I reduced the debt to 60% of GDP in 2018, and kept it at a sustainable level through 2030!

Well, not really... But I did manage to accomplish this task in a Budget Simulator created by the non-partisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. This was a very informative exercise. It allowed me to look at various proposals and see what kind of effect they would have on the projected debt through 2018. As you look through the budget, finding spending to cut and revenue to raise, you get a good sense over what will really help get us out of this debt crisis and what turns out to just be easy campaign one-liners. I would highly encourage everyone to participate in this exercise.

Anyway, when you are done, you get a nice pdf of your results. Below is the printout of my original plan that got the Debt to sustainable levels by 2018:

I may comment on my choices later.

Update 8/18/2011: I have removed my "Conservative Challenge:"

For instance, I even attempted once to follow the Grover Norquist/GOP style plan of all spending cuts and no revenue raisers. Even with draconian spending cuts and extension of the Bush tax cuts, I was still short of my goal by $2.5 trillion! Seeing as how you start off only needing an additional $2 trillion in deficit reduction, I was in a worse position than when I started (since the Bush tax cuts are already assumed to expire in 2012). Because of this, I challenge any conservative out there to successfully come up with a plan that accomplishes the main goal of this simulator, to get down to sustainable levels by 2018!

The reason I removed this is because Conservatives could easily retort by claiming they could cut funding for a whole wide range of programs. The problem with this is that this simulator only deals with plans that have a remote chance of political feasibility. They also deal with plans that aren't likely to crash the US economy. Often politicians love to just come up with bare numbers. Although you obviously can find that much in savings, the programs that would be cut either have little effect on the budget or would likely have adverse economic consequences. 

For instance, Cutting off the FDA and Medicaid could have drastic effects on a nation's health, which would almost certainly have a severe negative impact on GDP and employment. It is also not certain corporations would actually use the money they save from deregulation to decrease prices, higher more, or just save up the extra revenue. The cutoff from government spending would almost certainly have a drastic effect on consumer demand since millions would likely either lose their source of income (entitlement/subsidy/etc) but also their jobs. This is one possible outcome and generally unacceptable to the overwhelming majority of Americans.



Of course one could argue that taking the government out of the equation could add an entirely new industry for private entrepreneurs to expand, but it's not clear they would be willing to do it given an already unstable climate where consumer demand has likely plummeted. We see this now as many companies are making record profits but not transferring those profits into jobs. Either way, the outcome is uncertain (how will it effect revenues?).

Basically, it seems Conservatives will likely not take the challenge seriously. Many would rather continue to live in a fantasy-like state where drastic cutbacks to federal programs would actually help in this economy.  

My First Politifact Truth-O-Meter Criticism [Defending the Truth-O-Meter]

While I do support the hard work of fact checking sites such as FactCheck.org and Politifact.com, I do understand that the writers are human. As a result, they can and do make mistakes. As part of my "Defending the Truth-O-Meter" series of blog posts (defending non partisan fact checking sites against claims of Bias), I will occasionally post my own personal criticisms of various articles. This is to show that these sites do occasionally make mistakes, even if those mistakes have nothing to do with Bias.
Recently, Politifact posted an article checking a claim from President Obama about the potential effects of a failure to raise the debt ceiling by August 2nd, 2011. I took issue with their rating and wrote them an email:

Politifact,

I am a long time fan and promoter of fact checking sites like Politifact. However, I am not sure you gave a fair rating to Barrack Obama when he said “I cannot guarantee that those [social security] checks go out on August 3rd if we haven't resolved this issue, because there may simply not be the money in the coffers to do it.” You interpreted his statement as saying “Social Security and other federal checks may not go out on Aug. 3 if the debt ceiling is not increased.” You gave him a “half true.” Now based on your interpretation of his statement, it looks as if your rating for this statement was a bit unfair.
For one, you correctly interpreted him as saying these checks MAY not go out. As you say at the end “While it's not a certainty that the Obama administration COULD prioritize cutting checks to seniors, there's a REASONABLE shot that the administration could do it.” I interpret this as you saying it’s probable, but not certain. If Obama had said “There is a small chance that those [social security] checks may not go out in August,” the statement would have warranted a “True.” “May” is not the same as “a small possibility,” but it’s hard to see how this difference is large enough to warrant a “Half True.” This should warrant a “Mostly True.”
Secondly, you checked whether they would go out in August. Obama specifically said August 3rd. A recent NPR article pointed out that the government is supposed to collect $12 Billion in taxes on August 2nd. However, former undersecretary of the Treasury Jay Powell noted that “$23 billion in Social Security payments are supposed to go out on Aug. 3. And there's a really good chance we don't have the cash to pay that." It may be probable these checks will go out sometime in August, but it sounds highly improbable they CAN go out on August 3rd. Seeing as how many of these people may risk late bill payments, this is no trivial matter.
Overall given the fact that Obama did NOT say it was certain Social Security checks would go out in August, he deserves a bit more credit than a “Half True” gives him. Given that he also specified “August 3rd” and not “August in general,” I believe the rating for this article should be upgraded to at least “Mostly True.”

Once again, thank you for the good work. You are a needed voice of reason among misleading political rhetoric.

Sincerely,

Eric

I will post updates as they come.

The Wall Street Journal's Dangerously Misleading Article Over The Debt Ceiling

The Wall Street Journal just released a pretty ridiculous "opinion" article attempting to spin the debt ceiling crisis to favor the right. This is understandable. However, the article would appear to an outsider to be the legitimate educated opinion of this world renown publication. The article, entitled "Debt-Limit Harakiri," has no name attached to it. I'm not sure why that is. However, the word "we" was used, so it sounds as if it is referring to the publication itself. Any help on this would be welcome. However, to someone who does not read their articles regularly, this piece can reasonably be interpreted to reflect the views of the Wall Street Journal itself. And therein lies the problem. This article is filled with nonsense, completely misrepresenting the debate, and ignoring the real harm that can come from a failure to increase the debt ceiling. Although this article focused on Senator McConnell's political game, it made a couple very misleading and often false claims:

Yesterday [Obama] played the Grandma Card, telling CBS that seniors may not get their August retirement checks. Next he'll send home the food inspectors and stop paying the troops.

This is a very real possibility. The government would only get about $12 Billion in taxes on August 2nd and Owe $23 Billion in social security checks the next day! And that doesn't include "Medicare and Medicaid, defense contractors, and federal workers... Within 24 hours, the government would be $20 billion behind" (see link under "real"). Such an important point need hardly be "The Grandma Card."

The reality is that Mr. Obama is trying to present Republicans with a Hobson's choice: Either repudiate their campaign pledge by raising taxes, or take the blame for any economic turmoil and government shutdown as the U.S. nears a debt default.

The "campaign pledge" is to "not compromise." Seeing as how compromise is expected, necessary, and reasonable, it is therefore expected, necessary, and reasonable for Republicans to break this utterly ridiculous campaign pledge. Republicans currently have the deal of a lifetime: a 3-to-1 rate of spending cuts to tax increases! How much more can they expect the other side to compromise if they are themselves unwilling to do so as well!? Even conservative commentators and politicians have criticized Republicans for not taking this deal!

The debt ceiling is going to be increased one way or another, and the only question has been what if anything Republicans could get in return

What more do they want?! They have a damn 3-to-1 deal of spending cuts to tax increases.

We agree with those who say that Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner can cut other federal spending before he allows a technical default on U.S. debt.

Who is saying this?! As far as I can tell, it's just DeMint and Bachmann. This would mean the US would have to pay interest first. In a conversation with FactCheck.org,  Rudolph Penner,  a Republican former CBO director who is now with the liberal-leaning Urban Institute, said "The notion of paying interest first is dumb. Substantively, the revenues left over would not be sufficient to honor all our obligations and we would have to choose between paying beneficiaries of Social Security, Medicare and other entitlement programs, devastating discretionary spending for defense, highways, public safety and other vital programs, or not paying bills for goods and services already delivered to the government."
As FactCheck pointed out, the government would pretty much have to "instantly" cut spending by 34%! If they left Medicare and Social Security alone, that would mean a 53% "instant" cut from the rest of discretionary spending! That's "the active military, military pensions, veterans benefits, judges, prosecutors, highway construction, food stamps, Medicaid services for low- and middle-income workers..."

Of course, the WSJ article does mention this... However they ignore just how extreme these cuts would be. Here is how they put it:

"Instead [Obama] and Mr. Geithner will gradually shut down government services, the more painful the better."

I highlighted the word "gradually" to show just how little they take this seriously. 34-53% reductions cannot reasonably be done gradually! Remember what I pointed out before. What are they going to do about those social security checks they cannot afford? Borrow...oh wait NO! 2 Days is not "gradual" by any reasonable stretch.

One of the last lines really caught my attention:

The Obama Democrats have staged a spending blowout to 24% of GDP and rising, and now they want to find a way to finance it to make it permanent.

There are a couple things wrong with this (reference: budget tables: Dollars, %GDP):
1. He seems to blame this all on "Obama Democrats." However, the 1.4 Trillion dollar deficit from FY 2009, which came as a result of record 3.5 Trillion dollar spending, was largely set in place during the Bush administration 4 months before Obama even took office. This was 25% of GDP, the largest since World War II! It did actually go down to 23.8% of GDP in 2010. As a result, its incredibly misleading to blame it all on "Obama Democrats."
2. They said this was rising, but this is mostly false. It is only projected to rise in 2011 (25.3%). After that, it is projected to decrease every year til 2015 (22.3%), only to rise slightly in 2016 by .3%. So it is exceedingly misleading to say it is "rising."
3. Seeing as how Democrats are agreeing to 3 Trillion dollars in spending cuts over the next decade, it seems hard to believe they want to make spending as a percentage of GDP 24% forever.


Besides the right-wing spin in the article (it is to be expected from an opinion), the ridiculous falsehood/misleading-nature of the "facts" from this article make me seriously question the Wall Street Journal. The dangers associated with misleading the public into being complacent about the debt ceiling are serious! This kind of amateur analysis should not appear to come from the WSJ itself. And if it truly does, Gawd help anyone who relies on that publication!

NewsBusters FAIL (Defending the Truth-o-Meter)

I have finally decided to start a series of blog posts responding to various accusations of bias on non-partisan fact checking sites such as FactCheck.org and PolitiFact.com. Because PolitiFact is my favorite of these and most of my posts will deal with them, I will call this series "Defending the Truth-O-Meter." I have already started a post, pointing out various articles which show just how asinine such an accusation really is. I should be done with that post soon. However, I thought I would give a preview of this series with my first post dealing with a NewsBusters.org article called "Bias of Politifact". This article was written by a member of the site known as "GaiusBaltar" (Great show). He thinks he found evidence of bias in a January 24th, 2010 article entitled  "Armey says Tea Party is more popular than Democrats, Republicans" (Note that quotes within this post come from either the PolitiFact article or the NewsBusters article). PolitiFact rated Armey's statement as "False" on their Truth-O-Meter. Of course GaiusBaltar disagrees.

GaiusBaltar -
I think everyone here knwos how biased PolitiFact has become. I just found this the other day while trying to find some balance in their reporting (there isn't any unfortuantely.).

Really?! Just take a look at PolitiFact any given day and you'll find a bunch of debunked claims from liberals. The article I am currently working on will show some key examples. I wonder where he was looking....

GaiusBaltar -
Take a look at this article: Armey says Tea Party is more popular than Democrats, Republicans
The author is: Catharine Richert.

One of the paragraphs:

"But some political analysts have questioned whether the [NBC/WSJ] poll exaggerated the Tea Party's favorable ratings because the group is not well known and because of the heavy coverage it gets from Fox News, a conservative news outlet. About 76 percent of those who see the Tea Party movement favorably also said they get their news from Fox, according to an analysis on MSNBC's First Read."

PolitiFact has gone and labeled FoxNews as a "conservative" news outlet. But has no problem listing MSNBC with the opposite "liberal" news outlet.

Notice how he never even comments on whether PolitiFact has ever called Fox a "Conservative News Outlet" before. In fact a simple google search shows many cases where Fox News is mentioned and not referred to this way. So why has Politifact not labeled MSNBC this way before? I dunno... Probably for the SAME REASON they haven't labeled FOX news in that way before; because there has been no context in which that fact is appropriate. It is appropriate in this context because it related to the poll cited by Armey.  It sounds like GaiusBaltar doesn't research his own claims. It's okay Gaius, I'll do it for you!
Note: Recently, Politifact has called MSNBC a "liberal counterpoint to Fox."

GaiusBaltar -
Futhermore, the straw argument the author uses in her reporting is not against Dick Armey, but the poll itself. While two polls (WSJ-NBC and Rasmussen) confirm Armey's statement, the author argues that because the Tea Party gets coverage from Fox, that the polls cannot be credible because Fox bumps up their numbers

First off, The Rasmussen Poll CONTRADICTS Armey's statement! Second, I'm not sure what "Straw Argument" she is making... In fact, it seems as though he has made a straw man argument of his own. PolitiFact did not reject the NBC/WSJ poll just because of the FOX news factor, they rejected the poll because of a few caveats that contradict Armey's statement. As PolitiFact mentions, "Jay Campbell, vice president for Hart McInturff, the firm that conducted the [NBC-Wall Street Journal] poll... told [PolitiFact] Armey's comments were not an accurate representation of the poll's findings." Even a polling expert at the conservative American Enterprise Institute agreed that Armey's interpretation of the poll was questionable. She mentioned, "only 7 percent of respondents [to that poll] know a great deal about the Tea Party and 22 percent know a fair amount." At the very least, the poll does not sound very reliable. 

GaiusBaltar -
And now look at how the article closes. She wants to make sure that Democrats stand in some good light, so she throws something in there to help her own party out:

"So Armey is drastically overstating the group's standing. Yes, the Tea Party is viewed favorably by people who know about the group (particularly those who get their news from Fox), but the pollsters who conducted the survey say it's not accurate to say that the party is more popular than Democrats or Republicans. Also, other polls contradict Armey's statement and indicate that Democrats are more popular than Tea Party candidates. So we find Armey's claim to be False."

Where are these other polls? She had no problem calling people up to check the data, but can't link to polls that she talks about in her article.

Since he is quoting the last paragraph of this article, is it safe to assume he read, you know, the PARAGRAPH RIGHT BEFORE IT...

Politifact -
A December 2009 Rasmussen poll also contradicts Armey's statement. It found that in a three-way generic ballot, Democrats attracted 36% of the vote. The Tea Party candidate picked up 23%, and Republicans finished third with 18% of the vote. Another 22% are undecided. And a Fox News poll released Jan. 21, 2010, demonstrated that President Barack Obama would beat a potential Tea Party candidate in a White House run.
(emphasis added)

Sounds like he missed this paragraph... I'm not quite sure why. You would think that someone going through the effort to write a criticism to an article would have at least READ THE WHOLE ARTICLE. And notice the article lists the links to these polls. It takes talent to pack so many painfully obvious falsehoods into two sentences.

GaiusBaltar -
Any why would this be false. Armey's says something that the polls prove. WHat's more absurd is that the author even links to those two polls on the right hand column. So even with the staw argument, and by Politifact's past rulings like this, shouldn't this be considered "Half True."

...because the one poll that agreed with them was questionable due to to how the poll was worded (with a highly favorable description of the TEA Party), as well as the fact that the respondents knew so little of the TEA Party outside the description in that same poll. Even the people who conducted the poll do not think it actually supports Armey's claim! Due to the many problems with the poll, it does not suffice as acceptable evidence. In addition to that, other polls mentioned in the article contradict Armey's claim (each without  questionable wording). So with no good evidence to support the claim, but instead evidence against the claim, an honest objective observer SHOULD consider the claim "false.".
Note: PolitiFact could have given it a "Half True" because at least one of the polls that said Democrats were more popular than members of the Tea Part Movement also put the Tea Party above Republicans, making that part of his statement "True" or "Mostly True." As a single statement, it is "False." However, it could be broken up and given "Half True". Of course that would look worse for Republicans. PolitiFact ignoring that part of the statement could only hint at conservative bias, which is also equally absurd.

So it seems that this entire article could have easily been avoided if GaiusBaltar had taken a second to ACTUALLY read the article in which he criticizes. I do admit this article was pretty easy to debunk... I will be looking around for a challenge, if one exists. These fact-checking sites are human and may be prone to a mistake here and there. So I expect there should be some good articles criticizing Politifact. However, I find that an honest mistake is often misdiagnosed as bias. These fact checking sites make these mistakes on both sides of the political spectrum. I just thought it would be good to start off easy, especially since this article was near the top of a google search of "politifact bias." I'll probably tackle a few articles from the blog, "PolitiFact Bias," as well as a few more in my google searches. Please comment on this article and give me any pointers you can think of.
Anyway, I won't touch the last paragraph of this article because it should sound ridiculous knowing all the blunders he made in this article. So I leave you with the final piece of this gem:

I hope Newsbusters takes a stance against this biased machien PolitiFact and call them out for the leftists that they are. Too many news organizations are using PolitiFact as a "objective" "nonpartisian" source--when truly, we know its now. This must be pursued so that PolitiFact is known as a "liberal" "fact"-check machine---similar to what MediaMatters has become.

Update 9/1/11: I have made a few minor changes to this post, mainly in how it was worded.

An Atheist response to Theist quetions about moral authority.

Some fellow atheist/materialists (atheists from this point on for brevity) out there may be familiar with a few popular theist questions dealing with morality. The questions usually go something like this?

Question #1:
If you don't believe in God (and thus a universal right and wrong), what basis do you feel entitles you to say someone else is "wrong?"
Question #2:.
How do you convince someone else to follow your morals if they are based on your impression of right and wrong and therefore hold no more authority than those of anyone else?

Now I'm sure many theists are also familiar with this question. The usual popular follow-up to the question is talking about the Holocaust or Apartheid. Basically, they wonder how an Atheist can condone these horrendous acts violence when he/she (he from this point on for brevity) has no God-backed authority to say his morals are any more "good" than those of the Nazis or South Africa.
First thing to notice is that this is basically a loaded question. The theist has the dichotomy stuck in his/her (his from this point on for brevity) head that either there is a universal authority for moral law, or else morals are completely relative. Now to be fair, I have seen many atheists brush this off a little too easily. There is an underlying point. At some level, there is a sort of relative nature about morals, even if there may be wide societal agreement over what is right and wrong. Various people have made arguments for compelling reasons to accept a materialist secular base of morality, for example John Loftus, Richard Carrier, Paul Kurtz, etc... . However, any question of morals is always going to be a difficult one. The question over right and wrong truly is a "million-dollar question." There has always been widespread disagreement over what is right and wrong, so an atheist is going to end up in a painful debate where he is constantly on the defensive if he is forced to answer this question. So personally, a better response is to turn this around and ask the theist what their response is to the problem of defining right and wrong. As I plan to demonstrate, this will put the theist on the defensive and they may find their response poses even more questions than it answered.

Interpretation of the theist response to Question #1:
Now the theist is likely going to say that either their morals come from God (Divine Command Theory) or that God is the enforcer of a natural good and evil (Natural Law Theory). Either way, both answers basically state their God as their authority for good and evil ("God-Derived-Morality"). So basically, any "God-Derived-Morality" theist can say that they are entitled to condemn the actions of the Nazis as bad because their morals are based on an authority that supersedes any human set of morals. It follows that their morals also supersede any of society's laws. So as a result, there is no reason to have any reasonable base for their morals, except that they are an obedience to their God. It may be clear where I'm going with this. The God authority for morals solves one problem (a little too simply), but also poses yet another problem. Basically, it is safe to say that most theists believe that the morals they hold in high regard are nearly identical to those held by their God. Add to this the fact that there are multiple religions around the world, comprising hundreds of denominations, each with a slightly different idea of what their God commands as right and wrong. As a result, their are many different ideas of what exactly is right and wrong, each idea supposedly held by the ultimate authority in the universe (according to the "God-Derived-Morality" theist). So as a result, morals are not only relative, but each person believes their morals, no matter how gruesome, are the ultimate morals of the universe, and thus supersede any law, person, or society. So even if a "God-Derived-Morality" Islamic extremist believes it is good to kill any person who draws a picture of Muhammad, he believes his morals still supersede any law, person, or society. If a "God-Derived-Morality" Pro-Lifer believes it is moral to kill an abortion doctor, he believes his morals still supersede any law, person, or society. If a "God-Derived-Morality" Ugandan Christian Fundamentalist believes that a person should be imprisoned or even killed for homosexual acts, he believes his morals still supersede any law, person, or society. If a "God-Derived-Morality" Nazi believes he should kill a Jew because he is obligated to as a Christian, he believes his morals supersede any law, person, or society. So it seems as though, if the "God-Derived-Morality" theist were to condemn these people, they may be slightly hypocritical because these people are doing just as they do, using their own interpretation of any one of the multiple Gods in existence as their ultimate moral authority. So the theist should be at least worried about setting such a dangerous precedent.

Interpretation of the theist response to Question #2:
As mentioned before, there are hundreds of denominations of Christianity alone, each with a slightly different interpretation of the Christian God and the Bible. So if you are trying to convince someone who holds to a different view of this authority than you, you may run into a snag. Imagine a member of the United Church of Christ trying to convince a Ugandan Christian Fundamentalist not to kill homosexuals. And an even worse situation is when a theist is trying to convince someone who believes in a different God than him. He has absolutely no leg to stand on! And since he has abandoned all reliance on a reasonable defense of his morals, and thus a reasonable way to demonstrate the efficacy of his morals, he is hopeless.

Now my point is that the issue of a standard for morality, what is right and what is wrong, has been a long standing issue that has plagued philosophers for ages. It is one of the "million dollar questions" of humanity. And yet the theist seeks to answer this question with a cheap two-cent solution that actually poses more problems than it solves. It should be obvious the theist's answer does not work. How many gruesome acts have been done under the supposed authority of the ultimate power? The Crusades, The Spanish Inquisition, 9/11, slavery, etc... It just seems dangerous for someone to think they have access to the ultimate moral authority in the universe. And this moral authority supersedes the authority of ANYTHING ELSE! This is worrisome to say the least...

A few ways to tell if your climate change denier doesnt have a clue what he/she is talking about

Climate change is an incredibly complex issue. It is no wonder why so many people seem to have no clue what to make of all the conflicting statements. In general, if you are familiar with the scientific/peer-review process and you put just a little bit of time into the research, it should be pretty obvious that the global warming deniers are just another highly organized/well funded anti-science movement with the goal of confusing and misinforming the public. However, with all the "scientific" sounding arguments that deniers use, it can get overwhelming to determine if the individual is trying to "talk over your head."

But there are a few ways to tell if your climate change denier doesn't have a clue what he/she is talking about:

1: They bring up the 31K "scientists" that deny AGW. They are uncritically accepting the scam known as the Global Warming Petition Project (uncritical acceptance of claims).

2: They bring up the argument that we haven's surpassed the 1998 temp. Not only is it highly unlikely they've actually looked at the NASA GISS Surface Temp Analysis. It also shows they have a general lack of knowledge about El Nino/La Nina cycle and 5 year mean (cherry picking). This argument has also been addressed and dismissed by the more academic climate change denialists. They have predicted that it will blow up in the denialists' faces.

3: They say that, because CO2 makes up such a small part of the atmosphere, it must not be that important. This should seem illogical right off the bat without even basic knowledge of climate science. Imagine if you made this very same argument to a police officer who pulls you over with a 0.1% BAC. The argument means nothing out of context. The small amount of CO2 in our atmosphere means the difference between the world we live in and a frozen planet.

4: They devolve the argument into politics. The argument is about SCIENCE, not politics. (red herring) They also frequently bring up Al Gore, a politician not a climate scientist. Although Al Gore is credited with helping to bring the Global Warming issue to the public sphere, his statements are frequently exaggerated or outdated.

5: They claim that climate scientists are creating a scientific conspiracy to get grant money (This one is a gem used by nearly EVERY promoter of pseudoscience! It is illogical (without sufficient evidence) as you could say that doctors are purposely making us sick, etc... It also ignores the fact that these researchers spent 8+ years in college, over $100k in tuition/fees/college expenses, and turned down $100k+ corporate/government jobs to pursue a meager $40k-$60k doing research at a university. Does this sound like the character of scammer? argument is baseless). One of the popular modern pieces of "evidence" is the "Climategate" collection of stolen emails. I Love this one because it shows just how easy it is for the right wing side of the media to exploit scientifically ignorant uncritical Americans who don't even want to ask what a "trick" is or what "decline" the scientists are actually "hiding".

Now there are a whole host of other arguments, many of them dead giveaways as well. But these are so horrendously illogical or just straight-up wrong that it is nearly impossible to conclude the denier really knows what he's talking about. Here are a few good sources of clear rebuttals to common denier arguments:

Skeptical Science
Peter Sinclair's Greenman Studios
RealClimate

Creationists should be careful when citing a link between Darwin and the Holocaust.

Here is Darwin’s connection to the Holocaust:

1: Darwin Introduced the theory of evolution by means of natural selection in 1859.

2: Herbert Spencer coined the idea of "survival of the fittest," 5 years later and tried to do exactly what Darwin wrote AGAINST, applied Natural Selection to his preexisting beliefs on sociology.
3: In 1883, a year after Darwin's death, Francis Galton (Darwin’s cousin) introduced the idea of Eugenics as a scientific analysis of selective breeding in humans, as opposed to Darwin’s focus on animals/plants.

4: Victorian Era upper class bigots combined and perverted Eugenics and Spencer’s theory to create the concept of Social Darwinism, which survived long after the scientific basis for Eugenics (eliminating disease) was dis-proven. Social Darwinism by this time had become more remnant of ARTIFICIAL selection, which had been around long before Darwin’s time.

5: This perversion known as “Social Darwinism” became a mechanism Hitler used to justify his preconceived notions about a “superior race.” Hitler never directly sources Darwin for any idea and actually condemns Darwin’s books to be burned.

Here is the [historical figure called] “Jesus’” link to the Holocaust:

1: Various Ancient Roman age writers wrote books about a figure known as Jesus, who may or may not have existed (whether or not he existed is not relevant as this is based on the historical figure). We call these books the New Testament.

2. Hitler claimed to be directly “influenced” by the bigotry against Jews in the New Testament and claimed his hatred of Jews was justified by the stories of the New Testament. However, just as with Social Darwinism, this influence was likely a way to justify his preexisting beliefs about a “superior race.” Although this is almost certainly a perversion of New Testament themes (arguable), it is a common theme throughout his personal writings and speeches.

So which link is stronger? A perversion of a perversion of a perversion of Darwin’s SCIENTIFIC (not normative) theories, or a perversion (maybe of a perversion) of the teachings of the figure “Jesus?”

So to creationists: “People who live in glass houses should not throw stones”