Republicans and Democrats; Substance and Style

The now famous exchange from the South Carolina CNN Democratic Debate about Reagan, Walmart, and Slum Lords has been getting a ton of press coverage.

That exchange sort of cements an impression I've gotten from watching entirely too many Republican and Democratic debates. The Republican debates have focused on issues and solutions. What's our best approach to fixing illegal immigration? How to we win against the threat of Islamo-fascism? And the list goes on. In short, they've been debating substance.

Meanwhile, the second most common phrase at the Democrats' debates — second only to "change" — has been "I couldn't agree more". And then, instead of any serious exploration of an issue, it becomes "I have 35 years of experience" versus "I bring hope". In short, they've been debating style.

At least now, with this latest exchange — where the debate on style went from positive to negative — people might sit up and notice.

Additionally, while on this note about style, I'd just like to point out that it hasn't been Republicans that have been asking if Obama is "black enough" or stirring up a controversy by playing the race card versus the gender card. Please file this away for the next time you hear liberals slamming conservatives for "always playing the race card" or some such.

Also, related, there is this notion that Barack Obama represents this mystic change in politics towards "the middle" and "bi-partisanship". How does that notion square with comments like "I spent a lifetime fighting against Ronald Reagan's policies"? How about slamming his opponent for "[providing] much more fulsome praise of Ronald Reagan in a book by Tom Brokaw"? Attacking Ronald Reagan is now "bi-partisan" and "moderate"? Attacking a man who actually did make an appeal across party lines?!

I also don't get what's moderate about attacking an opponent on the basis that she was on the board of "the most prodigious job-creator in the history of the private sector". Attacking Wal-Mart, which not only provides Americans with jobs, but also much lower prices on everyday products is no moderate position (nor, in my opinion, is it a smart one.)

A Thirty Five Year Tragedy

For starters, I have roughly the same thoughts as a year ago, so start there.

And, if I can direct you to just one additional place, it would be this: The Roe IQ Test. See how much you do or don't know.

There is some good news. The pro-life message appears to be taking hold:

The news that the abortion rate has fallen to its lowest level in 30 years elicits various explanations, from increased use of contraceptives to lack of access to abortion clinics. But maybe the chief reason is that the great majority of Americans, even many who see themselves as pro-choice, are deeply uncomfortable with it.

In 1992, a Gallup/Newsweek poll found 34 percent of Americans thought abortion "should be legal under any circumstances," with 13 percent saying it should always be illegal. Last year, only 26 percent said it should always be allowed, with 18 percent saying it should never be permitted.

Sentiments are even more negative among the group that might place the highest value on being able to escape an unwanted pregnancy: young people. In 2003, Gallup found, one of every three kids from age 13 to 17 said abortion should be illegal in all circumstances. More revealing yet is that 72 percent said abortion is "morally wrong."

And, that "lowest level in 30 years" is a level that's down 25% since 1990.

Also encouraging is that the Pro-Life movement still has the attention of the left.

Being an election year, it's worth noting where the candidates stand on the issue. It's an issue that continues to be a clear differentiator between Republicans and Democrats. There are exceptions, like Rudy, but even Ron Paul (an OB-GYN, for what that's worth) opposes abortion: "The right of an innocent, unborn child to life is at the heart of the American ideals of liberty."

On the other side, you have the Clintons, and their position of "safe, legal, and rare". (One does wonder, if abortion is A.O.K., why does it need to be rare?) And, Obama, who voted against the "Born Alive Infants" bill which aimed to recognize that a fetus which survives an abortion to be treated as a human being.

Back on the Republican side, you also have John McCain, who, generally has a good pro-life record. But he's being taken to task for going after Wisconsin Right to Life (and rightly so).

Update:
Michelle Malkin notes Thousands march on Washington…MSM yawns.

Alexham, over at Red State, rightly points out that Bush has been right on the money on the life issue. From Bush's remarks:

Thirty-five years ago today the United States Supreme Court declared and decided that under the law an unborn child is not considered a person. But we know many things about the unborn. Biology confirms that from the start each unborn child is a separate individual with his or her own genetic code. Babies can now survive outside the mother's womb at younger and younger ages. And the fingers and toes and beating hearts that we can see on an unborn child's ultrasound come with something that we cannot see: a soul.

Today we're heartened -- we're heartened by the news that the number of abortions is declining. But the most recent data reports that more than one in five pregnancies end in an abortion. America is better than this, so we will continue to work for a culture of life where a woman with an unplanned pregnancy knows there are caring people who will support her; where a pregnant teen can carry her child and complete her education; where the dignity of both the mother and child is honored and cherished.

Finally, Ken Shepherd wonders "Was 2007 the Year of the Pro-Life Movie?".

John McCain

This is going to more of a link-fest than my own commentary. He's a little bit of my own commentary though: No. Please, please, please, no.



In Favor of McCain

Michael Medved, How to Identify a "Real Conservative". In Summary:

• Don't listen to the "talk radio titans and sharp-tongued pundettes" (except Michael Medved apparently?)


• "But they should listen carefully to heroes like Tom Coburn, the Senator from Oklahoma who's universally esteemed as one of the strongest conservative voices in Washington ... and earlier this week the Oklahoman endorsed his Arizona colleague for President."

Against

The commenters of Michael Medved's How to Identify a "Real Conservative". (Pretty much every single one is against McCain. Ouch.)


In Favor Of

Gerard V. Bradley, Pro-Life, Pro-McCain: A candidate with an unmatchable record on life issues. In Summary:

• If you don't count "embryo-destructive research", "McCain's track record makes him the best of a small number of good choices." (Umm, problem: I do count his miserable and non-pro-life record on "embryo-destructive research", so does National Right to Life.


• "Of the remaining Republican candidates, only McCain (so far as I know) has plainly said that all torture is wrong, and that Americans simply should not do it. I agree with him." (Dear Gerard, all the candidates have denounced torture. The debate is with how to classify water-boarding. Which. Has. Nothing. To. Do. With. Abortion. Or. Destruction. Of. Embryos. Nice try to reach though?)

In Favor Of

Patrick Hynes, A McCain Coalition?. In Summary:

• Well, he coins the phrase "McCain Derangement Syndrome" ... Oh please.


• "McCain won South Carolina by putting together a remarkably broad coalition of mainstream Republicans, evangelicals, seniors, veterans and Independents." (Let me boil this down to 'general election appeal', which is a very valid point.)

Against

George Will, Fact-Checking the Straight-Talk. (Note: Since Will defended McCain in April, I found this column surprising.) In Sumary:

• "In ABC's New Hampshire debate, McCain said: 'Why shouldn't we be able to reimport drugs from Canada?' A conservative's answer is: That amounts to importing Canada's price controls, a large step toward a system in which some medicines would be inexpensive but many others ... would be unavailable. Setting drug prices by government fiat rather than market forces results in huge reductions of funding for research and development of new drugs."


• "Because McCain is a 'maverick' -- the media encomium reserved for Republicans who reject important Republican principles."


• "He has indeed worked with Ted Kennedy on immigration reform, with Russ Feingold on restricting political speech (McCain-Feingold) and with Kennedy and John Edwards -- a trial lawyer drawn to an enlargement of opportunities for litigation -- on the 'patients' bill of rights.'"


• "He promiscuously accuses others of 'corruption,' the ubiquity of which he says justifies McCain-Feingold's expansive government regulation of the quantity, timing and content of campaign speech."


• "McCain says he would nominate Supreme Court justices similar to [Scalia, Thomas, Roberts and Alito]. But how likely is he to nominate jurists who resemble those four: They consider his signature achievement [(McCain-Feingold)] constitutionally dubious."


• "McCain asserted that corruption is the reason drugs currently cannot be reimported from Canada. The reason is 'the power of the pharmaceutical companies.' When Mitt Romney interjected, "Don't turn the pharmaceutical companies into the big bad guys," McCain replied, 'Well, they are.' There is a place in American politics for moralizers who think in such Manichaean simplicities. That place is in the Democratic Party."


• Concerning the question of whether human activity is causing catastrophic warming, [McCain's joint op-ed with Lieberman] said, 'the debate has ended.' ... People only insist that a debate stop when they are afraid of what might be learned if it continues."

Against

Riehl World View, Three Reasons Why McCain Can't Win The General Election. Summary:

• "Once we reach the General, [Clinton] will take away McCain's only real strength with his own words. He conveniently provided a video: 'Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran.' They'll weave a narrative between his well-known temper and foreign policy, making him look like a loose cannon a war weary general electorate won't go near."


• "'[McCain] threw [his ex-wife] over for a poster girl with big money from Arizona [Cindy McCain, his current wife] and the rest is history.'"


• "The disaffection with McCain among the most loyal of the GOP base, conservatives, will suppress the vote enough to make winning the presidency an ocean too wide ... McCain will sink as Bob Dole II"

Against

Hugh Hewitt and Mark Levin. See here. At issue: The Gang of 14, "Conservatives ought never to throw fellow conservatives up for confirmation and especially judicial nominees under the left's bus. The Gang of 14 did just that. It's leader was John McCain."


Against

Mark Leven (again), Speak Up!. In Summary:

• "In his campaign to close Guantanamo Bay, McCain has led the effort to confer constitutional and international rights on the enemy."


• "His muddled thinking as applies to interrogations - comparing water-boarding to torture (a rarely used technique that has, in fact, saved American lives according to our nation's top intelligence official) makes it difficult for any interrogator to do his job without concern for his career and financial well-being."


• "McCain-Feingold is without question the greatest assault on free political speech since Buckley v. Valeo, and is far more draconian."


• "McCain filed a brief in the Supreme Court with several Democrats against the Wisconsin Right to Life organization challenging its right to run informative ads prior to an election. Wisconsin Right to Life won. Ironically, as best I can tell, this is the most aggressive action he has taken in all his years in Washington on the right-to-life issue, which probably explains why the vast majority of these groups have endorsed other candidates."


• "The McCain-Kennedy amnesty bill was among the most irresponsible and reckless budgetary and economic legislative efforts of all time."


• "McCain has repeatedly demanded that federal power be used to tame perfectly legitimate private enterprises, from energy and pharmaceutical companies, to media companies and anything else he considers 'corrupt'."


• "Time and again McCain resorted to class warfare propaganda, asserting that he opposed the tax cuts because they 'favored the rich.'"


• "McCain has proposed everything from a massive database of carbon emitters, capping carbon emissions, trading carbon emissions, taxing carbon emissions, and so forth."

Against

Deroy Murdock, Not Right for the Right: McCain won't do. He starts with some positives:

• "His torturous Vietnam experience demands the deepest respect."


• "His eternal vigilance against absurd and costly government boondoggles is unsurpassed."


• "He forcefully backed President Bush's military surge."

Then, the negatives. In Summary:

• "McCain diligently has stymied conservative, free-market policies."


• "While he generally is appropriately hawkish overseas, he is dangerously soft on captured terrorists."


• "It often is anyone's guess whether he will support the Right or sandbag its efforts"


• Rejected Bush's tax cuts


• McCain-Feingold


• McCain-Kennedy


• "As barrels of oil oscillate between $90 and $100, and rising energy prices make driving, flying, and heating costlier, GOP voters should know that McCain rejected drilling in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge at least four times."


• "The McCain-Lieberman bill would combat alleged 'global warming' by making power producers pay to exceed government-imposed limits on carbon dioxide emissions."


• "McCain opposed the Death Tax's repeal in 2002.


• "'I know a lot less about economics than I do about military and foreign policy issues,' McCain admitted to Wall Street Journal editorialist Stephen Moore in November 2005. 'I still need to be educated.'"


• "McCain vocally resists waterboarding, even though that interrogation technique finally elicited intelligence from taciturn al-Qaeda leaders and September 11 conspirators Abu Zubaydah and Khalid Sheik Mohammed. Their revelations helped U.S. officials capture and imprison at least 10 hardened Islamo-fascist terrorists - including the architects of the deadly U.S.S. Cole and Bali nightclub bombings - who collectively had murdered 3,216 and wounded 8,795."


• "'I served 12 years with him, six years in the Senate as one of the leaders of the Senate,' former Senator Rick Santorum (R., Pa.) told radio host Mark Levin January 10. 'John McCain was not only against us, but leading the charge on the other side.' Santorum ominously warned: 'There's nothing worse than having a Democratic Congress and a Republican president who would act like a Democrat in matters that are important to conservatives.'"

Against

Bill Hollis, "An Open Letter to the Grand Old Party". Quoting liberally:

Perhaps this letter is presumptuous of me. After all, I'm not a Republican and never have been. But I am in a group of voters the GOP needs to win. I'm in that freedom-oriented, libertarian-leaning, small government, low taxes group that was part of the Reagan coalition. Granted I'm a bit more minimal government than most in that group; I'd like to see the government down to less than a quarter of its current size. Anyway, you guys are going to have a hard time winning without we small-government afficiandos. Very hard.

So let me say this plainly. If you nominate Mike Huckabee or John McCain, you've lost me. I won't vote for your candidate. Period.

...

Let's look at these guys. First, McCain sponsored the worst rollback of free speech in this nation's history. He thereby shows utter contempt for the rights and freedoms of his fellow citizens. He also demonstrated that he will do anything - anything - to bolster his own reputation with people across the political spectrum.

He looks to me as if he has a 'great man' complex and is convinced that he's a world-historical figure. Such men are dangerous. George W. Bush, as mediocre a president as he's been, does not have those problems. Therefore, I must presume that a McCain presidency would be worse by far than the Bush presidency has been in the erosion of freedom and the continued expansion of the size and prerogatives of the federal government. For example, I'm convinced that McCain would 'reach out' to create a form of universal healthcare, giving in to the largest expansion of the federal government since the New Deal.

McCain tried to flex his world-historical muscles last year, by giving us a disastrous immigration bill that would do absolutely nothing to solve the problem, but would (he thought) give him another line in the history books. Having realized the magnitude of his misjudgment, he now utters mealy-mouthed assurances that he's 'learned his lesson' I suppose that's true, if the lesson he's learned is to do a better job of deceiving the citizenry next time he wants to jam something we don't want down our throats in the pursuit of yet more mentions in the history texts. (Oh, I realize he personally doesn't see himself that way. Too bad. That's the way I see him, and I've never seen a single example of behavior that would make me doubt that assessment.)

This and That

This, Senators Obama and Clinton, is called progress.

And this is another reason I'm gravely concerned about the general '08 election. Any disagreements with Clinton will be painted as sexism; with Obama, racism.

That is how much car prices are going to go up thanks to the new CAFE standards. ($6,000 ... thanks Congress and President Bush!)

And this is why "the idea that the United States, the world's single largest energy consumer, can be independent of the $5 trillion-per-year energy business -- the world's single biggest industry -- is ludicrous on its face". (H/T Pejman Yousefzadeh @ Redstate)

And, finally, that is the kind of 2008 change I'm looking for ... (market-driven).

Oh, OK, one more ... this (read the comments...) is yet another example of the left-leaning community that is Digg failing engage in anything that even approaches civil discourse. It's also a prime example of why I ditched Digg however many months ago, and why I'm glad I've never looked back.

Update: OK, really, just one more: This is reason #7,567,981 Planned Parenthood is evil. (My tax dollars at work, ending lives. That helps me sleep at night. Sign the petition [please!])

Candidates' Christmas Ads - Part 2

The spoof of Hillary's Christmas "holiday" ad by HotAir. Doesn't add much to the political discourse, but it's fun any how. My favorite is the "Jail pajamas for Norman Hsu".

This one's even lower-brow, but the parodies continue:

Update: And how could I have forgotten to include Huckabee's played backwards?

Jimmy Carters Spouts Off Again

Looking over Digg's top stories today, I noticed Jimmy Carter opened his big mouth again and, in typical fashion, some (most?) on Digg can't praise him enough (or insult the current Administration enough):

President Carter is one of the smartest and noblest men in our day. He dedicated his life to serving men, women and children in every capacity he could. With the heart of a tender-loving parent and decades of service at the highest levels of government comes incredible insight, outstanding judgment and sound wisdom.

I respect him, agree with him and believe these statement represent the feelings of the American people.

- "readthis", 5/19

Give. me. a. break.

Some on Digg know enough history to criticize Carter, but their comments are getting "dugg down."

Meanwhile, over at QandO, some excellent commentary from McQ that I can (heartily) agree with:

The paucity of credibility Jimmy Carter brings to such criticism should be evident to anyone who lived through his presidency. If there is anyone more responsible for feeding the "paper tiger" meme which has so enabled our enemies, I'd like to know who it is. The 444 days in which Iran kidnapped and exploited our embassy employees while he sat morose and powerless stands right up there as the worst, as far as I'm concerned.

...

Having lived through the Carter presidency and now Bush's, I'll take the latter any day of the week, mistakes, blunders, ineptness and all.

Unfortunately Carter has to be the exception to the unwritten rule that former presidents remain silent about the administrations of serving presidents. Like so much in his miserable life, he can't even get that right. Following that tradition would require grace, restraint and class, virtues Carter has never had.

Instead we're again exposed to the pathetic mewling of a washed up former president who so screwed up his watch that he's reduced to trying to criticize other presidents in hope of having them awarded the "world's worst" crown he's worn since he was run out of DC on a landslide.

Allow me to reiterate that - the unwritten rule that former presidents remain silent about the administrations of serving presidents. Amen.

There's plenty the Bush Administration has screwed up on. Those things deserve criticism and debate. But former presidents should have the perspective, civility, humility, and honor to, at least publicly, keep out of it.

Troll Whisperers and Bees in the Mouth

I came across a good read about managing angry people on the interweb today called "How To Keep Hostile Jerks From Taking Over Your Online Community". It's certainly not a short read, but it is worth while if you care about "internet culture," civility, discourse, and those kinds of things.

The author's main suggestion is that maintainers of social sites notice what "Troll Whisperers" do and emulate them. "Trolls" are, to quote The Indiepub Blog,:

Those angry, anonymous posters who mar Web communities of all types, are a scourge on useful discussion. These insidious little people crawl into the gears and tinker with the delicate machinery that makes a Web community hum.

And "Troll Whisperers" are other members of an online community that manage to take the teeth out of the things trolls post. One effective strategy the article mentions is to take all the vowels out of words in their post (tk ll th vwls t f wrds n thr pst) because it makes people read the post more slowly, reducing the effectiveness and provocation of their post. It also sends a strong signal of what's acceptable and what's not, without deleting what's not.

The article also made me think of two (excellent) recent Breakpoint commentaries that stemmed from a book titled "A Bee in the Mouth: Anger in America Now" — Cherishing Anger: A Bee in the Mouth and Anger in Public Discourse: The Rules of Engagement:

A respected journalist begins an article about the president with a statement of undiluted hatred. A prestigious Christian essayist takes every opportunity to rail publicly against Christians more conservative than she is. A famous conservative columnist uses a sexual epithet to describe a presidential candidate at a national conference.

Are these isolated incidents? Or do we have what Peter Wood calls a “national epidemic of anger”?

Wood, the provost and academic vice-president at King’s College, thinks that such an epidemic is indeed raging. In his new book, A Bee in the Mouth: Anger in America Now, Wood explores the roots of that anger and the way it manifests itself in our culture—which, he says, has turned itself into an “angri-culture.”

It's a disappointing state of affairs that there is so much anger and "troll-ing" in public discourse these days, both on- and off-line. I applaud Breakpoint for encouraging Christians to take the lead in turning that around.

Hopefully some day we won't have to put up with comments (with positive ratings!) on Digg like:

My g*d Bush is a f*ck*ng c*nt

or

But Bush is a total cluster-f*ck-- a failure before he was president who ran business after business into the ground, unless his daddy's friends bailed him out with crooked deals, like, give a contractor $200 million of Texas money to build a ball park-- get a few million for his share of the team he was partner owner in. Give hundreds of billions to crooked contractors-- get money in Swiss bank accounts.

Bush is a war criminal who has been the worst president in US history and the most hated creature who ever lived on this planet, more hated than Hitler (there are billions more people on the planet to hate Bush.)

And I won't have to deal with commenters like Marti Abernathey making ad-hominem attacks at me:

But I'm listening to Sean Hannity or Rush Limbaugh cuts into your learnin' time!

(Frankly, I'm not sure what that means, but I'm sure it was meant to be offensive, and it does nothing to advance the debate. Also, for the record, I don't listen to either Hannity or Limbaugh. And Limbaugh certainly doesn't do anything to help promote civility in discourse either.)

On Embryo Ethics

Life size model of baby at 8 weeks after conception

The Boston Globe recently ran an article about embryonic stem cell research titled "Embryo ethics". I suspect the article's author, Michael J. Sandel, and I draw fairly different conclusions at the end of the day, but I welcome his article to the debate. For far too longer, there's been effectively no debate.

Let me start by addressing some minor "meta" things that irked me before engaging in the debate myself.

First, the article made the front page of Digg, with the Digg submission titled "Embryo ethics: Why Stem Cells Aren't People". I suspect from the article that Sandel would agree that "stem cells aren't people" but he never makes that stark claim, nor does he in any sense "prove" such a claim.

Second, the Digg submission is in Digg's "General Sciences" category. Most of the article deals specifically with President Bush's views on embryonic stem cell research and the article is pretty much devoid of scientific facts and figures. It's largely philosophical and political (which is fitting given the fact that Sandel is a political philosophy professor at Harvard). The article should have been filed under "politics," not science.

Third and final "irk." In the Digg submission title, in the article lead in, and in the article's introductory sentence, the phrase used for "embryonic stem cell" is just "stem cell." Doing so confuses the debate and I wish people (by which I really mean "the media," I guess) would take the time to regularly differentiate what kind of stem cells they're talking about.

OK, now to the content of Sandel's article. Sandel uses the four pages of his article to ultimately arrive at the conclusion that President Bush's position on embryonic stem cell research isn't logically coherent. Sandel's argument boils down to:

[Bush] vetoed a bill that would have funded new embryonic stem cell research, saying that he did not want to support "the taking of innocent human life."

But it is a striking feature of the president's position that, while restricting the funding of embryonic stem cell research, he has made no effort to ban it.

...

If harvesting stem cells from a blastocyst were truly on a par with harvesting organs from a baby, then the morally responsible policy would be to ban it, not merely deny it federal funding.

Sandel's argument is a valid one, and I can recall Bush highlighting the fact he wasn't working to ban embryonic stem cell research as though that was a "good thing" back in the 2004 debates. When he did that, it rubbed me the wrong way because it doesn't make sense. "I'm commited to not having the government fund murder - but, don't worry, I'm not going to ban it!"

Unfortunately, I suspect most American might actually hold a similar view. And, in fact, Sandel event hints at this, saying "But those who view embryos in this way should not only be opposing embryonic stem cell research; they should also be leading a campaign to shut down what they must regard as rampant infanticide in fertility clinics. Some principled right-to-life opponents of stem cell research meet this test of moral consistency", which leaves a pretty strong implication that there is a good portion of the right-to-life community that isn't part of that "principled" "some".

The fact that the President and a supposed outside-the-principled-some don't have a logically coherent moral position doesn't dismiss the claim that a blastocyst stage embryo is a human being however. Sandel hints at an implication that it does some how dismiss that claim (and the Digg community is apparently buying that implication.) That implication is nothing more than a twist on the argumentum ad populum fallacy. ("If the majority can't believe it in a logically consistent way, it must not be true!")

And at this point, I'd actually like to draw on another logical fallacy - Loki's Wager. To quote Wikipedia:

Loki is a trickster god [...] who [...] once made a bet with some dwarves. The price should Loki lose the wager, it was agreed, would be his head. Loki lost the bet, and in due time the dwarves came to collect the head which had become rightfully theirs. Loki had no problem with giving up his head, but he insisted they had absolutely no right to take any part of his neck. Everyone concerned discussed the matter; and, one could suppose, they are discussing the matter still. Certain parts were obviously head, and certain parts were obviously neck, but neither side could agree exactly where the one ended and the other began. As a result, Loki keeps his head indefinitely.

Consider the question of "when (human) life begins." Like identifying what's a "head," there are some example it's easy to classify. A 20 year old, a five year old, and a 1 month old are all easily classified as "human life." How about a fetus only still partially in the womb? A fetus entirely still in the womb? An eight week old fetus (a model of which is shown above)? An eight day blastocyst stage embryo?

Much like distinguishing exactly where the neck ends and the head begins, deciding a cut off on when life begins is currently, at best, nothing more than conjecture and is colored as much by theology as science.

To give in to Loki's fallacy would be to conclude that since the "concept cannot be defined, [it] therefore cannot be discussed". That's not what I'm aiming for here. Rather, what I'd like to add to the embryonic stem cell research debate is the claim that until we can say with absolute certainty that a six to eight day blastocyst stage embryo is not a human person, we should withhold government funding from embryonic stem cell research (and, in fact, ban embryonic stem cell research).

Moral relativism quickly enters the picture and tries to blur things with a counter claim along the lines of "well, if I don't believe a blastocyst is a human person, I should be able to do research and/or be benefited by research done on human embryonic stem cells." This is yet another fallacious argument; if I hold a sincere belief that you aren't a valid human person, that doesn't give me license to experiment in a way that would destroy your life.

What matters is the actual nature of the blastocyst stage embryo: is it a human life or not? Until it can be definitively shown as not being a life, how dare we engage in activities that destroy what may be a human life.

via digg ...

Senator Frist; Citizen-Legislator

Senator Bill Frist paints a wonderful ideal in his farewell address:

I believe today, as I believed when I came here, in the ideal of a citizen legislator. And bittersweet though it might seem today—it is right.

I hope that my service, that the example of someone who had never served before, spent his life pursuing another profession, coming here and rising from 100 in seniority to Majority Leader, the example of a committed doctor who has been able to find purpose and fulfillment in serving others through public service – through elected office will inspire others to seek office. And those that come to serve after me as true citizen legislators will bring fresh perspective and new ideas that will in ways small and large make this country and this institution better.

And you’ve heard me talk about—even champion—term limits.

Today, self-imposed term limits are the extreme exception—not the practice in this city. As a consequence, we are moving toward a body with a two-year vision, governing for the next election — rather than a body with a 20-year vision, governing for the future. As we consider the future of this institution, I urge that we ask ourselves what it is our forefathers envisioned. Is today’s reality what they foresaw?

I urge that we also consider what our work in this Chamber is really all about.

Is it about keeping the Majority? Is it about Red States versus Blue States? Is it about lobbing attacks across the aisle? Is it about war rooms whose purpose is not to contrast ideas but to destroy. Or is it more?

When the Constitutional Convention met in 1787, delegates considered how best to structure the Legislative Branch of America’s new government. And they were determined not to repeat the mistakes of the Articles of Confederation, which had a unicameral legislature.

Speaking to the Convention, Virginia’s James Madison set forth the reasons to have a Senate:

’In order to judge the form to be given to this institution, it will be proper to take a view of the ends to be served by it. These were, first, to protect the people against their rulers; secondly, to protect the people against transient impressions into which they themselves might be led.’

Let us remember this vision of the Senate—that the Framers established the Senate to protect people from their rulers, and as a check on the House and on the passions of the electorate. And let us not allow the passions of the electorate be reflected as destructive partisanship on the floor.

Taking the oath of office commits each Senator to respect and revere the Framers’ dream.

To my successor, Bob Corker, and to all the Senators who will follow me in service to this great nation: I urge you to be bold, to make the most of your time here, look at problems with fresh eyes and steely determination, and give the American people a reason to believe in you and to hope for a better tomorrow.

In fairness, Frist lobbed plenty of attacks across the aisle while he was in the Senate, but here's hoping for a brighter political future. And three cheers for Frist staying true to his commitment of a two-term limit and reinvigorating the idea of a Citizen-Legislator.

(Side note: and this is why I'm not a fan of political news that can be found via Digg; I think there are actually more "moonbat"-esque liberal comments on Digg than at ThinkProgress. * Sigh. *)