Originally Posted By HyperTyper >>>He cited his religious beliefs and made a decision, My apologies. Was that his sole reason? My understanding is that it was one of many. If I got that wrong, thank you for correcting that. I'd really like to add that there is an astonishing amount of anti-religious paranoia when it comes to Bush and conservatives. It's completely unreasoned. For the most part, people who want to live very un-Christian lives continue to do so, unencumbered by what the Bush administration has done or attempted to do. Drunkenness, sexual promiscuity, gambling, etc., all frowned-upon by traditional Christianity, are still tolerated to the same or larger degree than ever before. Indeed, Christians are finding themselves more restricted in what they can do. Free expressions of innocent religious belief are silenced in more and more situations. Christianity is attacked left and right in the media. Foul people who falsely claim Christian living are held-up as examples of typical Christian hypocrisy. Messages of non-faith or anti-faith are given full protection by the first ammendment, but people seek to muzzle faithful expression out of the slightest offense. Al Gore wants to legislate environmentalism because of his "deep" beliefs in protecting the earth (which I would question, but that's another thing entirely). He's allowed that. If someone, including the president, has a religious basis for a policy decision, there is absolutely nothing wrong with that, as long as he isn't forcing people to believe or worship in the same way. The question is will the people vote for it. With President Bush, most of them have, because that same principle that values embryos likewise values the lives of adults and children, their property, their peace and opportunity. It values the lives of all races, colors and creeds. It was religious sentiment that valued the lives of slaves (whom others, lacking faith and a sense of accountability to God, deemed as less-than-human). Were it not for faith and people motivated by it, there would be much less support for those laws that uphold the status and sanctity of the human individual. So, folks, you don't have to believe as George Bush does. We should all have so much integrity, whatever we profess to believe. But it makes no sense to rag on him simply because he lets his faith direct his decisions and prefers to walk the talk. Neither American tradition, law, nor public office compell anyone to leave his faith at the door when he walks out of church each week. People who dislike Bush's beliefs are welcome to support a politician whose beliefs are more in line with their own. (And good luck with that.) Whatever your own faith, you do it no credit when you slam someone for trying to practice his, however imperfectly.
Originally Posted By Beaumandy Hyper, great to see you again. You are like usual, right on target. The really funny thing about all of this is that Bush told evreyone what he was going to do years ago. I respect him for standing up for what he thinks is right, he always does.
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan HyperTyper: You know what? I'm going to say something that isn't said much in World Events: You've really given me a lot to think about with your posts. While I am still in favor of stem cell reserach and wish the President hadn't vetoed this bill, you bring up valid points in regards to it. I haven't donated money directly to support this form of research, but would be in favor of my tax dollars supporting it. But thanks for making me see this thing through a fresh perspective.
Originally Posted By idleHands <<That's like saying if liberals really cared about the environment, they would ban cars altogether and make zero-pollution vehicles the only legal mode of transport.>> No it is not. My argument is about what Bush said about WHY he vetoed the bill, not what he hoped would happen as a result. Bush made the claim about how the in vitro kids in front of him were not spare body parts. He has a problem with the DESTRUCTION of the frozen embryos, because he claims the destruction of the embryos destroys human life. But he conveniently sidesteps the fact that the vast majority of these embryos will be DESTROYED EVENTUALLY. Doesn't matter if they're being used in research or going into the incinerator. THE EMBRYOS WILL BE DESTROYED. And that was the main point Bush was against, the DESTRUCTION of the embryos. Ergo, he should be totally against the creation of these embryos in the fertilization clinics, because EVERY SINGLE WOMAN who goes through this procedure, has multiple embryos created as part of the procedure. And virtually NO ONE implants ALL embryos that are fertilized and frozen. Even without embryonic stem cell research, in vitro fertilization will continue. And embryos will continue to be created and destroyed as part of the process. So if Bush and his followers are so damned concerned about the destruction of "human life" through the destruction of these frozen embryos for research, then he has a moral obligation to stop ANY frozen embryo from being destroyed. And that means ending the medical procedure of in vitro fertilization, period. There is no way to logically spin this. Willingly creating an embryo always has moral implications. And most embryos by design of the procedure are eventually destroyed, not implanted. And anyone who feels that the destruction of said embryo is akin to murder shouldn't be creating those embryos in the first place.
Originally Posted By RoadTrip If any one is interested, I would love to see the ethics issues I brought up discussed. (#98)
Originally Posted By idleHands <<There are factors at work here besides the fact that Bush may be a right-wing religious fundamentalist.>> And because he is, he is against abortion. And if he's against abortion, then he should be against in vitro fertilization, because an excess of fertilized embryos are ALWAYS created as part of the procedure. And the excess embryos will eventually be destroyed. So why isn't Bush being more proactive to get his Republican lawmaker friends to introduce bills to ban in vitro fertilization? Why is the focus SOLELY on making abortion unconstitutional? Simple. It's politics. Any politician advocating a ban on in vitro fertilization would lose the infertility vote, guaranteed. Pure and simple, Bush is a hypocrite.
Originally Posted By ecdc "Just go look up the theads talking about the myth called seperation of church and state. I have won that debate about 5 times on here over the years. Once I pointed out that Madison and Jefferson went to church services in the Capital building the confused revisionist history types on here went into hiding." If that's your definition of proof, it's not too good. I seem to recall a thread where you insisted that we tortured people during WWII. After multiple Google searches, you finally confessed you could find nothing to back you up. So again Beau, where's the proof beyond you just saying it's so.
Originally Posted By JohnS1 "hat's a little like asking in 1965: Have we got to the moon yet? Then this whole NASA thing isn't worth pursuing." Toonie - everyone knows that the only reason we went to the moon was so that advocates of any hair-brained inventions could - for the rest of eternity - legitimately say things like: "We can put a man on the moon, but we can't find a way to get the lint off of little Horace's band uniform."
Originally Posted By Darkbeer <a href="http://www.opinionjournal.com/weekend/hottopic/?id=110008691" target="_blank">http://www.opinionjournal.com/ weekend/hottopic/?id=110008691</a> >>Politics always trails the rush of science, especially on matters of moral import. So we'd like to break type and praise this week's Senate debate over federal funding of embryonic stem-cell research. Congress is finally drawing some policy lines and working toward a social consensus rather than abandoning the ethics to an unelected scientific elite. Supporters of unlimited taxpayer support are upset that President Bush cast his first veto on a bill that would have lifted his 2001 restrictions on federal funding. Under those rules, federal cash (some $90 million) has flowed to embryonic stem-cell lines that existed as of that date, but no taxpayer money supports research that would destroy new embryos. To many scientists and Democrats, this issue can be distilled to a choice between America's leading the world in medical progress, or lapsing into Luddite religiosity. Their pressure inspired 63 Senators, including 19 Republicans, to oppose Mr. Bush and support more federal funding. Yet as the President's veto--and Congress's failure to override--shows, many Americans disagree and are troubled by what they believe is the destruction of an early stage of human life. Our own view is that the embryos from which stem cells are collected have the potential to be--but are not yet--human beings. This is the dominant view across U.S. society, which is one reason there is little controversy over fertility treatments, in which embryos are routinely created and discarded. Private stem-cell research on these discarded embryos remains legal, and, contrary to much political spin, private funding is plentiful. No fewer than 11 private stem-cell research centers exist across the country; Harvard alone employs more than 100 researchers and has 17 new stem-cell lines. More than 60 U.S. and international companies are pursuing stem-cell research--from such giants as Johnson & Johnson to start-ups. In 2005, the venture-capital industry put more than $102 million into the stem-cell industry. All of this casts doubt on the claim that America is "losing" quality researchers to other countries for lack of funding. The main political rub concerns taxpayer funding, and several states (such as Connecticut and Illinois) have already decided to allow it. California, as usual, is spending the most at $3 billion. But Mr. Bush is hardly taking some extremist point of view in opposing it. At least since the Hyde Amendment passed in 1976, a similar compromise has prevailed on abortion. Abortion is legal, but taxpayers aren't obliged to pay for a practice they find morally objectionable. The European Union is currently having its own debate over whether to allow public funding of embryonic research, with those member states opposed to government involvement poised to win that battle. Especially at the start of this brave new world of genetic research involving humans, some moral caution may be wise. As Mr. Bush put it in his veto statement: "If this bill were to become law, American taxpayers for the first time in our history would be compelled to fund the deliberate destruction of human embryos." Whether or not you agree with Mr. Bush's moral judgment about embryos, you can't deny that he's representing a significant chunk of American public opinion. Lost amid the veto politics this week was the fact that Congress also moved in other ways on ethics and medical research. Mr. Bush signed a bill passed unanimously by the House and Senate that outlawed "fetal farming," or the practice of raising and aborting fetuses for scientific research. The Senate also passed legislation that would have encouraged greater research into exploiting the stem cells scientists need without destroying embryos, as well as research into adult stem cells. That bill failed in the House, mainly because Democrats think they can use stem cells as a political issue against Republicans this fall. There are other issues that Congress could usefully address in the months ahead. The Senate still hasn't passed a ban on human cloning, a practice that the public widely opposes and which dozens of countries (and even the U.N.) have already outlawed. And a California taxpayers' group recently filed legal challenges to patent protections on embryonic stem-cell research, a reminder that issues of intellectual property and trade secrets in medical research are still contentious and unsettled. Only this week, a story in the Journal pointed to patent problems as a bigger factor than money in driving stem-cell research out of the U.S. This week's partisan jockeying aside, the good news is that politicians have begun to debate these profound moral questions. Yes, politicians will sometimes succumb to cheap rhetoric and distortion, but given enough time and information the public can usually understand the real stakes. In any case, we'd rather have a messy political brawl than leave such matters to elites in science, the media or the judiciary to settle. As we've seen with global warming and other issues, scientists can also be motivated by self-interest and partisanship. The louder and longer the political debate, the better informed the public will be. Come to think of it, maybe we need a few more such veto fights. <<
Originally Posted By SingleParkPassholder " Whether or not you agree with Mr. Bush's moral judgment about embryos, you can't deny that he's representing a significant chunk of American public opinion." Not true at all.
Originally Posted By Darkbeer CNN/USA Today/Gallup Poll. Aug. 5-7, 2005. N=1,004 adults nationwide. MoE ± 3. . "Do you think the federal government should or should not fund research that would use newly created stem cells obtained from human embryos?" . 56% Should 40% Should Not 4% Unsure Pew Research Center for the People & the Press and Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life survey conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates. Feb. 25-March 10, 2002. N=2,002 adults nationwide. MoE ± 2.5. . "As you may know, the federal government has debated whether to fund certain kinds of medical research known as 'stem cell research.' . . . Do you think the federal government should or should not fund stem cell research?" % Should 43 % Should not 35 % Depends (vol.) 4 % Don't know 18 %
Originally Posted By woody The veto survives override. That should be the message. If the public really wanted it, Congress should have voted at least by 2/3rd majority, but it didn't happen. Is Bush out of the mainstream? No, doesn't appear so. Find some other issue to complain about!!!
Originally Posted By Beaumandy No kidding Woody. Some on here starting last week have tried to paint Bush as some ignorant religious nut who was ignorant of science who in turn was killing peoples family members. What a joke. Funny how the left can't see that they, by pushing for federal funding for this issue are pushing THEIR morality ( or lack of it ) on America and are even demanding we pay for it.
Originally Posted By ecdc Still waiting on that evidence Beau. You might want to try any number of biographies on George Washington that point out that he was a Deist who never took Communion and supported religious pluralism. See The Papers of George Washington as published so well by the University of Virginia Press. See also His Excellency by Joseph Ellis and the classic book The Religious Beliefs of Our Presidents by Franklin Steiner.
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Originally Posted By Beaumandy ecdc, the country was formed by religious men who based their morals on the bible. It is so evident that you don't want to understand American history that I am not even in the mood to bother with you. Go look at the other threads where I convered it in detail. STPH has lost the establisment clause debate at least 3 times but still doesn't get it. People who say America is some secualar country are ignorant at best.
Originally Posted By ecdc "ecdc, the country was formed by religious men who based their morals on the bible. It is so evident that you don't want to understand American history that I am not even in the mood to bother with you." It's only obvious to you because A) You proof-text everything, e.g., you read it to be able to validate the correctness of your worldview rather than reading it as how those men would read it, and B) You clearly can't put up the evidence since this is the third time I've asked you and all you've done is mumble about how "obvious" it is and if I can't see it then it's not even worth discussing. Well if that's not a cop-out... Beau, I cited sources that I've actually read and am familiar with (and I didn't just copy and paste without attributing, as you've been proven to do when you actually do come up with sources). I've spent a lot of time reading and researching Washington's papers in particular while studying his views on slavery. The man didn't mention Jesus. He just didn't do it. He attended church services but left before the Communion was administered. His most respected biographers inevitably conclude his beliefs are most in line with Deist beliefs. So I'll give you another shot to look like you haven't just blown smoke yet again, Where's your evidence, Beau? Or if this is another "We tortured people during WWII" moment where you said something without knowing the facts, then at least admit it and I'll quit asking you.
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