Would that be Mary Robinson, who received a Presidential Medal of Freedom, or John Holdren, presidential science and technology advisor? On National Review’s The Corner, my friend Tevi Troy ably dissects Mary Robinson — “the Durban Queen, who was the driving force behind the infamous and anti-Semitic 2001 Durban Conference. At the Conference, which the U.S. properly boycotted, a supposed discussion of racism became a forum for all-out Israel bashing.” Yes, that’s pretty sinister. She’s getting some well justified criticism from Jewish groups, such as the Anti-Defamation League.

But I’d say for the honor of being the most sinister person so far to win approval from Obama’s vetting team, Robinson is beat out by Holdren, whom Michael Egnor writes about at Evolution News & Views. Robinson is no friend of Israel, but Holdren is on record as being sympathetic to the case for nothing less than “crimes against humanity,” verging on “genocide,” as Egnor rightly puts it. She’s also not a practical advisor on policy, which Holdren is. Sympathy for Palestinian terrorists, while inexcusable, arises partly from a political context. Holdren’s writings which seriously consider the case for forced abortions and mass sterilization? That’s something else again, not just anti-Semitism but totalitarian anti-humanism.
Egnor summarizes some points discussed in Holdren’s 1977 book, Ecoscience, co-authored with fellow anti-populationists Paul and Anne Erlich. The book was concerned with a supposedly calamitous impending overpopulation crisis. It ponders the following:

• People who “contribute to social deterioration” (i.e. undesirables) “can be required by law to exercise reproductive responsibility” — in other words, be compelled to have abortions or be sterilized.

• Women — particularly women of insufficient means due to poverty, nationality, marital status, or youth — could be forced to abort their children and undergo sterilization.

• Implementation of a system of “involuntary birth control,” in which girls at puberty would be implanted with an infertility device and only could have it removed temporarily if they received permission from the government to have a baby.

• Undesirable populations could be sterilized by infertility drugs intentionally put into public drinking water or in staple foods.

• Single mothers and teen mothers who managed to have their children despite measures to prevent fertility should have their babies seized from them and given away to others to raise.

• A transnational “Planetary Regime” and a transnational police force should be assembled to enforce population control.

So, yes, for the Presidential Medal of Scariness, my vote would be for Holdren over Robinson. Did I somehow miss the ADL’s press release on him?
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