessantly invoke it: "private property" in
what, and on the
basis of what?
As Henry George admirer, Albert Jay Nock, explains
here, there's a world of difference between "labor-made property" and "law-made property." Good luck explaining that to a
royal libertarian, though.
