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The concepts of eugenics have some merit in theory, as long as you believe the individual should be subverted in the interests of society, but hey, as long as you are the right color have the right IQ, aren't too old, or infirm and don't have the wrong take on what's moral according to society-at-large, or are willing to be sacrificed at the altar of "Society", it's a great idea! It's too bad those darned National Socialists over in Germany mucked it up for everyone else, right?
Moralists trying to discredit it? Au contraire, it was the "moralists", of which Teddy was an outspoken leader who were among the greatest proponents of eugenics.
No, Good ol' Teddy wasn't being directly racist in that letter; his outspokenness in his belief in a "Hierarchy of the Races" takes care of that. As to Roosevelt supporting the forced sterilization of only "convicted degenerates", here's the full text of the letter. Nowhere do I see "convicted degenerates", but I do see moral and physical criteria he'd like to establish:
"My dear Mr. Davenport: I am greatly interested in the two memoirs you have sent me. They are very instructive, and, from the standpoint of our country, very ominous. You say that these people are not themselves responsible, that it is "society" that is responsible. I agree with you if you mean, as I suppose you do, that society has no business to permit degenerates to reproduce their kind. It is really extraordinary that our people refuse to apply to human beings such elementary knowledge as every successful farmer is obliged to apply to his own stock breeding. Any group of farmers who permitted their best stock not to breed, and let all the increase come from the worst stock, would be treated as fit inmates for an asylum. Yet we fail to understand that such conduct is rational compared to the conduct of a nation which permits unlimited breeding from the worst stocks, physically and morally, while it encourages or connives at the cold selfishness or the twisted sentimentality as a result of which the men and women ought to marry, and if married have large families, remain celebates or have no children or only one or two. Some day we will realize that the prime duty the inescapable duty of the good citizen of the right type is to leave his or her blood behind him in the world; and that we have no business to permit the perpetuation of citizens of the wrong type." - Theodore Roosevelt to Charles B. Davenport, January 3, 1913.
I'm surprised that you didn't mention that he wasn't using the term "degenerates", as is common today, to refer to those who are of the most heinous kind of criminals (rapists and child molesters, for example), but merely referring to those who are below a standard of physical, mental, or moral quality deemed high enough .
"I wish very much that the wrong people could be prevented entirely from breeding; and when the evil nature of these people is sufficiently flagrant, this should be done. Criminals should be sterilized and feebleminded persons forbidden to leave offspring behind them. The emphasis should be laid on getting desirable people to breed.” Theodore Roosevelt [bold added by me]
I would have never taken you, Micheal, for being an eugenics apologist, but then, people will go to great lengths to support what they have constructed.
_________________ "Dress cops up as soldiers, give them military equipment, train them in military tactics, tell them they’re fighting a ‘war,’ and the consequences are predictable." —Radley Balko 
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That's called dating, and usually doesn't involve state-sponsored forced sterilization, infanticide and murder.