He Said, She Said

And now for something completely different. It's a quiz. Take out your number two cursor. It will probably be longer than what I usually write, but you can blame that on all the people I quote – not on me. (If it makes you feel better you can blame me, but I discount all responsibility. It ain't my fault.)

Following are quotes on various subjects – some (perhaps most) of which (both the subjects and the views) you won't like. I'll omit the names of the speakers and writers until the end (in the form of end notes so you can evaluate the words themselves and decide if you agree with them or not. You can even try to guess their authors. Don't tell me how you did. I don't want to know.)

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Ethnicity:

U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel had “an absolute conflict” in presiding over the litigation given that he was “of Mexican heritage” and a member of a Latino lawyers’ association.ⁱ

Whether born from experience or inherent physiological or cultural differences our gender and national origins may and will make a difference in our judging.ⁱⁱ

The Deity and Religion:

In God We Trustⁱⁱⁱ

The whole thing is so patently infantile, so foreign to reality, that to anyone with a friendly attitude to humanity it is painful to think that the great majority of mortals will never be able to rise above this view of life.^iv

After coming into contact with a religious man I always feel I must wash my hands.^v

Politics:

[She] would not even be a viable person to even run for a city council position.^vi

Is this who you want to lead us in an emergency?^vii

Abortion:

I am dedicated to spreading the truth about preserving the dignity of all human life from natural conception to natural death.^viii

No woman shall have the legal right to bear a child, and no man shall have the right to become a father, without a permit for parenthood.^ix

Slavery:

The prime cause, then, of slavery is sin, which brings man under the dominion of his fellow -- that which does not happen save by the judgment of God, with whom is no unrighteousness, and who knows how to award fit punishments to every variety of offense.^x

My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it.^xi

Eugenics:

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 … Three generations of imbeciles are enough.^xii

Sparta must be regarded as the first Völkisch State. The exposure of the sick, weak, deformed children, in short, their destruction, was more decent and in truth a thousand times more humane than the wretched insanity of our day which preserves the most pathological subject, and indeed at any price, and yet takes the life of a hundred thousand healthy children in consequence of birth control or through abortions, in order subsequently to breed a race of degenerates burdened with illnesses.^xiii

[The author advocated] a stern and rigid policy of sterilization and segregation to that grade of population whose progeny is already tainted, or whose inheritance is such that objectionable traits may be transmitted to offspring.^xiv

The Jews:

[T]he Jews are so hardened that they listen to nothing; though overcome by testimonies they yield not an inch. It is a pernicious race.^xv

God cannot tolerate this mean people. The Jews have wandered from divine religion.^xvi

I fully agree with General Washington, that we must protect this young nation from an insidious influence and impenetration. The menace, gentlemen, is the Jews.^xvii

Jews have always controlled the business... The motion picture influence of the United States and Canada... is exclusively under the control, moral and financial, of the Jewish manipulators of the public mind.^xviii

Most of the Jewish interests in the country are behind war, and they control a huge part of our press and radio and most of our motion pictures.^xix

Due Process:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation.^xx

Law enforcement goes to a judge . . . it provides due process for the good people.^xxi

Due process and judicial process are not one and the same, particularly when it comes to national security.^xxii

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This is just a sampling. There's a lot more I could have included, but you get the point. I didn't present this to advocate any particular view, but to give you the opportunity to evaluate both your own ideas and those of others with whose history you may be familiar. What I'm citing may not properly characterize each individual's final opinion, but at one time he or she believed it. Their views often evolved, though some of the ideas quoted were actually representative of their thoughts. Some of our icons are as flawed as the rest of us, with biases that are so much a part of our heritage and culture. Perhaps some of their words surprised or disappointed you. We tend to see our heroes and our villains as one-dimensional, not recognizing the reality that they hold a wide variety or views – often contradictory – just as we do. And as we evaluate them we have to look at more than the ones for which they're known to us.

That's especially true now.

iWall Street Journal quoting Donald Trump – June 3, 2016

iiJudge Sonia Sotomayor – 2001

iiiOfficial motto of the United States of America

ivDr. Sigmund Freud

vFriedrich Nietzsche

viDonald Trump of Secretary Clinton – April 28, 2016

viiSecretary Clinton of Donald Trump – June 21, 2016

viiiNorma McCovey – Jane Roe of Roe v. Wade

ix“American Baby Code” advocated by Margaret Sanger

xSaint Augustine

xiPresident Abraham Lincoln in a letter to Horace Greeley, August 22, 1862

xiiJustice Oliver Wendell Holmes in Buck v. Bell, a 1927 Supreme court case upholding a Virginia law that authorized the state to surgically sterilize certain “mental defectives” without their consent.

xiiiAdolf Hitler

xivMargaret Sanger in Birth Control Review, April 1932

xvMartin Luther

xviMuhammad in the Koran

xviiBenjamin Franklin, 1787

xviiiHenry Ford in the Dearborn Independent, 1921

xixCharles Lindbergh, May 1, 1941

xxUnited States Constitution

xxiNRA Vice President Wayne LaPierre

xxiiAttorney General Eric Holder