Billmon: Bill Bennett's Modest Proposal

It is better for all the world if, instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime, or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind.

Oliver Wendall Holmes
Buck v. Bell
1927

It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly native criminal class except Congress.

Mark Twain
Following the Equator
1897

When Bill Bennett mused on the potential crime-fighting efficacy of aborting all African-American babies last week, I wonder if he was aware that his little "Socratic" exercise was echoing one of the vilest episodes in American intellectual history: the eugenics movement of the early 20th century.