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EUGENICS PARTY
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The Eugenics Party was a based on the theory commonly known as eugenics. Eugenics promotes what it sees as racial improvement by means of controlling bloodlines and lineage. Undesirable traits, according to eugenicists, can removed from a group's genetic pool by preventing people possessing those traits from having children. The Eugenics Party promoted compulsory sterilisation for people it deemed unfit, including those with mental or physical disabilities, those considered abnormally stupid or foolish, those who were lazy, and those with a record of criminal activity. The Eugenics Party had a considerably broader view of genetic inheritance than modern science allows, claiming that personality as well as physical appearance could be passed on from parents to children.

Despite a strong core of dedicated supporters, the Eugenics Party never found favour with mainstream voters. It persisted for a considerable length of time, but eventually cancelled its registration, becoming the Eugenics Association.


Colour and Emblem

The official colour of the Equality Party was cyan or teal. The party's official symbol consisted of three parallel lines, one of which was interrupted. This was intended to represent the continuation of "good" bloodlines and the elimination of "bad" ones.

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The party's official name in Lendian was "lo Partido Ugenico". It supporters were sometimes called "los sangualistos", or "the bloodliners" - this term dates back to the party's early advertising, which always featured the slogan "Protect Our Bloodline!".


Quote

"It is beyond all doubt that children take after their parents. It stands to reason, therefore, that if two people are valuable members of society, then their children will probably be the same. Equally, if two people are flawed, the odds of their child being of value to society are slim. It is only logical, therefore, for us to ensure that more children are born to good parents than to bad ones."


History of the Party

The Eugenics Party was one of the earlier parties to be established, having been founded in 222 AP. Many of its members had formerly been part of the Segregationist Party, now struggling despite the high hopes some once had of it. Because of the strong Segregationist presence in the Eugenics Party, many of its early policies focused just as much on keeping the Lendian bloodline racially pure as well as "free from defect" - according to many of the pseudo-scientific theories promoted by the early Eugenics Party, "defects" arose primarily as the result of "improper mixing of incompatible races" somewhere in a person's ancestry. The Eugenics Party campaigned on a platform of banning miscegenation (mixed-race marriages and childbirth) and cutting all state services to children "of poor parentage".

The Eugenics Party failed to win any seats, although did manage to capture a substantial portion of the Segregationist Party's vote. In the 240s, the party found itself overshadowed by the Fascist Party, which also had strong policies about race. In response, the Eugenics Party began to put a greater focus on its plans regarding compulsory sterilisation of "undesirables". As more and more of the party's members joined the Fascists, the party moved further away from policies of race. The Eugenics Party later claimed that all such elements were driven out at this point, although there is a certain amount of evidence that the attitudes persisted.

In the late 250s and early 260s, during which time the Fascist Party and various other radical organisations were banned, a number of extremists joined the Eugenics Party. While the extremists were not numerous, the Eugenics Party was small enough that they began to have a significant impact on party policy. Gradually, the relatively academic atmosphere of the early party was replaced by a mood of militant activism, with Eugenicists taking part in marches and protests to further their causes. The number of people involved was small, but the party gained attention for the aggression displayed by marchers. In 268 AP, three extremist members of the party became intoxicated and attacked a young wheelchair-bound woman, saying that she was a drain on society and "should be removed". The resulting public outcry caused the Imperial Council to impose an immediate ban on the Eugenics Party. The party protested that it could not be held responsible for the actions of each individual party member, and that the party in no way supported the attack, but the ban remained in place even after organisations like the Fascist Party were legalised again.

Despite the ban, however, the authorities did not make any strenuous attempts to shut the organisation down completely. A number of the party's more extremist members were arrested for inciting violence, and the party was unable to conduct any activities in public, but the senior figures of the party nevertheless continued to meet with only occasional problems. During the period of the party's ban, it lost the majority of its membership, including most of the radicals. Only a core group, made up of those with a strong  commitment to academic eugenics (rather than the un-intellectual militancy of the extremists), remained. Eventually, in 283 AP, the Eugenics Party was able to convince the authorities that it had purged itself of its violent element, and the ban was lifted.

While the Eugenics Party was once again free to contest elections, it performed no better than it had in the past. In 291 AP, having failed to win any seats in the Imperial Council, the Eugenics Party elected a charismatic new leader, Sanro Cento. Cento worked as a middle manager at Lanatira Technologia, a major coporation, but shortly after taking up his position as leader, he was dismissed. Cento angrily argued that LanTech had fired him for his political activity, which the company denied - instead, it claimed that Cento's performance had been unsatisfactory. The issue generated considerable publicity for the Eugenics Party, particularly when Cento initiated court proceedings against LanTech. At the height of the controversy, however, LanTech filed its own criminal complaint against Cento, accusing him of embezzlement. The day after the charge was made, Cento was detained while trying to leave the country with false documentation - he was eventually found guilty of appropriating over one million coronalos from LanTech accounts. When tracing the money, however, LanTech and the police determined that approximately half the funds had been transferred into the accounts of the Eugenics Party, marked for use in election campaigns. Further investigation showed that a number of other people in the party's leadership had been aware of the money's source, and that several had received money into their own personal accounts as well. Cento and many of the party's most senior figures were jailed, and the Eugenics Party - considered complicit in the theft - was banned again.

This time, however, the ban did not last so long. In 295 AP, it was relaxed somewhat, with the party being legalised but remaining barred from electoral activity. By this point, much of the concern with the party related more to distaste about its policies than anything else, and in 298 AP, it was finally decided that the party should be able to contest elections once again. To a large extent, however, the question was irrelevant - the party had never fully recovered from the loss of its leadership in the LanTech case, and by the time all restrictions were finally lifted, the party had almost completely died. Only a year later, it officially deregistered itself, with its few remaining members forming the new Eugenics Association. The Association still exists, and seeks to promote the policies of eugenics both to the public and to mainstream political parties.


List of Leaders

  • Carlo Ebintro (222 - 230)
  • Landrino Torilio (230 - 244)
  • Larenzo Margesto (244 - 250)
  • Miguel Verez (250 - 251)
  • Dosro Rodirio (251 - 253)
  • Tono Paltero (253 - 268)
  • [leadership disputed] (268 - 271)
  • Dosro Rodirio (271 - 280)
  • Randalo Cordamisto (280 - 291)
  • Sanro Cento (291)
  • [leadership disputed] (291 - 292)
  • Andreo Uscio (292 - 299)