CAPSULE COMMENTARY: “State Sterilizations”

“The reason that the State of Virginia has insurmountable ballot-access barriers that keep Libertarians from appearing on the ballot for statewide races became a little clearer last weekend. (Due to the high barriers, the Libertarian Party has historically been unable to field candidates for governor, lieutenant governor, and attorney general.) In its Sunday edition (March 19), the Washington Times carried a story entitled ‘Virginia’s Forced Eugenics Leave a Legacy of Hurt Lives.’ It seems that from 1924 through 1979 (yes, 1979), the State of Virginia, operating under both Democrats and Republicans, forcibly sterilized Virginia citizens. The victims were any person that Democrats and Republicans labeled as “feeble-minded,” and there was nothing a person could do to resist the forced sterilization. (In a Virginia case, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld Virginia’s wish to sterilize a woman named Carrie Buck, who had become pregnant after being raped by a relative of her foster parents. The state labeled her a ‘moral delinquent of the moron class.’) Virginia Democrats and Republicans might also be proud to know that during the Nuremberg war crimes trials, the Buck case was cited by attorneys representing accused Nazis as the precedent for the Nazi race purification programs. Yes, it’s becoming clearer why Democrats and Republicans in Virginia insist on maintaining their political monopoly over statewide races. In this way, they are able to keep their jointly sponsored, little nasties hushed-hushed from the people of Virginia. Heaven forbid that Virginians would have the opportunity to hear open condemnations of such despicably immoral conduct from Libertarian statewide candidates.”