Month: July 2006

Remember that idea? Congress disposed of it back in 2002. But that didn’t stop the Bush administration from doing it anyway. I tend to think these programs are useful and, with oversight, defensible. Some may be legal, under exceptions to the law. But the Bush administration – again – seems to think oversight is a dirty word; and no sane person can trust them any more. Money quote:

USA TODAY discovered the continuing TIA programs through entries in a public database of government contracts and a search of academic papers mentioning those contracts.

And so King George just does what he wants. In the end, his contempt for the constitution may undermine the perfectly defensible anti-terror programs he has instituted.

President Clinton will campaign for the left’s pariah, Joe Lieberman, next Monday. Mike Crowley explains why it’s not so surprising.

Kantian nihilism? Cartoonist Chris Muir should stick to what he knows.

A reader writes:

You wrote:

"Human life is created and then experimented on to save other human lives."

Your language is deceptive. Sure, that human life was created, and then it was experimented on. But it was not created purely for purposes of experimentation.  This is a very important distinction. The end to which you allude – growing into an adult human – was never achieved. So it seems that it is then valid to seek another end: the alleviation of suffering of millions of future living, feeling, thinking humans who have the misfortune of being struck by disability or disease.  You admit that many of these pre-embryos will be discarded.  I think this is a point that most Americans do not understand; they believe what your above quote, intentionally or not, implies.  If they fully understood the details, I think public opinion would be even more strongly in favor of the use of these pre-embryos for research.

And don’t pretend this research will happen anyway.  The federal goverment is by far the major funder of basic science research. Anyone who knows anything about research knows this. Basic science (lab bench) research is too risky for the private sector.

There are hundreds of thousands of pre-embryos in storage, and many of them are unclaimed. What to do with these? Should we sacrifice benefit to mankind for some abstract, esoteric principle of protecting the rights of a clump of cells that never was and never will be sentient?

How to get rid of it – effectively.

Hot? Steamy? Sweat trickling down your back? Fantasize this:

"The founders of this nation designed our Constitution so that we would be guaranteed the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. We are engaged in a bitter battle here at home to defend those rights. And we will win that battle. But we must also recognize our responsibility to extend those rights to others. The right to live an open and honest life should not stop at the borders of the United States.

Many countries around the world need to be told that being gay is not a crime: Iran, yes, but also Poland and Russia, Nigeria, Cameroon, Saudi Arabia, Nepal, Afghanistan, Iraq. We have the right to speak up. We have the ability to organize. The questions are: Do we have the will? And do we care enough about our brothers and sisters abroad? These are questions only you can answer," – my friend, Rob Anderson, who organized the DC rally yesterday.

The photo above is from Warsaw, Poland, now run by a pathologically homophobic government. More on the DC vigil here; a round-up of other worldwide vigils here; a Washington Post piece here; and a report from Dublin here. Keep checking Petrelis’ blog for more updates. Notice also that this was done without any serious initiative from the well-financed gay groups. Their irrelevance to this movement is sometimes stunning. Oh, and one more eloquent pic from NYC:

I feel obliged to come to the president’s defense on his embryonic stem cell research veto. I find the absolutism of those who view a blastocyst as a human person to be morally unpersuasive, but I cannot see how it can be seen as anything other than human life. I know also that many of these superfluous blastocysts and embryos will be discarded anyway and so not using them for research does not protect them from extinction. Nevertheless, it is hard not to be troubled by the line this crosses. Human life is created and then experimented on to save other human lives. I think the argument for the benefits of such research is compelling; there’s little doubt that this avenue could be extremely fruitful. I live with one of the diseases, HIV, it might help cure or treat. For those reasons, I don’t believe such research should be banned – or even that individual states shouldn’t, if their citizens support it, directly finance such research from the public purse. I’m a federalist. But when a very significant number of Americans feel deeply that this really is morally unconscionable, and when the research is taking place anyway under other auspices, I see no reason why the feds should actively finance this research as well. I don’t think that Bush’s compromise is so unreasonable, in other words. This isn’t a ban on such research; it’s a decision not to throw the weight of federal financing behind it. I respect the case of those who favor it; but, when push comes to shove, I’m with Bush on this. It took political courage to take this stand. And the morality it reflects – a refusal to treat human life as a means rather than as an end – deserves respect even from its opponents.

Markos Moulitsas laments the low turnout of Democratic voters in races so far this year. He’s onto something. Most voters have now seen through the vacuity, corruption and arrogance of today’s GOP. But they haven’t seen much to give them confidence in the Democrats.

"The current squawking also strikes me as a useful reminder of how very, very important war is in the neoconservative vision. It is as central to that vision as peace is to the classical liberal vision … Who we’re fighting is secondary. That we’re fighting is the main thing. To be a neoconservative is to thrill to the sound of gunfire," – Gene Healy, on Cato’s blog.