President Obama is politicizing science in order to depoliticize science. In lifting the Bush administration’s limits on human embryonic stem cell research, Obama has declared the need to base scientific decisions “on facts, not ideology.”
Indeed.
Most Americans are unaware, and the mainstream media sees no need to tell them, that there hasn’t been a single beneficial therapy developed from embryonic stem cells, and that these cells have the nasty knack of spawning vicious cancers. Conversely, adult (non-embryonic) stem cells have produced numerous therapeutic treatments. Ignoring scientific fact seems like a strange way to promote fact-based science.
According to the Los Angeles Times, “Lifting Bush’s limits on research will reopen a door for science.” Obama himself frequently uses this straw man tactic.
Step 1: Falsely assert the occurrence of an event or the making of a claim.
Step 2: Vilify the supposed perpetrator of said event or claim.
In this case, no door had been slammed on science. Bush simply stopped government funding of embryo destruction. In fact, in columnist Charles Krauthammer’s words, President Bush gave “the most morally serious address on medical ethics ever given by an American president.” Unlike Obama’s advocacy for what many consider the taking of human life in the name of science, Bush’s speech was “so scrupulous in presenting the best case for both his view and the contrary view that until the last few minutes, the listener had no idea where Bush would come out.”
On the other hand, Obama gives no serious consideration to the view that some procedures are less moral than others. With his usual arrogance, the President blasts opponents as ideological even as he spouts ideology. Obama labels critics “divisive” while touting agendas that move ahead willfully blind to the devastation which those agendas shower on people targeted for “help.”
Obama observed, “Many thoughtful and decent people are conflicted about, or strongly oppose, this research. I understand their concerns, and we must respect their point of view.” Odd to show “respect” for people by making sweeping decisions over those people’s strenuous objections, and with no earnest attempt to engage the objectors in debate.
The President wants to restore “scientific integrity to government decision-making.” This is more curious still.
Integrity: firm adherence to a code.
Scientific: of, relating to, or exhibiting the methods or principles of science.
Well then, certainly Mr. Obama would want scientific funding justified in adherence to the principles of science. But this would mean objectively collecting data and making decisions based on that data and not based on ideology or politics.
Obama’s embryonic stem cell executive order gives Congress the green light to fund research which creates human embryos in order to destroy those embryos. Anyone who pays taxes and is one of the “thoughtful and decent people” who think terminating an embryo terminates a life will be forced to fund an act which they believe does precisely that.
The lesson repeated once again here is that when zealots cannot win hearts and minds, they bully with the force of government. This has become the Obama modus operandi. Exude depravity which impersonates enlightenment. Feign graciousness while labeling opponents “divisive.” Anyone disagreeing is simply wrong.
The President also cancelled a Bush executive order that encouraged the National Institutes of Health to pursue non-embryo-destroying sources for stem cells. Liberals can’t condone avoiding embryo destruction. Such advocacy would weaken the liberal position on a more obvious kind of baby-ending action.
Last October, Barack Obama jazzed an adoring crowd by proclaiming, “We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America.” Though the U.S.S.R. failed colossally at the central planning which the Soviets claimed would forge a collectivist paradise, the current American president and his smirking donkeys are now taking on the Soviet mission. The progressive herd brushes aside 221 years of thriving democratic republicanism and invites centralized social democracy à la Western Europe. Leave personal finance and morality up to the people? Surely not. Democrats must decide such matters for us all from their perch high on The Hill.
The “transformation” has begun.
