Its not nice. Finland has not been such a nice place to different kind of people. Just take look to unsuccesful revolution of 1918 and its aftermath and you can surely see that human rights were not at levels they should be.

But you have to put it in perspective. Beginning of 20th century was not cavalcade of difference or human rights. For example in Sveden they used morons to test how sugar affects teeth. They fed low IQ people with candies and scientists observed how their teeth fell off.

Ofcourse most of the people want to think that things like this happened only in big world and after civil war we have nothing shameful in our history.

Not just Finland dude… Negative eugenics (to be more concrete: sterilization of people with mental subnormalities) was common practice in some US states in the first half of the 20th century.

It is sick and wrong

Sure, the 1920s was a different time, but this is what disturbs me: “These laws weren’t overturned until 1969″

On the other hand, my grandmother’s parents taught deaf people in their own school in the 1920′s-30′s, their household helpers where deaf, and the children were taught to treat the deaf just like other people. Sign language was definitely used – my grandmother learned it back then and could still use it in her 80s.

This was Finland.

Well, it was those damned commie left-wing liberal radicals of the 60′s, who brought these things up to the political discussion and eventually changed the legislation. There was a lot of this stuff around like capital punisment in the military penal code up to 1972 or homosexual acts in civilian penal code up to 1971.

Phil..despite Skinner v. Oklahoma in 1942, (sorry to burden you with actual US case law sterilizations of people in institutions and the mentally ill or retarded continued until the 1970s. ….dude..read…

“it was those damned commie left-wing liberal radicals of the 60’s, who brought these things up to the political discussion”

Yeah, I hate those too.

homosexual acts in civilian penal code up to 1971.

antti, I thought the laws on homosexuality in the penal code still exists, as quoted in the Rough Guide to Scandinavia.
Note there are laws on statute books like in the UK, MPs are not allowed to wear suits of armour in the House of Commons, giving a known prostitute an alcoholic drink in a bar, and technically, since the mid 17th century, Christmas is forbidden.

Phil seems to think that all governments are bad because US government sucks big time. Well, actually even Cuba is doing better:

“Last year a category five hurricane hit the impoverished nation of Cuba with 160 M.P.H. winds. Yet the Cubans, for all of their faults, were able to evacuate 1.5 million people to high ground. Despite losing over 20,000 homes to winds and floodwaters, the casualty rate in Cuba was negligible. In New Orleans, by contrast, we left the poor, elderly, infirmed and otherwise vulnerable behind to die….

Cuba, which was cited by the United Nations as providing a model for hurricane response, offered to deploy 1,100 doctors and 26 tons of medical supplies ? with the first 100 doctors arriving wherever they were needed within 24 hours, with the rest following within 72 hours. The feds, however, prevented Cuba, Russia, Venezuela and a host of other governments from mounting relief efforts which could have reached survivors well before American National Guard troops were deployed.”

From washingtonpost.com:

“European diplomats said publicly that they understand the difficulty of coordinating such a massive recovery effort. In an open letter released yesterday, though, Ambassador John Bruton, head of the Delegation of the European Commission to the United States, wrote:

“Perhaps one of those lessons will be that rugged individualism is not always enough in such a crisis, particularly if an individual does not have the material and psychological means to escape the fury of a hurricane in time.”

Ouch! John Wayne loses! That’s gonna hurt! Project for New American Century is not going well..

“Yet the Cubans, for all of their faults, were able to evacuate 1.5 million people to high ground.”

I guess there’s no such thing as volountary evacuation in Cuba. They don’t need to waste time negotiating and persuading people to leave.

Yeah, I hate the current German government for their country’s past horrors. One more reason to dislike them for something that they had no control over.

Philip, I suggest you read the Penal Code yourself and find the homosexuality in there. http://www.finlex.fi/fi/laki/kaannokset/1889/en18890039.pdf

there are a few gems though left;

Chapter 43 – Infringement of proper behaviour
Section 7
A person who entices a person under eighteen years of age into drinking an alcoholic beverage so that the latter gets drunk shall be sentenced to a fine.

Returning to the subject, I think this sterilization legislation was an example, what happens, if the doctors are given too much power in politics. They are children of their times too. Lobotomy was once a fashionable treatment for all kinds of mental conditions and the surgeon, who invented it, was awarded with the Nobel prize. Now it is next to quackery.

Sure, there is something very skandinavian or protestantish about this state messing over individual for what is considered to be the greater common good, but it was certainly not a welfare state project. At the time there was no welfare state.

Philip, I put the sun glasses on, lift the collars and checked from the SETA pages. They mentioned also, that the homosexual acts were removed from the penal code in 1971 and from the disease classification in the beginning of the 80′s. This strange ‘kehotuspykälä’ (don’t ask anyone to abandon his straight ways and become gay) though was around up to 1999.

There are some “funny” police reports in the national archives from the 40′s about undercover “pervert surveillance operations”, where the detectives were hanging out behind Ateneum in Helsinki. One characterization of a person they were observing was “This jew is a real pervert champion”

I hate all people because some people have most certainly done something bad in the past!

Yet the Cubans, for all of their faults, were able to evacuate 1.5 million people to high ground.

Heh, I wonder what happens to you in Cuba if you refuse to be evacuated.

Cuba, which was cited by the United Nations as providing a model for hurricane response, offered to deploy 1,100 doctors and 26 tons of medical supplies ?

Yeah and when Castro tells you to go to New Orleans to help out, do you really have a choice?

“Heh, I wonder what happens to you in Cuba if you refuse to be evacuated.”

Only difference is that Cubans will use force to evacute BEFORE the hurricane strikes instead of evacuating AFTER like in New Orleans. Yankees really fucked up this time.

Only difference is that Cubans will use force to evacute BEFORE the hurricane strikes instead of evacuating AFTER like in New Orleans.

Good point!

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