President Obama accused the Republicans of being social Darwinists. What does that mean to you?

[Zalatix]

First I will establish where President Obama did this:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/apr/03/obama-accuses-republicans-social-darwinism-budget

The president painted the Republicans as serving the rich over the middle class by proposing "more than a trillion dollars in tax giveaways for people making more than $250,000 a year".

"That's an average of at least $150,000 for every millionaire in this country," he said. "It is a Trojan horse disguised as deficit reduction plans. It is really an attempt to impose a radical vision on our country. It is thinly veiled social Darwinism. It is antithetical to our entire history as a land of opportunity."

I believe I have fully communicated my interpretation of social Darwinism and its implications for society.

Logically and emotionally speaking, how does it come across to you?

Do you think President Obama was exaggerating, or was he being careful and precise?

If he was exaggerating, what differentiates the GOP policy from true social Darwinism?

If he was being careful and precise, would you not take this as a major threat to the survival of a civilized society?

[azmaximillian]

1. Here is what I think

Darwin espoused a theory known as " Survival of the fittest". President Obama is merely presenting the case that Republicans believe the natural order is to allow the fittest (wealthy) to prosper, and control our government. The middle class and poor (weak) are not as "fit" in this context. Obama believes that tax dollars should be allocated to social programs to enhance education and health care for the socially and economically disadvantaged, to make them more "fit". The GOP wants to deprive them of this to perpetuate, what they see as, their "superiority".

[aikoaiko]

5. In defense of Darwin, he did not use the phrase "survival of the fittest".

Just an FYI.

[jwirr]

11. You are correct. The phrase has something in common with the idea of eugenics as discribed in

"The War Against the Weak" by Edwin Black. And eugenics was based on some English philosophers - can't remember which ones.

[jwirr]

9. That is how I read it.

[hifiguy]

2. A Hobbesian war of all against all, in which the 1% have

virtually all of the firepower and are a tightly bound by common class interests. The rest of us are just there to be exploited, starved, or mowed down.

[malaise]

3. Well said

[pansypoo53219]

4. survival of the rich. the rest, only the strong

survive.

[hlthe2b]

6. Survival of the richest?

[Swede]

7. You're on your own,kid.

[BOG PERSON]

8. social darwinism shouold have a different definition

like it ought to be about how societies reproduce + expand themselves differently in every epoch, or how the bourgeoisie and the proletariat are always shaping + tempering + developing each other, along with the intermediary classes. and so on and so on. but, no, it turns out social darwinism means something totally ahistorical and anti-darwinist.

[Greybnk48]

10. Dog eat dog, baby. n/t