A Dialogue about the Importance of Neutering... People

A Charleston councilman wants to start a "dialogue" about sterilizing bad parents. Larry Shirley made the following comments on Friday in response to a robbery perpetrated by a 14-year-old girl and a 12-year-old boy whose parents didn't know where they were at 9pm on a school night. (A 9-year-old was also involved but the police took him home to his parents and said he was too young to charge with a crime.)

"What we've got is a failure in society, whether it's in Mount Pleasant with yuppie parents or whether it's on the East Side with poor crackhead parents," Shirley said Friday. "We pick up stray animals and spay them. These mothers need to be spayed if they can't take care of theirs. ... Once they have a child and it's running the streets, to let them continue to have children is totally unacceptable." Deadbeat dads might ought to be sterilized as well, he said.

He added that he thinks social services only add to the problem, because they make parents afraid to whip their kids when they need it.

North Carolina Senator Robert Ford called him crazy.

Thanks Steven!