Terrapin Tables

Congress: here's a law we voted on.
Bush: Giggity, I like it except for line 3, so we get to ignore line 3. Says me, the President.
Supreme Court: *snores* Somebody say something? Whatever you want, Mr. President.

That's about how it works. There is no enforcement of the check and balance system anymore—Bush has the courts under his control and Congressional mandates, when they manage to pass, are just ignored. Bush has kind of set up a cult of personality where whatever he says goes...and that makes me feel like Michael in Arrested Development. Him? His personality? Are you sure?

I'm specifically impressed with "Bush has regularly reinterpreted these mandates as 'advisory' measures that he is free to ignore" [from the SFGate article]. I do the same thing with speed limits, age of consent laws, and marijuana policy, and somehow I'm a "criminal" that needs to "tell his neighbors he's an offender" and "stay away from middle school playgrounds." This sucks.

Have you noticed how good Iraq is for his bullshit? He keeps falling back on war and terror as the reasons he needs to extend his powers, but the war is one he created and "terror" could have been managed by 1) appropriate military action where it counts and 2) revised and respectful foreign policy.

If I were a Star Wars nerd I would say something about him wanting to become Supreme Chancellor, but I'm too cool to even begin to know what I'm referencing here.

If he goes about five or six steps more over the line, which he's sure to try in the next 17-plus months, then he's going to have a new problem: domestic terrorism. I'm calling that one now.

Oh, and I want to fistfight him. Really. Fair fight and all that, I just want to kick his ass. I'm taller, bigger, I think the reach is about equal. I gotta think I'm smarter. Plus I have (relative) youth and (overflowing) rage on my side.

Hmm, what to respond to first?

Well, as I was typing this, Chris pretty much summed up my outrage over what Bush has done with the presidency, so I've got nothing else to add on that.

So, moving on to the ES cell research. This really pisses me off that Bush is going to veto this. I realize that because of his religious views, he considers embryos to be humans, so I can respect his respect for human life, but it's just unfounded, and there's no excuse for his ignorance on this issue. What makes a bunch of undifferentiated cells a person? The fact that through technology, we can implant them into a uterus and they might possibly develop into a fetus, and then from there maybe go on to fully develop and be born? What happens when we figure out how to do that with any old cell from the body? Will it then be murder to dispose of any human cells, because they all have the potential to be developed into another person?

And I might as well bring up the classic hypothetical scenario that always gets brought up in blog discussions on this:

If it were "bring your daughter to work day" at the fertility clinic, and a fire broke out, what sane religionist would recommend that the mother/doctor rescue the petri dishes rather than the darling six-year-old with the nimbus of curly golden hair and trusting tadpole eyes?

Granted, it's not a guarantee that ES cells will lead to practical treatments for diseases, but there's a really good chance that they will. So why deny those treatments to the thousands of people suffering and dying? It's a pretty cruel thing to outlaw research into cures for diseases.

The stem cell thing is, in this case, an indefensible position when subjected to any sort of rational thought process. These cells go in the trash, and the law will mandate they will go in the trash. If a resource that is being wasted can be put to good use, why not do it?

Because this is not a rational group of thinkers. What just might bother me most about these people is their inability to step outside themselves for one second and realize their opinions, beliefs, and ideas are not universal, are not necessarily correct, and in this country these ideas are not (legally) allowed to determine policy. I mean, that's the way it used to be, doing what was most right for the most people and all that.

And you know, I thought of something when it comes to gay marriage. If the right/Jesus bunch/President is all, "the Bible says marriage is between a man and a woman," then what about Hindu, Jewish, or anything else marriages? Once America legally recognized marriages outside of the Christian faith the argument about "the Bbile says" should be laughed out of the room.

The whole thing about the embryos going into the trash really is the highlight of how absurd this is. Aside from that fact, then I can see why someone with religious views would veto this law.

It's pretty much the same debate as with abortion - some people feel that embryos are human, or at least have the potential to become human, and because of that, they are deserving of the rights that we, the already born, enjoy. And I can't really argue that - if they accept embryos as human, then that's it. We can't fight that kind of reasoning unless we really attack the root idea of what is and isn't a human. Hopefully, that is something that we can get done by simple education - I'd imagine most people wouldn't even know what an embryo looks like. I only know now because of all these debates going on now (one radio host said to take a pen, and just make a quick dot on a piece of paper - that dot is larger than the embryos we're talking about). If we can get people to accept that a group of undifferentiated cells is not a human, than we can get them to support measures like this bill.

And for the record, I still think stepping on an ant is more morally wrong then stepping on a group of stem cells. Won't someone please think of the ants!?

If we accept that embryos have rights than it's a slippery slope until sperm cells have rights...and then, friends, masturbation will become genocide. And then I will begin a killing spree.

Seriously though, I think trying to convince religious zealots of the scientific principles is a futile effort. If that were possible no one would be in Turkey looking for Noah's Ark, no one would think Darwin was an asshole, and nobody would be playing this game. We just need politicians with the balls to get up and say, "No...not yours." Good luck.

But exactly like we can never convince fundamentalist Muslims that Ally McBeal is a suitable television show we'll never convince, say, Jerry Falwell that humans and dinosaurs never coexisted and that embryonic by-products can be used to heal upwards of 74 (I think that's the current number) diseases.

I don't have much to add, since I kinda have to watch my P's & Q's, excpet that I weep for the direction this country is headed.

He said he was going to veto it, everybody expected him to veto it, but deep down you never really believe someone can be that stupid until they actually do it.

I want him to go visit someone paralyzed and living life in a wheel chair (or with Parkinson's, or whatever other condition you want to bring up), look them in the eye, and explain to them why he thinks that a few dozen undifferentiated cells that were going to be destroyed, anyway, are more important than finding a treatment for their condition. "...crossed a moral boundary" my ass - what type of a moral boundary is it to withhold this type of research. Fucking asshole.

And it's not just finding cures for diseases - what's wrong with doing basic research for the sake of doing research? Who knows where it's going to lead. And as far as Rick's ant comment, I'll add to that, that I certainly think it's more morally objectionable to perform tests on mice that we know can feel pain, than to do research on stem cells. Oh wait, that's right, no matter how much they squeal, mice don't really feel pain because they don't have souls.

I want him to go visit someone paralyzed and living life in a wheel chair (or with Parkinson's, or whatever other condition you want to bring up), look them in the eye, and explain to them why he thinks it's God's will.

I am not pleased by this chain of events. As I have conquered the dreaded Clock Spider, so too shall I right the ship of American politics. You have been warned. Word is bond, bitches.