Genocide without borders

In the 20th century, when taken as a whole, race and racism actually accounted for a relatively small proportion of the mass slaughter that defined that century. Not that the term 'small' should ever be used in such cases, even if one person died. But in a cold, hard look at the stats, race was not the major player behind most of the carnage and butchery of the last century.

Likewise, religion was not a major player either. Communism, the main contributor to the 20th century body count, was decidedly atheistic and anti-religious. Most of the wars and atrocities were based on economic, social, and political philosophies, movements and agendas. The great genocides of Nazi Germany were less founded on devotion to Holy Scripture as much as a warped and contorted twisting of eugenics, social Darwinism, Nationalism, the occult, and strange takes on Germanic mythology.

Despite this, thanks to our good friends in the national media, the entertainment industries, and our esteemed institutions of higher learning, most post-moderns have been raised to fear religion and see race as the only viable evil in the world, especially as it was manifested in Nazi Germany's attempts to exterminate the Jewish people.

What folks don't realize is that, in reality, there was little truly original in Germany's twisted theories. Sure, the whole 'Jews as subhuman and Aryan Master Race' twist was somewhat unique. But the idea that humans, being nothing other than evolved animals that should therefore be bred into a thoroughbred race by eliminating the weak, crippled, retarded, unwanted, poor, and racially impure was hardly the brainchild of Himmler. That was as common in the early 20th century academia and intelligentsia as tweeting is today.

And, of course, we saw the results. Or at least we should have. But we haven't. Instead, we've bought a strange brew of streamlined stories, packaged by Hollywood simplicity, that tells us racism is the only sin, the Nazis were evil because they killed 6 million Jews, it's all because of religious extremism, and everything else is open to interpretation or just not that important.

Because of this, we find ourselves starting to drift ever more quickly toward the same contempt for human life that was enjoyed by Europeans at the end of the 19th century. Unlike our forefathers across the pond, however, this is not contempt for human life based on national identity or race. It is not 'Europeans are at the top of the evolutionary ladder and everyone else deserves to be subjected to our awesomeness.' No, this is more along the lines of 'there are just enough of the people I think are worthwhile, and too much of everyone else'. This contempt for human life knows no race, nationality, or creed. Though religion is still as stupid and evil as always. It is contempt for humanity that crosses all borders.

So take, for instance, this abstract in the Medical Ethics Journal, proposing we shake off these silly puritan notions of 'made in the image of God' rubbish and ask if we can just start aborting babies after they're born. As the abstract makes clear:

Abortion is largely accepted even for reasons that do not have anything to do with the fetus' health. By showing that (1) both fetuses and newborns do not have the same moral status as actual persons, (2) the fact that both are potential persons is morally irrelevant and (3) adoption is not always in the best interest of actual people, the authors argue that what we call ‘after-birth abortion’ (killing a newborn) should be permissible in all the cases where abortion is, including cases where the newborn is not disabled.

Read the whole thing here. Be prepared to shudder. At least it's honest. Now we can sit back and see if our generation rises up and stops the carnage before it happens, or if the society obsessed with Angelina Jolie'sleg can lift its head from its Twitter Accounts long enough to even care.