Oh, and in Iraq last Thursday a roadside bomb struck a military vehicle in northeastern Baghdad, killing five U.S. soldiers, three Iraqi civilians and an Iraqi interpreter.
The soldiers were all around Peter's age or a little older. They all have fathers and mothers who I'm sure will mourn them in the same way that Bob is mourning Peter. At least Bob has the comfort that doctors, through research, may learn from Peter's death and be able to help someone. The only comfort the parents of the dead soldiers have is knowing that they will have more shoulders to cry in as they will be joined by other grieving parents this week....and the week after that....and the week after that....because there are still people in this country who hold the incredibly misguided belief that we are actually fighting for our freedom.
Of course, one of the areas of research that will help people like Peter and other folks is embryonic stem cell research. The day before Peter died, President Bush, vetoed the latest stem cell bill that would allow federal funds to be used for research After he vetoed the bill, he said:
"Destroying human life in the hopes of saving human life is not ethical. The United States is a nation founded on the principle that all human life is sacred."When I first read this, I pretty much lost it for about a day. I don't mean I "lost it" like a normally do on this blog. I mean I fucking I LOST IT. For those first 24 hours, I was seriously entertaining the notion of calling the richest and most influential people I know (I do know a few) and doing everything in my power to get this moronic, hypocritical shit-for-brains removed from office.
I calmed down enough to realize that I have children to raise and a career to pursue (which will actually help to insure that no one this reckless and inhuman is ever afforded the highest office in the land again) So I really don't have time to take on such a monumental (and ultimately defeating) task. Instead, I thought I would take a step that I have thought about taking for awhile but always refrained out of a sense of wondering....should I go this far?
Sadly, President Bush, his administration and their supporters,with his latest action and statement have left me with no alternative but to show you these pictures.
Take a look at these photos.
Let's read the above quote again."Destroying human life in the hopes of saving human life is not ethical. The United States is a nation founded on the principle that all human life is sacred."
And again.
"Destroying human life in the hopes of saving human life is not ethical. The United States is a nation founded on the principle that all human life is sacred."
How about one more time for people that seem to have trouble hearing?
"Destroying human life in the hopes of saving human life is not ethical. The United States is a nation founded on the principle that all human life is sacred."
All of these children were killed by an American bombing raid in Iraq for the sake of "protecting us from terrorism." All of these lives were, in fact, lost by sacrificing them to "save" us. Oh, and all of these dead bodies?
Terrorist's fault. Yep. All their fault. It was our bombs but hey, Dick Cheney says so..it must be true. They brought it on themselves. We are not responsible, even though we are the ones that attacked them. We are not responsible...it's Saddam's fault. He brought it on his own people and would've done this anyway. We are not responsible because it's all for the greater good of freedom.We are not responsible--
(insert sound of needle scratching across record album)
Hi. My name is Mark. The next time I hear a neocon or Bushie lecture me about "individual responsibility" I am going to show them these pictures and then take the biggest pile of horse manure I can find, throw it directly in their face, and say "You are completely full of shit."
(back to our regular scheduled programming)
Now, I am willing to take my lumps on the fact that the majority of this country is against gay marriage. Fine, I have to live with the reality of how democracy works. But Iraq? Most Americans have realized that this policy has failed. And stem cell research? Overwhelmingly, the majority of Americans favor it and yet.....I still lose.
We lose. Because there are just enough people in this country that need to believe the lie...the lie that this administration is protecting us. The lie that employs fear rather than reasoned logic and fact. The lie that keeps us rooted firmly in the stone age, dragging our knuckles and scratching our uni brow.
The lie that, quite simply, means death.
And all of this is not even the worst of it...do you know what the truly awful part about all of this is?
The thousands of Iraqi civilians and American soldiers that will die in the next year and a half because we have an administration that would rather have people lose their lives needlessly than admit fault. The thousands of people in this country that will die in the next decade because our president and his supporters think that science is "voodoo " and "the devil's handiwork."
Think about all of the people, young and old....people like Peter, whose bodies are going to writhe, shake in agony and die because President Death Boy is too lazy to take the time to learn what an embryo is. And he is so rooted in his belief system that the only people that he is listening to about embryos got their medical degrees from All Non Christians Should Be Burned As Witches University (that's ANSBBAW U btw, a sister school to Fire Bad, Science Evil State University, (FBSESU))
So basically President Bush is saying that an embryo--something that cannot exist outside of the womb--that "life" is worth more than someone like Peter's. Or someone who has Alzheimer's. Or any of the dead Iraqi children we see above. In other words, people that ARE, in fact, existing outside of the womb.
It's funny. Sad funny, not good funny--people accuse me everyday of mocking people's beliefs and being cruel to those who think differently than I do. When those false and narrow minded beliefs carry into actions that result in the needless deaths of hundreds of thousands of people, I think that mocking them actually shows an incredible amount of restraint. The next time a neocon or a Bushie whines (like the shirking, denying, and running away from responsibility asshead cowards they are) that you are "mocking their beliefs," pull out one of these pictures and tell them to shut their hypocritical mouths.Tell them to say to this grieving father, pictured above, that he "brought it on himself." And that it's all the fault of the terrorists.
Tell them to to say to my mom's friend Bob that his son Peter's life is worth less than a undeveloped human cell.
Ask them how long they have had the delusion that they are human.
27 comments:
Well,
This was for sure a tough one.
O my god!
We all somehow know that there is somewhere war in the world and somehow people get killed every
day but most people never see such pictures or are confronted with the signs of war or it is somewhere far far away.
I lived in the states and worked for an Israeli project and traveled to Israel.
I'm a German and work now in the UAE, an Arabic country, booming economy and build based on US economies but somehow hating the US and of course
the jewish..(loving the Germans for the fast cars and having killed so
many Jewish)
This world is full of hate and I find in each of those places
something beautiful, even if I love Europe best.
Can we not just be humans???
Again,
Shocked
Lena
Oh my God... One of your very best Marky. Bless you.
It's very moving,
very true, very funny, very sad, very brave, extremely human.
Well, I just had to tell my secretary to go buy some more kleenex as I have run through my box in the office.
I think I am going to try to do something to get Bush and Cheney thrown out of office. I don't know what, yet, but I do have a few million in the bank and I have been far too complacent.
These pictures...wow...these little innocent children died because Dick Cheney wants to sit his fat ass on top of a pile of money, oil, and gold.
Keep up the good work Mark.
For starters, thanks for having me back. Contrary to innuendo and recent accusation, I've taken some time off to recover from the onslaught of inanity and anger. Feeling fully refreshed, and seeing a posting such as this which is simply teeming with opportunity for counter-argument, I feel compelled to jump back into the pool. It might be lonely in my end of the pool with HMHC, but at least I'll have Just-Dave to keep me company. (No offense Crab Fan, but I can't figure out who you are....)
Markadelphia, continued best wishes on your new career endeavor. However, I do feel compelled to reiterate that if the messages you will be conveying to your students are along the lines of what you've posted here, I'm thankful I am childless.
Do you really believe what you've written in this post, or is this a position from which you will back-pedal once confronted? I look forward to the day when you show me your pictures of bloodied and maimed children and attempt to scold me so I can tear up those pictures and throw them in your face.
Now don't get me wrong....I don't believe GWB's statements regarding vetoing the bill were especially profound or even necessarily accurate. But your reaction to those statements seems extreme, you've left out some very important contexts, and you've drawn some gross generalizations that are worthy of attention.
You left out the fact that seconds after making the statement you cite numerous times, GWB correctly noted that additional areas of stem cell research have recently shown great promise, thereby making it quite plausible that embryonic stem cell research may not be the be-all solution that you and your liberal cohorts would continually have us believe. Did you intentionally omit that portion of this speech? If so, I'd like to hear why it was important for you to do so. Perhaps because it contradicted the message you were anxious to convey?
You also, intentionally or otherwise, helped perpetuate two commonly held misconceptions:
1) That there is no federal funding of embryonic stem cell research.
2) That a clear majority of Americans support stem cell research that involves the destruction of new, human embryos. The rub, it would seem, is in how the question is asked, exactly. Consistently you will see numbers at 60% or higher that "support Federal Funding of Stem Cell Research." But when you phrase the question to include additional context, such as the fact that many scientists feel it may be possible to continue effective research without having to destroy embryos (I'll cite the Newsweek poll of Aug, 2006 as an example) the public opinion is much less clear and barely a majority, if at all.
Are you prepared to mandate that a significant percentage of this country do something that they deem to be morally reprehensible -- pay for embryo destruction -- in pursuit of a goal that leading scientists in the field admit may never be realized? A destruction that may, in fact, even prove unnecessary? Is that what you are condoning? Whether or not you or I agree with those who believe that embryo destruction is wrong isn't really relevant to the issue, is it?
Also, let's not forget undeniable ethical issues potentially unleashed by unfettered government funding. Where do you advocate the new line will be drawn between where we are today and the potential of embryo factories designed specifically for the purpose of creating embryos for the harvesting of stem cells? (That is making perhaps an invalid assumption, of course, that you would be opposed to such a system.) Science is, after all, hardly an unqualified positive. Ethical considerations such as these, while frustrating (particularly when not shared by you) are not impediments simply for the sake of being so. Perhaps GWB is drawing the line in the wrong spot at this point in time, but it is hardly as clear-cut as you and the predictably pathetic Democratic candidates would have us believe.
In the end, I'm not moved by what I perceive to be cheap showmanship such as using pictures and stories of tragic injury and death to make a tired political point. If that makes me inhuman, so be it. I do notice that the Democratic candidates so beloved by people on this blog were incredibly quick to pile on the criticism of the veto. How typical. Why you people are so enamored of these candidates is a mystery to me.
There are some people who will be moved by these photos and there will be some who will not. There will be some people who will find these pictures a telling testimony to the horrors of war and there will be those that find it a political cheap shot. That is just life.
For my part, I can see PL's (welcome back by the way!)point about the sensationalistic quality of these photos, but I diverge from that path in that I find this war and the foreign policy that has been administered towards Iraq over the last 4 administrations to be stupid, ill-conceived and poorly executed. Iraqi's are dying at a rate of approximately 100 a day because of the upheaval that this current war has caused. Hundreds of thousands have died since Bush Senior's dabbling in Iraq and that number is not going to go down, only up. I am an anthropologist by trade and training and have been studying warfare and the dynamics of warfare for the last twenty years looking at societies that range from small groups of hunter/gatherers to imperial states like Rome or the Aztecs. One thing that is seen consistently when one force deposes a tyrannical ruler who has held multiple ethnic groups in check is that when the tyrant is gone, the ethnic groups clash with each other. Look no further than the post-classic Maya, the end of the Roman Empire, the collapse of the former Soviet Union, the destruction of the Aztecs...it happens time and again. You would think that people could get it in their heads that forced, violent conflict is not the solution for all problems. If it were, then we would all live in a Utopian society because human history, by many historians perspective, is one of conflict. Let me clarify my position by stating that I am not against warfare. I do not view it as a disease or something that can be altogether eliminated because there is another whole segment of researchers that believe that the seed of violence is within all humans and is an evolutionary built-in. So where does that leave us?
Warfare should be the absolute last course of action for any society. Period. End of story. This war was illegal from a world perspective (check the UN charter on this), was completely based on sketchy, error-ridden intelligence, and has served little more for this country other than to provide some individuals a sense of satisfaction for having cleaned up some misperceived threat from a very small dictator. There was never any threat to the region or our country in this last war and to compare Hussein with Hitler is like comparing Barney Rubble to Darth Vader.
The reality is that Iraqi's are not better off now then they were under Hussein both in terms of the physical state of their country or the social-political state of social environment. I saw people actually marching to honor Saddam Hussein the other night on the news. Our country is in debt up to its ears to the Chinese and the Saudi's, and yet we still are receiving no benefit from this conflict including the supposed oil that we were all supposed to be getting for cheap. It is a complete wash in my opinion.
We have successfully trained the next wave of terrorists by providing them live-action targets, increased the level of hate among Muslims towards Americans and gotten ourselves into a conflict that has no resolution except a complete blow-out civil war.
War begets war. That is, in my opinion, a beautiful eloquent statement because of its truth and because that is the primary function of war...to provide social identity to warring factions (us vs. them with both groups identifying each other in relationship to the conflict). War is a "gift" that is passed between two societies and because it is a "gift" it requires an equal exchange of no lesser or greater value. In pre-industrial days, warfare allowed people to interact with each other across the spectrum that ranges from trade/alliance/marriage all the way through hostility. Today, communication allows for that interaction without the need for bloodshed. We have shown that once again, our technology exceeds our ability to exercise age-old habits without consequence.
PL, I can somewhat see your point about stem-cell research. Perhaps private companies should be the ones to cross the current lines, but in doing so, there may be other undesirable results that range from eugenics to body part farming. The largest segment of the society will pay the cost of such things..the poor and middle class will not be able to afford the treatments that are created and it will widen the gap between the classes. The poor will be farmed (as it is being done in other countries already) for their parts and the potential for creating additional classes and creating bounded class systems will fundamentally change the structure of this country.
The pictures may be a cheap shot, but if they raise even one persons consciousness to do something about the state of affairs, then they were worthwhile in my opinion.
I noted that PL didn't dwell on the war issue too much. Several years ago PL defended the ware, how do you stand on it now with some perspective behind you?
One last thing...war is addictive. It caters to the lowest common denominator of superordinate goals. It serves to dehumanize people and whole groups of people and provides a sort of adrenaline rush that is hard to kick. Don't look to grieving loved ones for a denial of the importance of any given war either. They will always want to see some positive in the death of a loved one.
I hope that we are smart enough to terminate this war in the next year. War is necessary at some points, this was not one of them.
PL, I think that saying these pictures are "cheap showmanship" tells me that you missed the point.
We did this. We really didn't have to do it. Deal with it.
Recently here in Minnesota a couple had sextuplets, several months prematurely. The last I heard three of the babies had died. The prospects for the surviving children are bleak -- they will almost certainly have serious medical problems their entire lives -- lung problems, heart problems, blindness, etc.
The mother took fertility drugs because she was having difficulty conceiving. She and her husband are devout Christians. The recommended medical procedure when a large number of fetuses results is a "reduction."
In other words, doctors suggest that the less viable fetuses be aborted so that the remaining ones can live normal lives. The parents declined to take this action, as it was against their religion.
But didn't these parents defy God's will? Had He not decreed that they should remain barren? Yes, but they used modern science to take the power of life and death into their own hands, and now three babies are dead. Just as dead as if they had been "reduced." And now the survivors, if there are any, will suffer the consequences.
Other procedures, such as in-vitro fertilization, have the same risks. Doctors implant multiple embryos with the full knowledge that most of them will be reduced "naturally," in spontaneous abortions. They count on this fact, because humans cannot bear six or seven fetuses to term.
The acceptance of in-vitro procedures and fertility drugs by conservatives shows that they too do not truly believe in the complete and total equality of a fetus in the womb and a person that has been born. They rationalize the procedures because "it's in God's hands" whether the children live or die. But the doctors who perform these procedures know statistically how many will live and how many will die.
Just like the average American, conservatives know in their heart of hearts that a fertilized ovum is not a person. They know that a clump of cells attached in the uterine lining is not a baby. Otherwise they would not sanction the spontaneous abortions that can and must occur with fertility drugs and in-vitro fertilization.
The fertilized ova that Bush wants to "save" are leftovers from in-vitro procedures. These stem cells will ultimately be discarded as so much garbage. The donors no longer want these stem cells, and no one else will want to bear someone else's children. If these stem cells were used in scientific research at least some good might come from them. And this isn't rationalizing a good thing out of a bad thing -- the artificial creation of this life in the first place was a good thing that conservatives whole-heartedly endorse.
Couldn't have said it better myself. So, PL, is what BLK says morally reprehensible or not?
Markadelphia, as I stated in my original post, it is immaterial to the discussion whether or not I think what BLK posted is morally reprehensible. The pertinent issue is that there are many people who do find it morally reprehensible. To discount that segment of the population as wrong or misguided is one of the very evils that you so rabidly argue against with respect to issues for which it is more convenient to do so. I'm unclear as to how you deem it appropriate to force them to support something that they dearly hold to be wrong, particularly in light of the fact that all you offer in return is "perhaps" or "possibly", and especially when stacked against the very fact that what you propose could likely prove to be unnecessary in the first place. BLK's characterization of "conservatives know..." is obviously a gross generalization that may be true of conservatives he knows, but is hardly true as a general rule. (Not altogether different from your previous characterization of "what Texans think" based on what your relatives say.) If nothing else, it starts with the invalid assumption that all conservatives approve of in-vitro fertilization. The argument falls flat when it ends with the discussion of the "leftover" embryos.
I believe, and I can't stress strongly enough that it's only what I believe, that the fundamental moral issue involved is not the particular group of embryos that draw so much attention but the doors that will be opened by loosening the restrictions in place. JW proposes a future where the poor are farmed for body parts, etc. Is it not just as likely that a loosening of the moral boundaries on stem cell research will lead to people being paid to produce embryos for the express purpose of farming them for research? Perhaps not, but that's a particular scenario that I find reprehensible, and GWB's helps place limits on that. I notice that nobody has responded to the concerns I raised in my post, so perhaps none of you are against such a future. If so, that's great for you. But it illustrates an appalling lack of concern for the beliefs of others if you simply discard those beliefs as ignorant.
While we're at it, why don't we just start paying the poor to have kids of certain blood types, etc., so we can slaughter the kids and farm their organs for transplants?
The sciences of stem cell research, cloning, etc., are here to stay. There's no denying it, there's no turning back. And because we humans are inherently flawed and, some would argue, evil, there's no denying that morally reprehensible practices are going to continue in those arenas. That doesn't mean we the people should pay for it.
True Blue - do you have a point? I didn't miss Markadelphia's point. I clearly understand and despise his point. But I'll be honest and admit that I'm missing whatever yours might be.
On the off chance that you were trying to "zing" me on the war issue, something that I've absolutely "dealt with", I'll respond to that at the same time I respond to JW re: the war.
Yes, John, I do still support the decision made several years ago to attack Iraq. Those intervening years have illustrated to me that the war would not be won during my lunch break while watching on CNN, as I had secretly hoped when it started.
Yes, many innocent people have died as a result of actions that we initiated. I've never understood why children dying is any more tragic than anybody else dying, other than to pluck at the whimsy of bleeding hearts, but I understand the point that GWB and his policies directly led to their deaths.
But I also understand that those actions and policies precipitated from an extraordinarily uncertain environment, and were a direct response to a dictator who was in violation of a multitude of UN resolutions. When those factors are considered with the larger picture of who Saddam was, had been, and loudly proclaimed he wished to be, a justification for deposition can be formulated.
Was it a war of convenience? Possibly. But as you have no proof that the war was started for nefarious reasons, I have no proof that the war was started with nothing but the best of intentions. I don't believe that GWB set out to kill Iraqis. I don't believe that GWB is a bad person because Iraqis died as a result of his policies. I know I'm going to catch H E double L for this one, but I see those kids whose pictures you've plastered on the blog and I'm not really any more moved than I am when I see squirrel roadkill. Death is a horrible, horrible part of life. Nobody likes it. Nobody wants it. But at a macro level it happens every day as a result of US policy, and at a micro level it happens every day as a result of actions of yours and mine.
Am I happy those Iraqis are dead? Of course not. Do I wish they weren't dead as a result of our actions? Of course. Do I think US policy and action should be dictated by a "no civilians will be harmed by our actions" creed? Of course not...that's not realistic.
Mark, your best blog yet...in fact, best blog ever by anyone.
I can't even say any more. Some think that isn't possible for me, but this time it is.
Dear PL
You know i though you had a pretty good argument going, as someone who doesn't support the killing or taking advantage of a single human life, because in all religions but especially the great monotheistic religions, killing one life unjustly is as though you killed all of humanity itself. With the associated pricetag.
Even the life on an embryo which may, yes, absolutely be only a little cluster of cells without a formed heart or brain, but it still feels like a future human with a destiny to me, should this future & miraculous being be used to save the life of an existing being? That is very tough. Not because the answer wouldn't, in many ways, automatically be 'yes' : we are born with an innate sense of goodness and innocence and giving and self-sacrifice, watching thousands of hours of tv and adverts and perverse cultureshock shit may twist or turn that in our children as they grow up, but each and everyone us is or was at one point, willing to die for something more than themselves or to save the life of another.
So, from that perspective i'm sure the cluster of cells would give every cell of its future body and soul to save lives. But the problem is, no one is asking it he or she. This is a life that is being created possibly to cure but definitely to be kill and be used, and THAT is where the ethical dilemma lies, and where my opinions converge with PL's.
That's why i find this part, schizo or hypocritical(forgive the blunt adjectives but i was going to say, a little hard to understand or swallow -- schizo is more succinct.)
'I've never understood why children dying is any more tragic than anybody else dying, other than to pluck at the whimsy of bleeding hearts'
Uh... obviously intelligent person can empathise with people who find stem cell research, i.e. the separation and cutting up of embryos or future humans, regarded by many of faith as humans from the moment of conception, as morally reprehensible, but you do not understant why completely innocent children dying (in unnecssary and therefore criminal on a mass scale wars, with their body parts spilled onto the road as i've seen on countless occasions infront of dead or alive and grieving parents) you don't understand why that's any more tragic, than what perhaps? Than genocide? Than Virginia Tech? Than... Katrina? Are we a-c-t-u-a-l-l-y going to have a scale of slightly tragic to ultra-tragic ruler, before we say this is disgusting, inhuman, against all our human and social principles which we jump defend -- but not in other countries. TRANSPLANT what is going on in Iraq and Afghanistan RIGHT NOW to the streets of heartland USA and tell me if it's acceptably, or tragically acceptable. No, it is never acceptable and must for all our sakes end -- not when we hit the one million mark of murdered in cold blood (i'm sorry, collaterally incinerated..) but NOW.
'When those factors are considered with the larger picture of who Saddam was, had been, and loudly proclaimed he wished to be, a justification for deposition can be formulated.'
Absolutely PL. Again, your bright brain waves have expressed truth. But, what the ****? If you think, that War and mass invasion was the ONLY way to depose a flea of a man who only swaggered because we backed and payrolled him, when the CIA runs covert ops at forty billion a year and coundn't have figured out a 'bloodless' or minimal bloodshed coup at the cost of a few million dollars to the right people, instead ?? -- IF THE INVASION-BENT ADMINISTRATION HAD LET THEM is beyond me and every thinking person who knows the region. We've done it in countless countries. How many countries have we regime-changed?? Countless. The difference this time? IRAQ is at least 60% SHIA. And we (read this Administration that palpably does not believe in democracy, either at home or abroad) doesn't want an Iran-friendly or allied Shia Iraq, with the second largest oil reserves in the world, bordering Iran, anywhere on the world map. Give us engineered ethnic (Shia-Sunni) conflict & cleansing any day of the week or year instead, that at least justifies our presence there. Ethnic conflict that Paul Wolfowitz, architect of Iraq 2003 from '91 (if not '78) swore on the eve of March 19 2003, would NEVER happen, because as Mr Wolfowitz said, it's never happened BEFORE in intermarried and very happily co-existing Sunni-Shia Islamic Iraq.
I have so many comments but finally...
'Was it a war of convenience? Possibly... I have no proof that the war was started with nothing but the best of intentions..... I don't believe that GWB set out to kill Iraqis.... I'm not really any more moved than I am when I see squirrel roadkill. Death is a horrible, horrible part of life. Nobody likes it. Nobody wants it.'
The above is actually hilariously blinded twisted. What the left hand doesn't see, the right won't reveal... It was not a war of convenience, that's old and in denial, it was a DELIBERATE war of deliberate deception conceived AT LEAST a decade earlier and leapt upon in glee post 9/11. Hurray!!! the Bushies thought and erupted on september 12th. This major tragedy is our ticket to economic riches beyond our wildest dreams and world domination no hands tied. We can do what the **** we like, because it's never going to be so easy and uncomplicated again. even a person who may like the President or give him the full benefit of the doubt (the same benefit that they wouldn't give any other living being on the planet in the same circumstances) must surely have read SOMETHING of the hundred of pages of evidence and testimonies from 2004 to today, about how 'well-intentioned' this Administration was vis-a-vis Iraq.
Hmmm, and i know i'm being a little callous here, but you have a problem with stem cells being butchered, or see how that could be a real problem to others, but dead kids worldwide to you are like dead squirrel? If you're a man of faith PL and i believe that you are by the way you write, though i could be wrong, God made man His viceregent on earth, God made the Angels kneel and bow before Adam, His first human creation.. not a squirrel. And while we're on the subject, if GOD had approved of 'pre-emptive' wars, he would have zapped Satan before the apple temptation in Heaven, so i don't see your comparisons as remotely logical or appropriate.
'Nobody likes it, Nobody wants it' but we're going to continue to do it anyway, correct? Not because it's DEMOCRATIC or freedom-loving or spreading in any shape or form, because 'NOBODY WANTS IT' -- nobody here, nobody in Iraq, nobody in the Arab World, nobody across the world. So, who exactly are we pursuing this policy of hypocritical and morally reprehensible mass murder for? Oh, I see, we're pursuing it for The Mafia and its cronies, and by this i refer also to the CRONIES in the oil-rich states and the so-called 'international community' (read: Blair, Merckel and now Sarkozy against the will fo their collective populations,) because Mr Bush started it 'in good faith' so let him finish the job, right..? No. You can elect to watch other parents' children die (whether they be Americans Iraqis Palestinian Lebanese or Israelis.... the list is endless...) and regard it as roadkill (or equivalent to.) Others, who thankfully use the full faculties that God gave them, will do their very best to stop it ASAP. And i'm not talking about the Democrats, because they can collectively jump off a high bridge too, if they're not going to put an end to their share of guilt by negligence and association.
JT,
Thanks for the response. Like Markadelphia, JW, and BLK, I don't think you actually addressed any of my points, but I can certainly understand that your feelings on the subject(s) are strong, and I appreciate that. Particularly since your voice is apparently one for which I am attempting to speak on the stem cell issue.
You are mistaken on several counts in your posting, some of which I'll address below. Perhaps clarification of those points will help illustrate that my rationale is far from blinded or twisted. You may not like my particular point of view, but it's far from irrational.
If you thought my argument was about never taking a human life then I apparently was making my argument quite poorly, because I would never take that particular stance. I'll aim to improve the clarity of my argument next time.
I am not a man of faith. Never have been. Therefore your appeals to what God might think bear no weight with me. What I know of the different world religions I have acquired solely through study and observation.
--begin sarcasm-- If you find my comparison between a squirrel and a child inappropriate, then I must be doing something right. --end sarcasm --
(Right Markadelphia? That's how it works?)
I never suggested that I can't understand why innocent children dying is a tragedy. It's a terrible tragedy, as I thought I made perfectly clear. All deaths are a tragedy to someone, whether or not the deaths were "senseless" and whether or not the people dying were children. I wasn't the one who introduced the "ruler of tragedy" - in fact I argued for exactly the opposite. That all tragedy is tragedy. What I argued is that children dying happens all the time, as a result of my actions, your actions, and our government's actions. Suggesting that public policy should change to eliminate such death is truly what lacks logic because human nature precludes that from happening. We can wish all we want that it weren't that way, but I don't know of one era in human history that actually gives us hope that it could be so.
Lastly, I won't waste time responding in depth to your charges re: the intentions behind the war. We've been there, done that. The "hundreds of pages" of proof you cite fail to move me, as has been discussed so many times on this blog. I'll stop there for fear of taking this discussion too far off a topic that actually remains interesting to me.
PL, response is repectfully noted and absorbed. But i have to reply to one suggestion in the second half of this thought:
'What I argued is that children dying happens all the time, as a result of my actions, your actions, and our government's actions.'
No. Never my actions -- and that's the point. Never will i knowingly compacently negligently or ignorantly support ANY policy of the single or systematic death of innocents (i stress innocents, i am not a pacifist, i support JW's belief above that WAR is a final option, this war was not by a long shot) at any time, through any instrument of death -- be they geniuses or assholes.
That's the choice we make, and that's the responsibility we bear as citizens of a 'civilised' democracy, when we support or take a stand for or against legislation and when we support or take a stand for or against unjust wars. JT.
While on a larger scope I believe you are correct when you say you do not support any policy or action that results in the death of innocents -- an admirable stance, indeed -- at a smaller scale I believe you do support such policies. My point being that, unless you grow your own food, make your own clothes using materials that you generate on your own, commute to work using means that you fabricate yourself at a job that does not generate revenue for shareholders, and then commute home and spend the balance of your waking hours divesting yourself of material possessions in an effort to feed and clothe the people around the world who don't have the basic necessities of life, then you actually are supporting the systemic death of innocents, even if only through inaction on your part. Anything short of that can invariably be tied to appalling policies and conditions throughout the world that exist largely because of the capitalistic society in which we live and that we perpetuate. Even if you drive a gas-burning car you complacently support policies that result in the deaths of innocents, do you not?
A stretch? Perhaps. Again, I understand the distinction between supporting policy decisions and the scenarios I describe. I'm simply suggesting that I would not be so quick to dismiss the notion that we all complacently, negligently, and/or ignorantly support policies and conditions that result in the death of innocents. The morality-based argument against war loses some steam when considered in such a context, in my book. It's admirable to oppose the macroeconomic and political policies that you cite, but the micro- policies continue on.
I'd be curious to hear your thoughts on the notion that there is also the realistic possibility that there are no policy choices that avoid the deaths of innocents altogether. For example, the Saddam/Iraq scenario. One might well argue that inaction on the part of the US would have resulted in the deaths of innocents in Iraq. (Political opponents of Saddam, etc., who past history suggests did not have long life expectancies.) If we accept that Saddam was not an "innocent" and conclude elimination-by-assassination was a good plan, then we face the reality that the resulting political turmoil would have led to the deaths of innocents. Ultimately, I guess, I would argue that there are some issues for which there exists no policy that doesn't result in the deaths of innocents. Your thoughts?
I had intended to include the thought that, because of my presumption above (that there may be issues for which no policy exists that eliminates the deaths of innocents), measuring a policy by the number of innocents who have died seems to be a dubious measure of a policy. I'm not in the business of keeping a policy body-count scorecard and choosing the policy with the lowest score. I'm simply suggesting that to offer a bodycount as proof that a policy is bad is offering a false alternate reality.
We, as human beings, affect the world around us. There are things that we can do to minimize that effect, so the question is not so much polar extremes (either we are killing people or we are not), but degrees to which we find acceptable. The war in Iraq exceeds what I find acceptable and my point has been to challenge those that support the war to justify their support.
The Iraq situation was initiated without due consideration of what was going to happen when we got there (it was a foregone conclusion that we would militarily wipe out the Iraqis), how long we were going to be there, why we were really going there what the current situation was. Here you have a dictator who has violated UN Resolutions, yet posed no real threat to either us or his neighbors, especially after the first war and the Clinton years bombings. By the way, do you know who else is on the list of violated UN resolutions...the U.S., Israel and several others. Yet oddly, no action is taken against those countries...interesting.
In my opinion, the Iraq situation should have been left alone. No deposing, no regime change. Eventually, Hussein would have passed or his own people would have tossed him out. A conservative value that is constantly brought up is individual responsibility...who appointed us World Police? Things were bad in Iraq, had been bad, but were they any worse then several other countries in the world? I say there are at least 3 other places where U.S. intervention would have made more of a difference then it did in Iraq, yet we ended up there. Was there a convergence of interests (other than humanitarian regime change) that led to that conflict? I would say yes, and it was those other things that I find distasteful. No-bid contracts for companies with government representation. I can be accused of being anti-capitalist, but it simply isn't true. I believe in the system, but reject the notion that it must be at someone else's expense.
People die in conflict, that is the nature of the beast. My point is that the U.S. should not be involved in it in Iraq or in this region.
See John, you and I are not so different on some issues. Our view that there is such a thing as acceptable limits on how we influence the world around us is not so dissimilar, and we certainly agree that once in Iraq the administration has made mistake after mistake.
I, for one, do not find it interesting that the US and Israel (among others) are on the list of countries that have violated UN resolutions, as I give little to no weight to the notion that the UN is always acting as an unbiased governing body.
As in the past, we'll have to agree to disagree on the validity of the case for deposing SH, but as I have conceded in the past, I have no doubt that a significant factor in the decision to invade Iraq was the misguided belief that it would basically be a cakewalk. A nation more capable of defending itself with a leader behaving similarly to SH would likely not have been invaded.
I would dispute the notion that SH "posed no real threat to us or his neighbors" as having the benefit of hindsight. As has been well documented, even the UN's chief inspector perceived SH to be in material violation of SCR1441. It's not at all a significant stretch of the imagination to conclude that such a violation could involve being the threat that SH so often blustered about being. But again, I suspect we'll have to agree to disagree on that point.
okay i just posted a reply that the world will never see (**world sighs in relief**:) because it was lost in ether space and i can not be bothered to retype it.
Just logged on and read Pl & JW above, very interesting.
The world would be a better place if more of my postings met the same fate, I'm sure! Still, there are precious few of us interested in trying to keep Markadelphia in line....
Some really great thoughts folks and I'm glad my post has stirred so much discussion. I can only hope that the end result is a better path for our country.
I don't know why postings are not working. If you have a lengthy response, I would type it in Word and then cut and paste.
PL, I know you personally and I think you are good man. In fact, I would have to say that you are one of the most moral people I know. You have helped people out when they are down and have gone out of your way to help people you don't know. Basically, I would trust you to do the right thing in just about any situation.
I also think that you are a smart guy. That's why I am puzzled why you would continue to listen to a group of people (Bush Admin) that are wrong about so many things...or would even debate that they are wrong. I think that in any other area of your life if someone had been wrong so many times, I know you would stop listening to them and start questioning everything they do.
I think i know the answer to that Markadelphia, this is a guess based on knowledge and i don't think all of it may specifically apply to PL.
People are afraid, even good rational very logical people like PL (i don't know PL personally, i'm going by your observations which i'm trusting.)
They are afraid of the new threat, they believe in this threat to America by a certain category of people and they believe how this Administration describes the threat, each time, no question, bottom line.
So if, according to this belief, the Administration has correctly and quite ingeniously identified the threat, then it can also successfully deal with it, however long it takes. Whichever necessary methods are used.
George Bush is a good man, a great man, a visionary when it comes to foreign policy, he's going to drag half the world (mainly the non-christian and specifically the muslim world) out of the Middle Ages and into the 21st century, because he's a good Christian, theoretically a dispensationalist evangelical, (i know this doesn't apply to PL but it does to many others' thinking) so is Condoleeza Rice, another good Christian who believes the same things, so are many in the Administration (who may or may not be Christian.) We trust them to do the right thing and they are one of us, they are ultimately saved, that is the other side of the fear coin, this belief in finding a leader who truly represents us.
Us being the approximately 40-50 million americans out of 160 or so million evangelicals (not all of whom subscribe to this) who believe the end of the world will come to pass according to a series of events and in a very specific way.
btw, this has nothing to do with the Administration's real reasons for going to war, which are economic political and military and have nothing to do with democracy or liberation of people in the region or caring for their welfare, this Administration (as previous ones, including Clinton's and Reagan's) have very actively blocked any progress towards democracy and freedom in the Middle East and Arab World and are allied with the most undemocratic regimes there, whom we not only support, but strengthen with arms and financial aid.
JT,
I would ask that you not include me in characterizations that evolve into statements such as "they believe how this Administration describes the threat, each time, no question, bottom line." That could not be further from the truth in my case, and I don't deserve to be even marginally attached to such tripe.
Markadelphia,
The Bush administration has been wrong about a great many things. No question. But the fact that somebody has been wrong about so many things doesn't mean one should necessarily stop listening to them. In a situation where I could walk away from or otherwise be rid of such an individual, you are correct to think I would. We are afforded no such luxury with GWB or any of the other clowns in Washington. An idea of yours that I supported a while ago on this blog was that if the US was a corporation, GWB would have been shown the door years ago.
I am concerned that your statement "continue to listen" implies that you believe I tend to support GWB policies, something that you should know is not true. There are only a handful of the significant policies of his that I actually do support. When I deem him to be wrong, I say so. When I deem him to be right, I say so. But I refuse to partake in what I perceive to be the illogical leaps in logic, or perhaps just simple smear tactics, that predictably involve calling GWB a liar, a murderer, etc. That crosses a line I'm not willing to cross. I'm not really impressed by the notion that removing GWB from office (the ends espoused in your original posting) justifies telling lies (the means). Or, if you take offense to the term lies, then I'll settle for "representations of information that cannot be disproven therefore are presumed to be true, because those representations are consistent with a desired reality." (Sounds a bit like accusations leveled at GWB re: the Iraq War, doesn't it.)
Take NCLB, for example. While I support the concept, I don't support the specific policy. But if you go on this blog and start posting statements such as "GWB supports NCLB because it helps keep the constituency stupid" I'm going to argue against you, even though I don't specifically support the policy. (That's not a direct quote, btw....it's a conglomeration of several ideas on several topics that you've posted in the past).
Fundamentally, I guess, it's the difference between attacking the man and attacking the policy. If debating attacks against the man means I "support" or "listen to" him, then I guess I'm guilty of doing exactly that.
I have a NCLB column coming soon...I think you will like it.
I think it might be your reaction, then, to the criticisms of Bush which then comes down to opinion. I think George Bush is a liar. You think he was misinformed. I look at him and I see death. Again, an opinion but his policies, to me, bear it as a substantiated one, not a wild leap.
I guess to me a wild leap would be to say that Hillary Clinton always tells the truth in everything she does:)
Don't get me wrong, I believe GWB is a liar. I suspect one has to be in order to reach the office of President. I just do not believe that he lies to the degree you say he does, nor do I believe that his actions are constantly grounded in sinister motives as you do.
I can agree that his motives are less sinister than Cheney's.
Bush is more of a wannabe...see, Dad? I can be cool just like your friends even though I don't know what I am doing half the time and make decisions based on a horribly crule and misguided belief system.
Cheney, however, is pure evil, knows it, and doesn't really care if anyone else does.
…been traveling and I see I’ve missed some things. I’ll skip the caterwauling masses and focus on your diatribe…
Question:
Did you consider simply skipping the middleman and working with these millionaires to donate this money directly to the companies doing the research? (Side note: I thought medical & pharmaceutical companies were generally demonized by the left?) What I mean is, if your friend has millions and so-and-so above has millions and George Soros has billions, why do you need my money? Why not skip the middleman? Look at the numbers... You’ll all get together and put say, $50 million into trying to get the President out of office so that you can pass a bill which will, what, set aside maybe $20 million to the research you’re requesting? Why not just donate directly and/or focus that money on advertising to get additional donors to your cause? You’d probably 1) generate more money for your cause 2) not have to deal w/ bureaucratic red tape, 3) not have to dig your hand into the taxpayers pocket and 4) not have to deal with people who find it a morally questionable practice. Wouldn’t we all be a lot happier????????
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