I find it amusing that people on your side of this debate are so unsure of yourselves that you are unwilling to have a rational debate of this issue, prefering to call the opposing viewpoint `superstition' and pretend that no rational human could disagree with you.
The fact is that plenty of perfectly intelligent, rational human beings disagree with you, and if you want to convince anyone, you should try a rational argument instead of name-calling.
Which is all very well, and I sympathize, but the question is not whether your son should have dna-synthesized insulin (no one objects to this), but whether that insulin should come from harvested embryos or from one of the other sources of stem cells.
It's worth pointing out that no one has ever successfully produced insulin (or anything else useful) from embryonic stem cells -- they just believe they might be able to, just as they used to believe that using umbilical cells held great promise before they decided that that wasn't enough and this was needed.
The insulin your son gets does not come from harvested embryos, and no one is objecting to it.
The difference is that unlike either of the other examples you give, if not killed the embryo will develop into a human. Every time -- not a dog, not a chicken, but a human. And that means you are preventing that specific human, not an abstraction if you kill it.
Seriously, though, who are you to say that the poster may not have other traits that we could all benefit from having passed on? Sure, we should look into curing his condition in him or in his children (and I don't think doing so requires the harvesting of human embryos -- see all the promising results in non-embryonic stem-cell research), but I really don't think we're in any position to push the type of social engineering experiment you are recommending.
Amusing how you throw in the words `far-right' as if that worked as a substitute for any actual argument on the policies in question. But don't worry, I don't credit Clinton for these policies.
Not to rain on your parade, I would recommend that people actually do follow the above link, so it's clear to everyone that Ms. Coulter was joking. I agree that the joke was in somewhat poor taste, but let's not create bogeymen here as a substitute for rational argument
Now, to try to get this thread back on a rational footing, let me ask: do you, then, believe that no one could possibly have a non-religious reason for opposing the harvesting of human embryos for research?
So, just out of curiosity, you don't see it as possible that anyone could have a rational, non-religious objection to the harvesting of embryos for medical research?
And while we're on the subject, is their any reason the many breakthroughs in non-embryonic stem cell research don't get as much coverage as projects like this one?
I think this was absurd that this was modded -1 for being `off topic' -- if we are discussing the fact that California employs a huge number of state employees, surely the fact that they have a large number of liberal social programs is directly on-topic.
Just another example of how conservative views tend to be modded down on/. . Sigh...
But Sri Lankans aren't flying planes into our buildings, however upset they may be, so perhaps that suggests that Bin Laden is motivated by something other than dissatisfaction with our foreign policy, right?
On the tapes, he says we must be destroyed because of who we are. I see no reason not to believe that that's what he means.
I'd certainly be interested to hear how you would respond to the attacks of September 11. Are you suggesting that we could have dismantled the infrastructure which made those attacks possible (and would make potentially far more deadly future attacks possible) without some risk of hitting civilians (a risk, I remind you, which we have done our utmost to minimize, unlike our enemies who did their utmost to maximize civilian casualties)?
So, to be clear, in your opinion we should be planning our foreign policy not based on what is right to do, but based on what will appease a madman such as Osama Bin Laden? Really?
The problem I have with the examples you post on the Tafero case is that the only source the ACLU cites for their data is the Thomas M. Cooley Law Review, a liberal law group which according to it's own web site specializes in finding racial explanations for various court cases -- and even so it seems that Jacobs was cleared based on a technicality of how the case was pursued.
Likewise, the Stanford study you post was pretty thoroughly picked apart at the time it was published.
Again, as monkeydo points out, if there were even one clear case of an innocent being put to death, we would be hearing no end of it from the anti-death-penalty crowd.
I read the two ACLU articles you quoted, and I must say that I'm shocked the ACLU is against the death penalty.
Indeed, the ACLU has long since become much less of a civil liberties organization than a liberal lobbying group. In particular, they are now mostly active defending `rights' such as affirmative action, expanded welfare, and other dubious social engineering programs.
I've found the Institute for Justice to be a sensible alternative which fills the role that the ACLU used to fill.
You would think so, but that would ignore the fact that since guns were completely banned in England, their rate of gun crime has gone up drastically -- see this article for more.
You should also keep in mind that the rate of violent crime in London is now substantially higher than, for example, New York.
More to the point, did anyone wonder how it can possibly require 265,000 people to run the state of California? According to the California Department of Finance's numbers, that's one state employee for every 124 Californians...
Prior to the invasion of Kuwait (when Saddam was a favored US dictator) the population had a relatively high standard of living for the region -- the problem with this argument is that while people are allegedly starving `because of sanctions', Saddam has money to a.) build dozens of new palaces, b.) pay $25,000 a piece to the families of palestinian murder-suicide bombers, and c.) rebuild his military and launch massive new weapons programs. You claim he doesn't have enough money to feed his people, but how can that be so given all these new expenditures?
I'm also amused that you complain that there are not more NGO's operating in the south when the reason for this is that those that were there were expelled by Mr. Hussein. You can't have your cake and eat it too.
Which international organizations promote peace?... Peace Now in Israel for instance. -- as far as I can tell, possibly because their only platform is Israeli surrender, Peace Now hasn't achieved peace (or liberty, or security) for anyone. Compare that to the improvement in living conditions for the people of Afghanistan in the last 8 months. And that, in the end is the point. You decry the building of weapons, as if liberty and peace were things which just magically come to exist if enough people (and international organizations) want them. This isn't the case -- they are things which must be fought for, and which must be guarded vigilantly.
Over more than two centuries the US has been the most vigilant guardian of these things going, and I am thrilled to see them gain new, more effective tools to extend this guardianship.
I'd like to respond to a few of the points you make here:
"...we might find largbe bombers with large loads are capable of attacking it just as effectively s a number of smaller tactical jets." That sounds like carpet bombing to me -- does it? Carpet bombing means dropping of large quantities of bombs indiscriminately over a large area without using guidance techniques to ensure that only military targets are aimed for. We have simply not done this at any point during the current campaign.
A B-52 would almost never be called upon to drop a single bomb within a 10-meter circle. If they are so accurate, then why did we invent cruise missiles? -- oh no, we would never invent two weapons capable of hitting the same target, would we? Please see the nando times article I linked in my previous post.
Is 600... civilian deaths in Afghanistan accetpable? (Qrlx apparently did not read the article very carefully, as he suggests the discredited number `5000' as a possible number of casualties) -- I certainly welcome your suggestion for how we could eliminate al Qaeda without causing any civilian casualties at all, but back here on earth we have done our utmost to avoid such casualties, while our enemies have done their utmost to maximize them. So again, your suggestion that there is some sort of equivalence here is absurd.
I was trying to make the point that it wasn't *just* an attack on a civilian population. It had deep symbolic significance. It was an attack on civilians, but also an attack on the perceived Excesses of the West. -- and again, you speak as if this made the attacks the equivalent of attacks on military targets of nations which have attacked us. Do you really believe this?
I'm saying that the "dual use" standard knowingly puts civilians at risk. -- but your definition of `dual use' is `considered by others to be a symbol of our culture'. Are you really suggsting that because a madman like Osama Bin Laden considered the WTC to be a symbol of America, we were `knowingly putting civilians at risk' by letting people work there? Really?
Maybe we would have finished the job in '91 if we actually cared about civilians -- I certainly agree that we should have, but to claim that civilians are suffering because of our actions and not because Mr. Hussein is funneling off relief money to pay for palaces and tanks is nonsense. Please see the article from The New Republic which I posted earlier in this thread.
We are a free nation which was brutally attacked by terrorists. So we don't have to concern ourselves with civilian casualties? -- no, as I've pointed out repeatedly, we are going to great lengths (and putting our men on the ground at grave risk) to avoid civilian casualties. To pretend that because some civilians are inadvertently hit means that we should not be fighting is nonsense unless you can propose some other way to adequately defend ourselves.
The problem with having the moral high ground is that your morals are unique to you and not really a basis for a rational foreign or military policy -- no, no they are not. That the attacks of September 11 were morally wrong is an objective fact, not a `point of view' which is open to debate, and about which all opinions are equally valid.
Morally, Osama bin Laden is just as entitled to his belief of Death to America as I am to my belief that he should rot in a collapsed cave -- no, he is not. To pretend that the belief that America should be destroyed is morally equivalent to a belief that it should not is nonsense.
None of that will ever convince us that the other is "right." -- the fact that this is true does not change the fact that one of us is right and the other isn't. If I couldn't convince you that two and two make four, they still would. But I notice that you put the word `right' in sneer quotes. Perhaps you believe that there is no such thing?
I submit that ANY TIME that civilians are killed it is a horrible thing. -- while true, that doesn't make it an equally horrible thing for us to hit civilians by accident while attempting not to do so as it is for them to intentionally kill as many civilians as possible.
But again, we have a larger disagreement here. You seem to believe that it is unacceptable for the US to defend itself. Can you justify this position?
Haven't read much about copy protection laws in the UK, have you? Or the EU, which recommends that member nations ban web caching as a form of copyright violation?
By the way, for more on how Saddam Hussein is diverting international aid to build palaces while his people starve, see this article from The New Republic (hardly a mainstream or conservative publication, by the way).
The problem with your argument is that the only reason that people are dying in Iraq, despite the huge amounts of money and aid being provided as part of the UN oil-for-food program is that Mr. Hussein is diverting the aid shipments to pay for palaces and tanks. (Note that that article is in The New Republic, which can hardly be described as a mainstream or conservative publication.)
And which international organizations promote peace anyway? The UN, which kept Pol Pot in power as part of its unwanted `peace' deal, looked the other way while it's peacekeepers sold food aid for sex in Africa and ran prostitution rings in Asia? What makes you think that international organizations have some sort of moral high ground?
I'd like to respond to some of your points, since plenty of what you're reporting is flat out wrong (and the mods should probably take note of that):
we have "carpet bombed" plenty in Afghanistan -- nonsense. Even the Taliban didn't bother to claim this one, as it's obviously untrue, so why do you? We dropped many bombs on troop positions in the field, but always in close coordination with ground forces in the area to ensure maximal accuracy. See, among many other references this article for more.
Carpet bombing is pretty much all a B-52 is good for -- your information is about two decades out of date. With modern GPS technology, a properly equipped B-52 can drop even a `dumb' bomb in a 10-meter diameter circle, based on coordinates radioed in from the ground realtime.
Second, U.S. troops are not particulary in harm's way. -- wow, I'm floored by this whole paragraph of yours. You're complaining that US troops are too well equipped, and you're upset that they don't put themselves in more danger? How odd.
What about the thousands [cursor.org] of civilian deaths in Afghanistan? -- these numbers have been discredited so many times, I'm getting tired of posting this link, but for one more time, see the section on civilian casualties at the end of this article for details.
Do you think that the attacks on the World Trade Center were designed to maximize civilian casualties -- yes, I do. But don't take my word on it -- Mr. Bin Laden says the same thing in his tapes.
I would argue that the World Trade Centers are a "dual use" target -- so it's clear for any readers who may not have realized the bankrupcy of your position -- are you really arguing that the September 11 attacks were acceptable?
Casualties from that one eclipse 9-11, though it might not seem in since they occur over a generation, not in a single day. -- care to provide a reference to that one? No, I suppose not, since you apparently stopped reading after that article. As is well known, the plants in question have been rebuilt as part of the oil-for-food program which the US signed on to. But it certainly is true that there are people starving in Iraq -- what you miss is that they starve because Mr. Hussein diverts the relief shipments he receives to pay for palace-building and other megalomaniacal schemes. See this article for more on Mr. Hussein.
My beef is people like you, who are ignorant about the fact that we have killed more of their civilians than they did on Sep. 11. -- ignorant of your half-baked conspiracy theories, sure. Again, please read the spectator.co.uk article above.
Rationalize it all you want, civilians die in wars. We don't have any claim to the moral high ground just because we lost 3,000 civilians last year. -- no, we have the moral high ground because we are a free nation which was brutally attacked by terrorists, and are fighting to defend ourselves. The moral ground doesn't get much higher than that.
I don't think you've done your homework very well. Yes, the US backed Iraq against Iran, but it is hardly the case that the US built up Mr. Hussein's army -- or have you forgotten that Mr. Hussein fought the gulf war with Russian infantry weapons, Russian tanks, and Russian and French missile technology?
So, in your opinion, the only reason someone could consider men who fly planes into buildings in the hopes of killing as many civilians as possible to be terrorists is if they are brainwashed?
Civilian death toll from 11th September: ~3000
Civilian death toll from bombing of Afghanistan: ~3200
The numbers you are citing have been thoroughly discredited -- see the bit on civilian casualties at the end of this
article for details.
At any rate, this is beside the point. In Afghanistan, we are doing our utmost to avoid civilian casualties by putting brave men in harms way, on the ground, to pinpoint targets to be hit. In contrast, the September 11 terrorists did their utmost to maximize the number of civilians killed. Surely you can see the difference?
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I find it amusing that people on your side of this debate are so unsure of yourselves that you are unwilling to have a rational debate of this issue, prefering to call the opposing viewpoint `superstition' and pretend that no rational human could disagree with you.
The fact is that plenty of perfectly intelligent, rational human beings disagree with you, and if you want to convince anyone, you should try a rational argument instead of name-calling.
Which is all very well, and I sympathize, but the question is not whether your son should have dna-synthesized insulin (no one objects to this), but whether that insulin should come from harvested embryos or from one of the other sources of stem cells.
It's worth pointing out that no one has ever successfully produced insulin (or anything else useful) from embryonic stem cells -- they just believe they might be able to, just as they used to believe that using umbilical cells held great promise before they decided that that wasn't enough and this was needed.
The insulin your son gets does not come from harvested embryos, and no one is objecting to it.
The difference is that unlike either of the other examples you give, if not killed the embryo will develop into a human. Every time -- not a dog, not a chicken, but a human. And that means you are preventing that specific human, not an abstraction if you kill it.
Oh brave new world, indeed!
Seriously, though, who are you to say that the poster may not have other traits that we could all benefit from having passed on? Sure, we should look into curing his condition in him or in his children (and I don't think doing so requires the harvesting of human embryos -- see all the promising results in non-embryonic stem-cell research), but I really don't think we're in any position to push the type of social engineering experiment you are recommending.
Amusing how you throw in the words `far-right' as if that worked as a substitute for any actual argument on the policies in question. But don't worry, I don't credit Clinton for these policies.
Not to rain on your parade, I would recommend that people actually do follow the above link, so it's clear to everyone that Ms. Coulter was joking. I agree that the joke was in somewhat poor taste, but let's not create bogeymen here as a substitute for rational argument
Now, to try to get this thread back on a rational footing, let me ask: do you, then, believe that no one could possibly have a non-religious reason for opposing the harvesting of human embryos for research?
So, just out of curiosity, you don't see it as possible that anyone could have a rational, non-religious objection to the harvesting of embryos for medical research?
And while we're on the subject, is their any reason the many breakthroughs in non-embryonic stem cell research don't get as much coverage as projects like this one?
I think this was absurd that this was modded -1 for being `off topic' -- if we are discussing the fact that California employs a huge number of state employees, surely the fact that they have a large number of liberal social programs is directly on-topic.
Just another example of how conservative views tend to be modded down on /. . Sigh...
But Sri Lankans aren't flying planes into our buildings, however upset they may be, so perhaps that suggests that Bin Laden is motivated by something other than dissatisfaction with our foreign policy, right?
On the tapes, he says we must be destroyed because of who we are. I see no reason not to believe that that's what he means.
I'd certainly be interested to hear how you would respond to the attacks of September 11. Are you suggesting that we could have dismantled the infrastructure which made those attacks possible (and would make potentially far more deadly future attacks possible) without some risk of hitting civilians (a risk, I remind you, which we have done our utmost to minimize, unlike our enemies who did their utmost to maximize civilian casualties)?
So, to be clear, in your opinion we should be planning our foreign policy not based on what is right to do, but based on what will appease a madman such as Osama Bin Laden? Really?
The problem I have with the examples you post on the Tafero case is that the only source the ACLU cites for their data is the Thomas M. Cooley Law Review, a liberal law group which according to it's own web site specializes in finding racial explanations for various court cases -- and even so it seems that Jacobs was cleared based on a technicality of how the case was pursued.
Likewise, the Stanford study you post was pretty thoroughly picked apart at the time it was published.
Again, as monkeydo points out, if there were even one clear case of an innocent being put to death, we would be hearing no end of it from the anti-death-penalty crowd.
I read the two ACLU articles you quoted, and I must say that I'm shocked the ACLU is against the death penalty.
Indeed, the ACLU has long since become much less of a civil liberties organization than a liberal lobbying group. In particular, they are now mostly active defending `rights' such as affirmative action, expanded welfare, and other dubious social engineering programs.
I've found the Institute for Justice to be a sensible alternative which fills the role that the ACLU used to fill.
You would think so, but that would ignore the fact that since guns were completely banned in England, their rate of gun crime has gone up drastically -- see this article for more.
You should also keep in mind that the rate of violent crime in London is now substantially higher than, for example, New York.
More to the point, did anyone wonder how it can possibly require 265,000 people to run the state of California? According to the California Department of Finance's numbers, that's one state employee for every 124 Californians...
Prior to the invasion of Kuwait (when Saddam was a favored US dictator) the population had a relatively high standard of living for the region -- the problem with this argument is that while people are allegedly starving `because of sanctions', Saddam has money to a.) build dozens of new palaces, b.) pay $25,000 a piece to the families of palestinian murder-suicide bombers, and c.) rebuild his military and launch massive new weapons programs. You claim he doesn't have enough money to feed his people, but how can that be so given all these new expenditures?
I'm also amused that you complain that there are not more NGO's operating in the south when the reason for this is that those that were there were expelled by Mr. Hussein. You can't have your cake and eat it too.
Which international organizations promote peace? ... Peace Now in Israel for instance. -- as far as I can tell, possibly because their only platform is Israeli surrender, Peace Now hasn't achieved peace (or liberty, or security) for anyone. Compare that to the improvement in living conditions for the people of Afghanistan in the last 8 months. And that, in the end is the point. You decry the building of weapons, as if liberty and peace were things which just magically come to exist if enough people (and international organizations) want them. This isn't the case -- they are things which must be fought for, and which must be guarded vigilantly.
Over more than two centuries the US has been the most vigilant guardian of these things going, and I am thrilled to see them gain new, more effective tools to extend this guardianship.
Two sources on this:
I'd like to respond to a few of the points you make here:
- "...we might find largbe bombers with large loads are capable of attacking it just as effectively s a number of smaller tactical jets." That sounds like carpet bombing to me -- does it? Carpet bombing means dropping of large quantities of bombs indiscriminately over a large area without using guidance techniques to ensure that only military targets are aimed for. We have simply not done this at any point during the current campaign.
- A B-52 would almost never be called upon to drop a single bomb within a 10-meter circle. If they are so accurate, then why did we invent cruise missiles? -- oh no, we would never invent two weapons capable of hitting the same target, would we? Please see the nando times article I linked in my previous post.
- Is 600
... civilian deaths in Afghanistan accetpable? (Qrlx apparently did not read the article very carefully, as he suggests the discredited number `5000' as a possible number of casualties) -- I certainly welcome your suggestion for how we could eliminate al Qaeda without causing any civilian casualties at all, but back here on earth we have done our utmost to avoid such casualties, while our enemies have done their utmost to maximize them. So again, your suggestion that there is some sort of equivalence here is absurd.
- I was trying to make the point that it wasn't *just* an attack on a civilian population. It had deep symbolic significance. It was an attack on civilians, but also an attack on the perceived Excesses of the West. -- and again, you speak as if this made the attacks the equivalent of attacks on military targets of nations which have attacked us. Do you really believe this?
- I'm saying that the "dual use" standard knowingly puts civilians at risk. -- but your definition of `dual use' is `considered by others to be a symbol of our culture'. Are you really suggsting that because a madman like Osama Bin Laden considered the WTC to be a symbol of America, we were `knowingly putting civilians at risk' by letting people work there? Really?
- Maybe we would have finished the job in '91 if we actually cared about civilians -- I certainly agree that we should have, but to claim that civilians are suffering because of our actions and not because Mr. Hussein is funneling off relief money to pay for palaces and tanks is nonsense. Please see the article from The New Republic which I posted earlier in this thread.
- We are a free nation which was brutally attacked by terrorists. So we don't have to concern ourselves with civilian casualties? -- no, as I've pointed out repeatedly, we are going to great lengths (and putting our men on the ground at grave risk) to avoid civilian casualties. To pretend that because some civilians are inadvertently hit means that we should not be fighting is nonsense unless you can propose some other way to adequately defend ourselves.
- The problem with having the moral high ground is that your morals are unique to you and not really a basis for a rational foreign or military policy -- no, no they are not. That the attacks of September 11 were morally wrong is an objective fact, not a `point of view' which is open to debate, and about which all opinions are equally valid.
- Morally, Osama bin Laden is just as entitled to his belief of Death to America as I am to my belief that he should rot in a collapsed cave -- no, he is not. To pretend that the belief that America should be destroyed is morally equivalent to a belief that it should not is nonsense.
- None of that will ever convince us that the other is "right." -- the fact that this is true does not change the fact that one of us is right and the other isn't. If I couldn't convince you that two and two make four, they still would. But I notice that you put the word `right' in sneer quotes. Perhaps you believe that there is no such thing?
- I submit that ANY TIME that civilians are killed it is a horrible thing. -- while true, that doesn't make it an equally horrible thing for us to hit civilians by accident while attempting not to do so as it is for them to intentionally kill as many civilians as possible.
But again, we have a larger disagreement here. You seem to believe that it is unacceptable for the US to defend itself. Can you justify this position?Haven't read much about copy protection laws in the UK, have you? Or the EU, which recommends that member nations ban web caching as a form of copyright violation?
By the way, for more on how Saddam Hussein is diverting international aid to build palaces while his people starve, see this article from The New Republic (hardly a mainstream or conservative publication, by the way).
The problem with your argument is that the only reason that people are dying in Iraq, despite the huge amounts of money and aid being provided as part of the UN oil-for-food program is that Mr. Hussein is diverting the aid shipments to pay for palaces and tanks. (Note that that article is in The New Republic, which can hardly be described as a mainstream or conservative publication.)
And which international organizations promote peace anyway? The UN, which kept Pol Pot in power as part of its unwanted `peace' deal, looked the other way while it's peacekeepers sold food aid for sex in Africa and ran prostitution rings in Asia? What makes you think that international organizations have some sort of moral high ground?
I'd like to respond to some of your points, since plenty of what you're reporting is flat out wrong (and the mods should probably take note of that):
I don't think you've done your homework very well. Yes, the US backed Iraq against Iran, but it is hardly the case that the US built up Mr. Hussein's army -- or have you forgotten that Mr. Hussein fought the gulf war with Russian infantry weapons, Russian tanks, and Russian and French missile technology?
I see.
So, in your opinion, the only reason someone could consider men who fly planes into buildings in the hopes of killing as many civilians as possible to be terrorists is if they are brainwashed?
What planet are you living on?
Civilian death toll from 11th September: ~3000
Civilian death toll from bombing of Afghanistan: ~3200
The numbers you are citing have been thoroughly discredited -- see the bit on civilian casualties at the end of this article for details.
At any rate, this is beside the point. In Afghanistan, we are doing our utmost to avoid civilian casualties by putting brave men in harms way, on the ground, to pinpoint targets to be hit. In contrast, the September 11 terrorists did their utmost to maximize the number of civilians killed. Surely you can see the difference?