Photo by Mila Zinkova (http://home.comcast.net/~milazinkova/Fogshadow.html)
If you’ve just received a traumatic brain injury or lost a leg during your tour, say, with the Army Rangers in Afghanistan’s Helmand province, you’ll be glad to know that the “real Americans” aren’t standing for your Bolshevik nonsense. Please leave your passport at the desk and have a seat. The Representative Martin Hardy Death Panel will be calling your name shortly, and by the way, America honors your sacrifice.
Just kidding! We’re America, we don’t believe in the wholesale slaughter of “the disabled,” do we? Of course not! Martin Hardy, a 91-year-old New Hampshire State Representative, just resigned. Phew! The freshman Republican representative gave his resignation to the Republican Speaker of the New Hampshire House, today. It becomes effective tomorrow.
Every Republican who ever shook Harty’s hand might find that right now would be a good time to start bowing and scraping to the friendly representative from the AARP (she’s the pissed-off looking one in the wheelchair).
Here’s what Hardy said, according to a March 11 article by Shira Schoenberg at the Concord Monitor. Hardy started the comments to Sharon Omand, who manages a community mental health program, during a phone conversation, and then confirmed some of them to Schoenberg later.
Barrington Republican Martin Harty told Sharon Omand, a Strafford resident who manages a community mental health program, that “the world is too populated” and there are “too many defective people,” according to an e-mail account of the conversation by Omand. Asked what he meant, she said Harty clarified, “You know the mentally ill, the retarded, people with physical disabilities and drug addictions – the defective people society would be better off without.”
Harty confirmed to the Monitor that he made the comments to Omand. Harty told the Monitor the world population has increased dramatically, and “it’s a very dangerous situation if it doubles again.” Asked about people who are mentally ill, he asked, apparently referring to a lack of financial resources, “Can we afford to bring them through?”
Harty said nature has a way of “getting rid of stupid people,” and “now we’re saving everyone who gets born.”
…Omand says Harty then stated, “I wish we had a Siberia so we could ship them all off to freeze to death and die and clean up the population.”
Omand said Harty appeared to be serious. After Omand responded that his idea sounded like what Adolf Hitler did in World War II, Omand said Harty responded, “Hitler did something right, and I agree with (it).”
Harty told the Monitor he was “just kidding” about Siberia. He denied making the comment about Hitler and said it was Omand who brought up Hitler.
Harty, a retired peddler and market vendor, served as a quarter master in Gen. George Patton’s Army in North Africa and Italy during World War II. Colleagues say he is hard of hearing and has appeared confused in recent House sessions.
“He’s shown signs of great confusion in committee in terms of House process and content,” said Rep. Marilinda Garcia, a Salem Republican who serves with Harty on the House Legislative Administration Committee.
[Link.]
The New York Times quoted Harty’s eloquent defense, which is that he apparently never mentioned Hitler when he suggested that the disabled could be shipped to Siberia:
“It was a girl that wanted money for the crazy people, the people … a good percentage of the homeless people are mentally disturbed. I said maybe they can rent a spot in Siberia off of Russia. She called me an Adolf Hitler and hung up on me. I never mentioned Hitler.”
[Link.]
Oh. He never mentioned Hitler? That changes everything, I guess.