THE GREAT DEBATE 11/25/07
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This week, we drink a ‘hoppy” beer. Two-Hearted Ale. Doug likes it again, while Nate and AJ are not so sure. Doug wonders if Nate and AJ are on the take from some company that makes a crappy beer (Berryweis?) We encourage you to join us “post-cast” and get involved in the dialogue, while we give major shouts out to Todd, Erika, and Dave. A little ol’ lady from somewhere in Alaska gets a very costly haircut. This week’s topic is stem cell research…now that the controversy is over:IS the controversy over or will there still be a call for destroying human life?
This Week In History seems like it’s going to go the distance, but then gets water cramps and places 15th. Doug is convinced that Agatha Christie is Angela Lansbury. Go here for the proof http://myspace.com/thegreatdebate and click on the videos link. Also, all of these holiday’s are taking a backseat to Jolly Old St. Nick, when is Arbor Day going to get a little love?
AJ tells two jokes, both make Doug and Nate smile and/or laugh.
Check out Claire's websites...
www.Clinique.com
http://uwp.edu/~ackle002/
34 Comments:
Yay, I beat Todd to the punch! I'm the first comment!
First, would like to contrast Doug's choice of the word "slaughtered" in regard to embryos used for stem cell research with some of his earlier comments: "I want them to kill every Al Queda SOB that even looks at them funny. I want them to blow things ups and kill as many of the enemy as possbile." (Going to get as much mileage out of this as I can!) and, paraphrased by Todd, "These guys who enlisted in the military hoping they would not have to go to war are scam artists? And they are getting what they deserve". Quite a statement on the sanctity of human life. Classic Republicanism - life is sacred...until you're actually born, then to hell with you.
Second, I'd like to suggest that you are looking at embryonic stem cell research somewhat myopically: that in your view OF COURSE using embryonic stem cells is a bad thing and shouldn't be done, but some scientists want to "politicize" things and use them anyway - probably just for the hell of it! No scientific basis! Just "slaughter" embryos because they can, to stick it to the man, then kick some puppies on the way home and call it a day. Fair enough, from your side of the aisle, but perhaps things look different on the other side of the aisle...maybe just maybe there is scientific validity to embryonic stem cell research (and I'm sorry but I'm having a hard time believing that NOTHING has come of 10 years of research), the scientists just want to go ahead and "do their science" using these stem cells, and pro-life folks such as yourself are the ones "politicizing" the issue and making a fuss about not wanting to use embryonic stem cells. That's the way things appear over here on the pro-choice side of the aisle.
Here are all my thoughts, of which there are many:
Ok first of all, I must say, clinique.com is not "my" website. I wish. I just work for the place. And I think bostonstore.com wouldn't help you find me much.
1.5) I also made a smoke butts clover for Nate. It was awesome until he left it somewhere when he moved or something like that :(
2) I use washclothes AND eat fish sandwiches. Am I therefore elderly? BTW: you can NOT wash your body with a bar of soap and expect clenliness. You must scrub with something. Boys don't know that! You have to rub something soapy AND textured all over your entire body every time, including your FEET and all it's little nooks and crannies, and including all of your STINKY MAN PARTS!
2.5) I have a theory that all man parts (and I am refering to the male parts on all males as opposed to all the parts of A male). The theory is this: every male's bits and pieces are stinky, no matter how you wash them, no matter what you wash them with, no matter when they were last washed. The smell does NOT wash off. Balls will always be balls, and they will always smell like balls. That's my theory. Aggree or disaggree?
2.75) I'm extremely glad that you discussed the difference between an ACTUAL loofa and those mesh balls that everyone THINKS is a loofa. Washing with a REAL loofa is painful and if you did it every day, you'd have like no skin left almost.
3) I know how to silk screen clothes and make cool buttons. Keep that in mind ;) I'm a handy friend to have around!
3.5) What of the logo, boys?? You likey? No likey? You mentioned them but didn't actually say much about them! I still need Nate's "physical debate costume" discription so I can work on that logo idea. AJ's logo ideas are icky! You know, you can't pick one of his logos without a voting thing. And you can't post my sketches if you're gunna do a voting thingie, you have to let me know so that I can make a more-better looking version so that people aren't voting on an ugly sketch versus something computericly developed and professional looking. Got it? Good.
4) I'm from Racine, I like long piggy-back rides on the beach, however I would like not to shower with AJ.
5) Ok, the free makeover promotion was over on the 18th. But you can still come in for a free consultation any time, and I still have SOME freebies I can give away. Makeovers now are back to needing an appointment and free with a purchase. But again, free consultation and some freebies for visiting Claire at Clinique at the Racine Boston Store.
6) I would suggest that AJ come to Clinique for some skincare help, but there's no hope for him. Ha ha. No seriously, Clinique has an entire men's collection of skin-care, including all sort of soaps and things, as well as fragrances and shaving goops and potions of different types. You know, pre shave somethings, post shave somethings, stuff like that. It's all handsomly packaged in smart, manly grey packaging.
7) I also posted a blog on myspace about your podcast. I'm your bestest listner. But your worst speller.
Oh yeah, one more thing...as if I haven't said enough already...just so your followers are properly informed: I do makeovers. I do not do facials. They are totally different things.
Oh yeah, I also painted a house-warming picture for Nate one time. Because I'm the most creativest.
Ok, time for work. Later.
Erika the Historian - you picked a marvelous spot for us to do an end run and kind of sneak through the backdoor towards dealing with the other discussion about "In fact, I would go so far as to say that humanity is headed for a paradigm shift in which we evolve past the need to judge people as right or wrong. I feel pretty strongly about this - am willing to go 10 rounds with you on it". Here I'm referring to " What gives you the right to decide who gets to live and who gets to die? Violence does not work. Period. Peace through War? Wasn't that the slogan of 1984? Violence merely begets more violence.” For our purposes I think you’ll eventually agree that it doesn’t really matter what the context was in which you said this originally.
I’m not going to get into who is a warmonger and who isn’t, but I do want to start here just so I can figure out where you are coming from in a larger context on something like violence. You can’t cheat here and say something like, “well, in my world, it would have never gotten to that point in the first place” because we’re not in your world, we’re in the world that is, was, etc. What is the proper way to react to and engage the Hitlers of the world when they’ve overrun Poland, half of France, and seem bent on conquering the rest of Europe, North Africa, and who knows what all else, all this while bizarre rumors are starting to come out of some parts of Poland that people are being brought in to camps on trains and aren’t leaving.
Part of the larger framework for this is the fact that all over the world violence is abounding today. Sure, they’ve got their sights set a little lower than Hitler had, but there are *many* people looking to trade up from their current lot through violence.
You can be a casual observer, you can be Churchill, you can be whoever you want, but your main task here is to help contextualize concepts like “violence does not work…peace through war?...violence begets more violence” etc. The reason is because I don’t think you believe some of those points as strongly as they came across in their original context. In other words, I think you really do believe someone had to rise up and violently stop Hitler. But I don’t want to assume either. (Frankly I’m not interested in how this ties into the current conflict in Iraq or Afghanistan or just war theory or anything, I’m rather just trying to establish that surely we can all agree sometimes “violence” is as close to necessary as can be.)
Don’t worry, we’ll get back to this paradigm shift of which you speak.
(And although dlubert sounds very distantly familiar, it certainly doesn’t sound familiar enough to pass for a secret handshake. I actually can't think of anything that is unique enough to be a secret handshake, although you did "win" the essay contest to become my assistant stage manager a long, long, long time ago.)
Actually, maybe you aren't the same Erika. It would be funny though if it turned out we each thought we knew who the other person probably was.
The internet is so annoying that way. But too much of your life can get ruined by not maintaining some measure of anonymity.
TIRADE DISCLAIMER…
…Erika, I think you rock too. I just think you could rock a little harder. I wrote this very late last night before I read The Wonderer’s comments, or The Historian’s final comment from last week.
I do not mean “you = Erika” every time I use the phrase “you” in the following. Sometimes I am indeed referencing The Historian and sometimes I am just referencing anyone who disagrees with me in general. I’ll let you fine folks work out the difference between the two.
I too am enjoying our debates. It is this exchange that I was hoping for in starting this podcast in the first place, tell your friends and neighbors to join in the fun. I appreciate that even though Erika and Todd can be SO wrong, so MUCH of the time, that we could still all get together and share a beer (or preferred adult beverage) and smile.
And I say “shame” to those of you who have not yet put your “informed” opinion out for the world to see and debate. I think it was Socrates that said the unexamined life is not worth living(?). Get to it people.
Dave and Erika, you are The Dave and The Erika. Sorry to spoil it, but the “will they, won’t they” was killing me.
Where the hell is Todd?
…END TIRADE DISCLAIMER
Dear Historian,
I think what is “classic” is the fact that, though you claim to have military friends and loved ones in harms way, you seem to be unable or unwilling to find any distinction between unborn, innocent, human life and the pieces of human debris that are currently trying to kill, maim, and otherwise harm your declared friends and loved ones.
I am not quite sure how you lump babies and homicide bombers into the same category. They’re not even in the same universe of morality. Babies are the essence of innocence. Jihadists are terrorist thugs that have forfeited their innocence through their actions. They live and (preferably) die by the sword. How do those two groups equate in your head?
Yes, it is true that Al Queda terrorists are examples of God’s gift of life and as such they are sacred. But they are also an example of God’s gift of choice and how horribly wrong that gift can be misused. We, as humans, have choice and we have to deal with the consequences of those choices. Choices cannot and do not exist in a vacuum. Hitler chose to try and kill as many Jews, Christians, Homosexuals, Gypsies etc. as possible. The consequence of this choice was his removal from power and Earth. Jihadists choose to achieve power through fear and violence. The consequence of this choice should be similar to Hitler’s.
I am not sure how anyone can still defend the barbaric practice of abortion in this enlighten age. I could go through the song and dance of how we’ve discovered that babies have a heartbeat at four weeks, or functioning brain activity at seven weeks. I could talk about the idea that a baby is genetically different from their mother and therefore puts the claim “My body, my choice.” on severely thin, existential-ice. I could mention that the idea of “wanting” or “not wanting” a child doesn’t make a baby any less a baby; any more than “wanting” or “not wanting” an apple makes it any less an apple. I could rant about the new studies coming to light about how the practice of abortion harms women, physically, emotionally, and socially…
…but quite frankly, if you haven’t been paying attention to this stuff prior to me bringing it up now, it’s simply because you want to remain ignorant. So I guess I’ll leave you to your bliss on that one.
But as far as my comment about servicemen/scam artists, instead of paraphrasing a misquote, how about we go back to what I said…
“No, listen, the guys who signed up and thought they were going to have a nice, cushy, four year ride and suddenly got caught up in the middle of the war, those guys were scam artists to begin with and their getting what they’re deserving.”
I NEVER suggested that people who sign up for military service and hoped that they wouldn’t go to war were scam artists. Nobody wants to go to war, and there’s nothing “scam art-y” about not wanting to go. But signing up for a duty, getting the benefits of that duty, and then acting shocked and outraged when you are told you actually have to DO the duty you SIGNED UP to do and were getting PAID for, that smacks of someone who was trying to run a little scam on the American tax-payer. And while I don’t wish for ANY of our men and women to be hurt or die, I do wish that these scam artists would either shut up and do their job, or leave the service to the hundreds of thousands of other paid-on-call VOLUNTEERS who can do their job without bitching about it.
Finally, about stem cells, let’s play a little game:
Who said the following?
“We will stop juvenile diabetes, Parkinson’s Alzheimer’s and other debilitating diseases…When John Kerry is president, people like Christopher Reeve are going to get up out of that wheelchair and walk again.”
I’ll give you a hint…it wasn’t a Republican or a pro-lifer.
It was John “I hear the babies talking.” Edwards. Now you tell me, who is politicizing embryonic stem cell research? As a side note, Bush didn’t make embryonic stem cell (ESC) research illegal, he just didn’t offer up “new lines” and more money. And guess what, we’ve been doing stem cell research for ten years; here’s just a (very) short list of what ADULT stem cells (ASC) have yielded…
-Repairing heart muscles in patients w/ congestive heart failure using ASC from bone marrow.
-Putting leukemia into remission using umbilical cord blood.
-RESTORING SIGHT IN BLIND people using an ocular surface stem-cell transplant and a cornea transplant.
-Treating sickle-cell anemia using stem-cells from umbilical cord blood.
-Completely reversing Type I diabetes in mice using adult stem cells.
-Repairing spinal cord injuries by using stem cells form nasal and sinus regions.
-Not to mention the S. Korean paralyzed woman, who is now WALKING!
I was going to try and find examples (or lack thereof) of ESC performing the miracle cures that Edwards had promised, but I figure, that’s your argument, you argue it.
And if anyone is wondering why there’s such a huge push for research in such an obviously failed scientific field I would quote Michael Fumento from an article in the “National Review”…
“Savvy venture capitalists have poured money their money into ASC’s, leaving ESC researchers desperate to feed at the federal (or state) trough.”
It’s about the money people. ASC is yielding results, ESC isn’t. The money goes where the success is. These government funded scientists need cash and they can’t get it unless they scream about their supposed “miracle cures”, even though the science is proving that their choice in research fields isn’t the most promising. The American people are being sold a bill of goods on ESC, while ASC is quietly and efficiently getting the job done.
Looking forward to next week.
Doug
Dear Dave,
Hi! It is me! and it is you! "Dlubert" is a word coined in a certain underground newspaper floating around the halls of a certain suburban high school in the mid 1990s. If memory serves it refers to someone who begs off doing things, claiming their hands are tied.
You threw out a tough scenario with WWII - I don't know what I would have done there to stop Hitler from taking over Poland et al. But let's shift our focus to today, for arguments' sake. Is bombing the living piss out of Iraq really going to do anything except breed more terrorists? Honestly. Our whole civilization (pre-paradigm shift, anyway) is geared towards setting up rules and then punishing people who break them - might makes right, domination and capitulation, etc. etc. You can force certain types of behavior out of people this way but you can't HEAL them. And when people are healed, you don't need to bully and scare "proper" behavior out of them. Do you know any truly happy, peaceful people who are capriciously mean to others? Who are spiteful and jealous? Who strike out to harm? No, peace and war are truly opposite sides of the pole. And do you create happy peaceful people by condemning them, bombing them, berating them, etc.?
You're right that I can't wave the "in my world" wand and fix the world's problems. But Gandi said "be the change you want to see in the world." It all starts on an individual level. One act of kindness, one act of forgiveness...
which leads me to
Dear Doug,
I knew it, I knew it, I knew you'd claim that Al Queda terrorists are evil and deserve to die and babies are innocent and deserve to live. No one deserves to die at the hands of another (right here you're thinking, that's right, including the unborn, and i'll come back to that idea shortly). What you might not realize is that the Islamic terrorists are doing the best they can with what they have and what they understand in life. Granted, their choices don't serve life as much as, oh, Mother Theresa, but they didn't wake up one morning suddenly bad seeds. They wake up in a country that's being bombed to shit where they can't get enough food for their families and live in fear every day of being blown up on the way to work, and they notice that the bombs dropping out of the sky say "USA" on them, and they get angry and go looking for retaliation. And why are we bombing them? Because they bombed us, and we are angry and looking for retaliation. In their minds we are no different from them, no less deserving to be punished for our evil ways. Do you see the pattern here? Where do you think it stops? It stops when we see "the enemy" as the HUMAN BEINGS they are. When we empathize. When we stop self-righteously assuming that we in our infinite wisdom gets to decide who's a good person and bad person, who gets to live and who gets to die.
No one deserves to die at the hands of another. I'm not crazy about abortion. But I firmly believe in personal freedom. If people are just not at the place where they value the sanctity of life then you can't make them. They'll get there anyway (this holds true whether the life you don't value is that of a fetus or that of an Islamic terrorist - you can want them dead if that serves you - I argue for the sake of debate, not because I feel you must change what you believe. In fact, by arguing with you I'm pretty sure that I'll only make you want to defend your beliefs more, because meeting aggression ((verbal, in this case)) with aggression DOESN"T WORK). I think that some day we as a society will evolve to the point where no one will want to choose abortion. I hope we do. But, frankly, a society that condones capital punishment, that glorifies violence on TV, and who glorifies violence as a means to addressing diplomatic problems, and whose first instinct is violent retaliation for wrongs, simply does not value life enough to phase out abortion. It's all part of the same worldview. The women who terminate their pregnancies feel every bit as justified in doing so as you do for wanting to obliterate "the enemy." You both feel you have a good reason to end life. But both are ending life. When you decide it's ok to pick and choose who lives and who dies, some people will choose the unborn and some people will choose hurting and misguided people a half a globe away.
Don't know enough about ESC to make a coherent argument here. Thank heavens there are ASCs!
Erika –
Its funny you mention dlubert -and- that it was someplace in the nether regions of my brain, since, chances are it turns out, it was probably a word someone we both know made up. And its further funny in that my original identifier (instead of the stage manager) was going to be that as far as I know, you were the last person to have in your possession the too often way too sophomoric original (and only) copies of the underground newspaper, of which, I believe, the Marylander was the one and only guest columnist. But I might be misremembering that last point. And either way, for the purposes of the internet, I am publicly neither taking any nor denying any responsibility for said underground newspaper nor for developing the word dlubert.
So yes, hi :)
Anyway, I like to run thoughts in numbers or letters so that they can be easily referred to by the interlocutor (e.g. “Dave, your point 1 is absurd because...”)
1 - I'll take it that your almost immediate change of focus in regards to my question about violence probably means that at the heart of the matter, you kind of agree to what I'll call a “I don't like it one bit, but he's probably right” extent.
2 – Honestly, like I said, I'm just not interested in talking about the war on terror for current purposes except to the extent that it serves as examples for other points we're making about things, in this case violence (and I think I got the mileage I was looking for out of the WWII example anyway regardless of the fact you have some important points about the current war) and also, eventually, talking about the paradigm shift in terms of viewing things as right and wrong, in terms of exclusivity/inclusivity/unity, etc. So you and Doug can go 10 rounds on the war if you want, but specifically that war is not an axe I'm going to grind in either direction at this time, despite having my own convictions about it, frankly some held fiercely and unflinchingly, and some quite loosely and certainly willing to be changed.
3a – I'm not sure how you would refer to yourself these days (liberal, conservative, leftist, reactionary, a per-issue decider, etc) but based on a few of the points I've seen you make, it seems like you have some more “progressive” thought patterns, a generally more liberal approach, served up with a side of conservatism, or maybe better put, a side of traditionalism? These are all stupid labels and everyone has a different definition anyway so who really cares? You can feel free to correct me if I'm wrong. But a curious and eventually very related point I'd make is that I'm not sure I normally hear people with those leanings say things like, “What you might not realize is that the Islamic terrorists are doing the best they can with what they have and what they understand in life.” If I've pegged you wrong, so be it, we'll move on, no harm done. Now I promise I know that you went on to sort of flesh out that idea a bit with what I felt were ok points and examples, but I guess its odd to hear something phrased that way because from the vantage point of the terrorist hearing it, I'm at a loss to how it could possibly come across any more belittling or demeaning, which is pretty much the opposite of what sort of socially left leaning folks generally want to do to others. In other words, I'm used to the more left leaning among us say that we're becoming more enlightened as we go, but I'm also used to them wanting to assert a notion that says something like (I know, I know, not exactly) that all cultures, truths, religions, etc are more or less equally valid, or equal in worth, or something sorta like that. I know, I know, not that, but sorta like that, and you know exactly what I mean so no trying to call me out on some technicality because I really am playing fair. So it was just "surprising" to me to hear someone take that big a swipe at some other group's lack of enlightenedness. Where's the celebration of their viewpoint, of their culture, of their mission, etc? This is important and ties, eventually, back into my point about WWII and -then- I'll be ready to move onto the particular paradigm shift you were so eager to defend. :)
3b – Is there some sort of larger framework or guiding principle or something that makes you step back and say, “Dave, that is so dumb, nobody should be celebrating -that- viewpoint!” What is that principle or principles? I don't actually think that its an exclusivism problem at its root for you. There's at least one or two more layers underneath that I suspect. I feel like this touches on it: “Do you see the pattern here? Where do you think it stops? It stops when we see "the enemy" as the HUMAN BEINGS they are. When we empathize. When we stop self-righteously assuming that we in our infinite wisdom gets to decide who's a good person and bad person, who gets to live and who gets to die.” Actually, I feel like this comes close to a principled look at the whole matter. Buts its not quite there. Wring that sponge out again and let's see what else we find. Really squeeze it.
So I learn now that there are advantages to biding one's time before jumping into the fray. Gives you a chance to absorb what's been said, to think about it for a while and, in the meantime, to allow everyone else to confuse things enough so that you can spring into the middle of the fight without picking sides. Good stuff.
Anyway, it's nice to see so many people participating. It's also nice that Dave has dumbed it down enough for me to grasp what he is talking about.
In terms of the big topics of the week, it seems like there are three: stem cell research, war and smelly balls. I will take a shot at all three.
Can't we just all sit down and agree that everything is politicized? Love is political (see gay rights debate). Patriotism is political (see anti-war, Patriot Act, etc. debates). Religion is political (see Doug's Theory of Evolution). And so of course morality is political (see abortion, stem cell research, animal rights, the death penalty). If we can just agree on the fact that all of these issues have been made political, and we can some of the moral superiority out of the conversation, things might be a little bit less noisy.
In terms of the stem cell research conversation, I have to admit that I am completely out of my depth as far as the scientific imperatives are concerned. Before listening to the podcast the other night, I had never even heard of adult stem cell research. So I am ignorant of the scientific issues. But what traditionally bothers me about the whole abortion debate (which is really what this is, only wearing a different costume) is the trend toward contradiction by both sides of the aisle. Abortion is wrong, because of the sanctity of human life, but only up until the point where a person commits a capital crime; conversely, the government must sanction and, in some cases, fund, the termination of pregnancies, but killing is wrong, and the death penalty a government-sanctioned immorality. I do not attribute these viewpoints to either Doug or Erika, but I have my suspicions. As far as my viewpoint is concerned, it can be summarized as follows: I am pro-life, but across the board, and not for religious reasons but because I think that killing is amoral. I can say this for many reasons, but I am not naive enough to think that those reasons do not include the following factors: (a) I am a man; (b) I have never impregnated someone accidentally; (c) no woman I love or care about has ever, to my knowledge, been impregnated accidentally; (d) no woman I love or care about has ever, to my knowledge, been raped; (e) no woman I love or care about has ever had their health compromised or life placed at risk as the result of a pregnancy; (f) no person I love or care about on a personal level has ever been murdered. Those are six factors that inform my perspective on issues like abortion and the death penalty; I'm sure there are several more and equally relevant factors that I have forgotten. But at the end of the day, those six factors are six of the million reasons why these decisions are not left to individuals (ignoring, for this day, the fact that those decisions have been made by a subset of a group of nine people, namely, the Supreme Court). To the extent that no one is an atheist in a fox hole, it could also be said that no one is pro-life when their daughter/wife/sister/mother is impregnated as a result of rape. And I daresay that, if push came to shove, far fewer of us would be anti-death penalty if our loved one was the victim of the capital crime. Hell, I think it would take a lot less than homicide to push me toward murderous revenge. This is why juries impose death sentences - because this is society's judgment we are passing and not any individual's judgment.
So even though our individual viewpoints on these issues are largely irrelevant pieces of a much larger tapestry, there is still some obvious value to actually having opinions. And what drives me crazy is the stereotypical hypocrisy that comes from both sides of the issue. Stereotypically, pro-choice people are anti-death penalty and, if I had to guess, the vast majority of ethical vegetarians and vegans are pro-choice. And pro-life people are, stereotypically, meat and potatoes people who favor the death penalty and would just as soon try minors as adults in order to wield the death penalty's power across a broader swath. And if you disagree with the notion that those viewpoints are hypocritical, I would love to know why. I find ironic Doug's position that being pro-choice is equal to being pro-abortion, since he found so distasteful my suggestion, during last week's phone conversation, that being pro-war might be the same as being pro-soldier death. As I said, I think of myself of being a pro-life person, but I also believe in personal freedom and find ironic that, stereotypically, conservatives want the government to leave us alone as much as possible except in terms of who we sleep with, how we raise our children, and what women do with their pregnant bodies. And so for as long as we live in a society where abortion is the preferred option for hundreds of thousands of women each year, I can accept, with a slight shudder, a preference for legal, safe abortions to dangerous, back-alley abortions.
The reason that individuals do not make the call as to the legality of abortion or the propriety of the death penalty is, in my opinion, the same reason that war is made by nations and not by people (and now would be a fine time to pile on and say, except for right now, when Bush/Cheney have made the decision for us). It's because war, though sometimes favored when our blood is boiling, generally and distastefully leads to the deaths of our young men. And war, though destructive on just about every imaginable level, is sometimes necessary to move the world. Whatever your opinion of war, or of this war in particular, I think the reason that Erika's personification of particular soldiers is troubling is that we are trained, to a much lesser degree than soldiers are, themselves, trained, to think of our military as an amorphous and faceless machine. Soldiers have names and faces after they are killed, or after they return home, when they change from being pawns (and I use that term non-judgmentally) to being heroes. As with abortion and the death penalty, individuals do not make life-or-death decisions at times of war - the Army does. And when a decision is made by an individual, it is made by an individual that has been intensively trained, for months or years or decades, to treat soldiers as faceless pawns. This is how wars are fought and how wars have always been fought.
As a nation, we have been at war for much of our 231 years. Wars have expanded our borders (eg. the Mexican War), maintained our union, and protected our allies (eg. World War I). We have fought wars for vengeance (eg. World War II, the Afghanistan invasion), and fought wars based upon principle (eg. the Korean War, the Vietnam War - both part of the Cold War based upon the same principle - and the Gulf War). And we have fought a war or two because the machinery of war in this country sometimes pushes us beyond reason into conflicts. Whatever you think of the present war in Iraq, I would ask you to consider what category it falls under and whether it has any precedent in our history. The removal of a brutal dictator is terrific, especially if you ignore the fact that we bolstered him and armed him for years, many of them while at the height of his brutality, until he crossed us in Kuwait. But there are a dozen men far more brutal who are actively doing far worse things to their people. Why aren't we invading those countries? My guess - because we do not fight wars to remove dictators. Even World War II, which resulted in Hitler's demise, was fought for much different and far more complicated reasons, at least from America's perspective. So why are we fighting this war in Iraq? Doug, I challenge you to come up with a precedent for the war we are presently fighting - if my history background serves me at all, I think you can stop and end with the Spanish-American War. Any thoughts on this, Wonderer?
Finally, as to smelly balls, I cannot disagree with Claire. But I would caution against throwing stones in regard to crotch-scent, what with these houses made of glass.
Sorry to be joining the party so late.
Sigh.
If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle. - Sun Tzu
TERRORISM
Pronunciation: \ˈter-ər-ˌi-zəm\
Function: noun
Definition: the use of VIOLENCE [my emphasis for The Historian] and intimidation in the pursuit of political aims.
I think you need to really try and understand the aims of militant Islamic jihadists. They are not the dirt-eating simple folk that you seem to think them.
http://www.realinstitutoelcano.org/analisis/949.asp --scroll down and notice that a full 33% of persons linked to Jihadist terrorism imprisoned in Spain between 2001 and 2005, had an education level of secondary studies or higher. (I am assuming that secondary studies mean at least high school).
I quote now from: http://www.tpmcafe.com/story/2005/7/12/132052/648
“Here, Dr. Marc Sage man, a former CIA caseworker, describes the organizational structure of al-Qaeda: ...Sageman found that three quarters of his sample came from the upper or middle class. The vast majority -- 90 percent -- came from caring, intact families. 63 percent had gone to college, as compared with the five to six percent typical in the third world. "These are the best and brightest of their societies in many ways," he says.”
They are also not just looking up at the bombs that say USA on the side and being pissed at the US. What about the terror bombings in Spain? Or the UK? Or the thwarted attempts in Germany? Or these…
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4677978/page/6/
http://www.jamestown.org/terrorism/news/article.php?articleid=2373552
I am going to say something now, which will no doubt inflame your rage even more. The teachings and lifestyles of the Prophet Muhammad are pretty easily turned into justifications for jihad. I am, frankly, surprised that there are not more militant Islamists. Look at how people are treated under Islamic law and rule.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/16/world/middleeast/16saudi.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/7112929.stm
http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/rushdie.htm
Their goal is to make the world Islam. The meaning of the WORD “Islam” is submission. It isn’t the fact that you’re American that they hate you, it’s because you are not Islamic. You can hide from that fact if you want. Ignorance is bliss. But these people, these men of violence have no compunction about cutting the heads off of journalists(http://michellemalkin.com/2006/09/07/a-journalist-beheaded-guess-why/, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Pearl ), strapping bombs to 6 year olds (http://news.scotsman.com/topics.cfm?tid=444&id=1001132007) or other general douchbaggery.
We can agree that violence is not a great thing. But I think you need to engage a little imagination. As Todd sort of touched on, personal experience has a tendency to put things in perspective. (I don’t mean to be crass here I am only trying to prove a point) If you were being assaulted and your husband walked in, would you want him to “talk” to the guy or would you want him to “do” something about it? I think we can all agree that violence IS the answer in that case.
As a historian, you should know, that peace is made through violence (or at least through strength). Whether that’s an axiom from 1984 or not isn’t really relevant. How many peace talks have Israel and the rest of the Middle East engaged in? When did Japan stop? Why is Tibet still getting hassled by China? How does a woman stop a would-be rapist? When did that bully in school stop picking on you? It’s a truism that that you can’t just ignore.
As far as changing minds, if that is not your goal, then why would you waste your time? The idea of debate is (or should be) the exchange of ideas. But that doesn’t mean just spouting off some sort of emotional tirade and calling it a day. That’s Jerry Springer, and screw that guy. Have reasons. Have facts. Show them to me. Show me that your facts are better than mine. Make me see. See, that’s the great thing about facts, they are what they are. If you tell me embryos are not babies and back it up, great. There’s a new piece of information for me to deal with. Now I either have to find contrary evidence or accept your info.
But this idea of “I’m ok, you’re ok” is mostly what’s wrong with this country. With all our increased ability to do so, we’ve somehow stopped actually exchanging information. We say, “Ok, that’s how you feel, so that’s fine.” We’ve become morally and intellectually ambiguous. I don’t want to be ambiguous. I want to be FOR something. I want to have reasons for why I am that way. AND, I am also capable of incorporating new ideas into my structure. That’s why I’ve asked you and Todd for examples of Bush lying. If the guy really lied, and it was really a lie, not a confusion of facts, then I would join you in any request for impeachment (if that’s what’s called for). So PROVE your point. Don’t just stand on hysterical tirades. That is not reasoned discourse. In this country we call that either daytime TV or (unfortunately) politics. Ok, I’m done with that.
TODD,
Didn’t want you to feel left out…
1) First off, congrats on finally joining the conversation and triangulating so nicely. Very Clinton-esqe. But I must insist that this lapse of attentiveness not be repeated too often, it’s much more fun for me when your caustic, not passive.
2) I agree that being pro-choice and pro-death penalty does create a sort of moral vertigo. And I can only justify it through my faith, which I tried to touch on with my last post. Innocent life is the pinnacle of creation (Adam and Eve before the fall) and that when we engage in the gift of choice and choose evil then we are no longer innocent (Romans 6:23, and I am not using this verse in the way it is actually intended, I know that, but it just fit so well I couldn’t pass it up). But I can see how those in this country who do not subscribe to a creator (of morality) could have a problem with both views being held simultaneously. And I, without going into an argument about its deterrent factor or the societal benefits, could arguably allow for a United States without both a death penalty AND abortion. Just as long as the sickos were, like, put on an island where they couldn’t bother the rest of us any more. (Australia anyone?)
3) As far as precedent for the current war, I will allow that your knowledge of history will beat mine. The Spanish-American war it is. But, as far as I know we generally don’t HAVE to have a “precedent” for going to war in this country. I’m sure it helps make an argument for war, but is it constitutionally necessary to say, “Well, this war will be just like that war, so s’ok.”? I am not so sure. As far as challenges about the war we are presently fighting, I believe sir, that I challenged you first. So, ‘nah.
I have made the argument, somewhere, that I believe that we should fight for America’s interests. I realize that deposing a brutal dictator should be a bonus, not a reason (and yes, I know we put him there, as many liberals are wont to point out, this country does make mistakes, I get it, I get it.). I also think WMD’s in the hands of a guy/government who had no problem using them is a pretty good reason. I think trying to stabilize an area of the world that we rely heavy on for our existence (and yes Erika, I’m talking oil. Stop driving your car if you’ve got a problem with that.) is a good reason. I also think that the idea of forcing jihadists to try and fight us “over there” instead of here is a pretty good reason. Contrary to popular belief, terrorists are not going to stop coming after us (read: Israel). They hate us, as I so eloquently pointed out earlier, because we are not them. So until either we ARE them or they’re all dead, it think duke-ing it out with them somewhere else, so that we can get our cable TV, and drink Starbucks, and not wear burkes IS an American interest.
Ok, anything else?
You kids are great. Keep thinking and keep smiling. God, bless and good night.
DOUG
P.S. Abortion is wrong.
Oh, my God, this is awesome. It's like being in high school all over again, except now I'm a little more confident and more educated - my favorite minds all converging at once - too bad we aren't all in one place to have a live podcast together!
Dave,
1. Yes, you're right, I struggle with that - what do you do in the face of mortal threat? Is violence justified? I'm glad I'm not the president so I don't have to make those kind of calls. But I do believe that to a large extent the violence you encounter in life is a reflection of the violence of your state of mind. Think violence, act violently, meet violence. Think peace, live peacefully. Of course there are huge exceptions to this - Jesus, Martin Luther King, Bobby Kennedy - and I can't really account for that; still working it out. But in general people don't want to hurt you if you don't want to hurt them. If you do happen to find yourself with a murderer in your house or your country being invaded, it's an individual call, I guess. Defend yourself with force if you feel you have to. Kill Hitler if you have to (but in killing Hitler do you also have to firebomb Dresden? slippery slope...).
2. This is a long one and I'm on a business trip so I don't have a book with me that I'd need to continue this discussion (Nonviolent Communication by Marshall Rosenberg, if you're curious). Can I take a rain check?
3a. So, I took a quiz on beliefnet.com and they pegged me as 100% New Age, 97% Unitarian Universalist, 95% New Thought, 93% Neo-pagan...if that gives you any idea. I don't really peg myself with any specific religion these days, but when I attend church I either go to the Unitarian Universalist or Unity Church of Practical Christianity (are you seeing a pattern? I dig unity). I like them - find inspiration and meaning there like I never did in the Presbyterian Church. Ironically, I'm also reading and finding meaning in the Bible more these days than I ever did when I considered myself a Christian - though a lot of people would probably disagree with the meaning I find. I vote Democratic - LOVE Barack Obama - but have a Libertarian streak in me, too. (Doug, are you quaking? Can you just smell the smoke and brimstone pouring off me? Is my ticket to hell practically stamped and punched?)
3b. Hmm, I'm interested (and somewhat mortified) at your point that my assertion that terrorists are doing the best they can is belittling and demeaning. For that I apologize - to the terrorists. I don't want to belittle and demean them, because that doesn't serve anyone - not me if I'm doing it to stroke my ego at how much more enlightened than terrorists I am, and not them if I hope they will reach a higher state of enlightenment. And for what it's worth, we're ALL doing the best we can with what we have and what we understand in life.
I'm also interested, but this time (perhaps vainly) gratified to hear that it surprises you that I'm not out there saying that Islamic terrorists are just as enlightened as we are. I realize that I can't go any further without wandering into the territory of judginess and superiority, but I'll go anyway because, well, I'm not enlightened enough myself not to go there. Of course terrorists aren't enlightened. They're pretty far down the enlightenment scale - they strap bombs to 6-year-olds, for crying out loud. If you'll permit me to paraphrase the Bible (and take it in good faith that I'm doing it because I believe in the merit of the passage and not as a left-wing asshole throwing your own doctrine in your face) the fruits of the spirit are something like love, peace, joy, kindness, etc. etc. Ergo, this is what enlightened people display, not the urge to kill people. I think we can agree on that. Where my philosophy differs with our esteemed Wisconsinite is that I don't think you cure a lack of enlightenment with violent retaliation. I think you do it with love. And - Doug, this will make your ears bleed - the people who do the most harm are the ones who need the most love in return. I think - Doug, now your head will explode - that criminials shouldn't be locked up in violent, punitive, miserable jails if you truly want them to reform and renounce crime. I think they should go to some Buddhist retreat in the country where they can care for farm animals and rebuild their spirits. Our bloodthirsty society is built on the idea that we need to punish wrongdoing, but why? What good does punishment do except for kick a guy when he's down? It's vengence, and vengence is not life-serving. To which one might argue, we need to "make" him behave and "force" him to conform to society's rules. And, agreed, living in harmony with your fellow neighbor, sans the desire to chop them to bits, is really useful, but you aren't going to cultivate this harmony by kicking around someone who's already volatile. Abused children grow up to be abusers. Violence is a cycle. Wandered a little from the point I was going to make, which was this - no one WANTS to not be enlightened (this is what I believe; if you believe differently, our worldviews will differ sharply from this point on). Who WOULDN"T want to live with a heart full of peace, love, joy, etc.? It's not like terrorists and/or the unenlightened really get off on hurting people. The hurt they cause is a reflection of the hurt inside. Sin is a symptom of sickness that needs to be healed more than a symptom of wrongdoing that needs to be punished. Paraphrasing Jesus now - on the cross he said "forgive them Father they know not what they do." Not, "Father, those guys are such flaming assholes, they know exactly what they're doing, I want you to rain down fire and brimstone on them and send them straight to firey hell." So, with terrorists, I celebrate what's alive in them that serves life and think we should foster that along its way.
3c. Again, I'd need some books. Another one I'd like to consult is The Way to Love, which was written by a Jesuit priest and which I really dig. Rain check?
Doug,
You're lucky I hit Dave first because my fingers are tired so I won't go on for too long. I don't need to understand what Islamic fundamentalists believe. I don't need to whip myself up into a frenzy of hate over people I don't know. Do you? Does it bring you peace and joy to hate people a world away? There is always someone to hate. The British, the South, the Indians, the Germans, the Germans (again), the Japs, the gooks...and then in 20 or 30 years it's forgive and forget, and "they" have a whole new enemy for you to hate. What's the point? And where does it stop?
As for the point of a debate - ok, I'll grant that it goes beyond spouting off and calling it a day. Let's say it's presenting another point of view for your consideration, so you can either a) decide that you want to accept my ideas/beliefs too or b) decide that I'm full of shit but that you can get along with someone who thinks pretty much the exact opposite of you. Why would I want to MAKE you think anything? I can't MAKE you think or believe anything you don't want to. I don't need to, either. I'm secure enough in my beliefs to let you have yours. Your beliefs make you you, and you rock. If you thought exactly like me and we all thought exactly alike your podcasts and the ensuing discussion would be horribly dull (I think we should send care packages to the terrorists but electrocute abortionists! Wow, me too! Yeah, I totally agree! Let's hug!).
Our ability to say I'm ok, you're ok is what's right with this country, and what's behind the oft-mentioned approaching paradigm shift. We can all be ok with each other and still be FOR things. We can be FOR peace. We can be FOR education. We can be FOR unity. We can be FOR growth. We can be FOR saving the spotted owl. All this without insisting that someone deserves to die and/or go to hell because they don't think exactly like you do.
Forgot a shout-out to Todd,
Todd, you rock. And I cede my title as Historian to you if you want it for pinning Doug to the wall on the historic precedent of war thing.
One more point, this time to Doug-
Pretty sure the WMDs were a lie...where were they, again?
Doug should say Syria - they got them moved during the verbal showdown before the invasion
Erika should say, bah! spy satelites would have seen it
Doug should say, not true, we're not talking delivery devices (missiles), we're talking uranium
Erika should say, its been proven colin powell was wrong about their attempts to get it from africa
Doug should say, honey, i'm talking about blackmarket soviet era goods - frankly nobody knows who was minding the store in the Ukraine for the first few years after the fall of the USSR
Erika should...
Can't really get into it tonight. Gotta do some other stuff to do. will pick up some of the thoughts tommorrow. but erika, we're in a holding pattern until you get a chance to hit up the points i was most interested in Todd, I'll get back to you on the history of wars, but bottom line i'm not seeing any major reason to take issue with the sort of "rounded off" summary you've made.
Well, I typed up a bunch but its not very helpful yet. I let most things go most of the time, but Erika I should point out that while you are right that is what Jesus said, you know full well that Jesus has plenty to say about hell, sinners, judgment and so on. I will point you Revelation 14 for one of the toughest pictures of it - where the apocalyptic imagery picks up with a great winepress into which are thrown people, and whose blood flows out as they are trampeled. Its pretty gruesome and horrible. Its a different genre of literature than most of us are used to, but if you want some easy to read quotations from one of the four gospels, we both know they abound. So let's be fairer about representing historical (or not, depending on your beliefs) figure's overall stances on things. I just think if we're going to eat at the philosophical buffet by quoting things but *without* a larger (and in this case just plain obvious) context to their overall views, we're wasting each other's time and not being particularly honest even just at the level of debate and scholarship.
I'll screw this up too sooner or later so you can remind me at that point.
:)
Erika,
Ok, so we are apparently just passing barbs back and forth. We can still be friends, but if we're not really passing information then there's not much more to say on any topic. It seems you don't even really read what I write, and you certainly don’t let silly things like facts temper your responses. You have established that you want to believe what you believe and anyone who disagrees with you is obviously just filled with hate.
I can find you facts about abortion…but terrorists are more important.
I can find you facts about terrorists…but you don’t need to understand why they do what they do. You want to hug them (Good luck with that by the way.)
I can find you, at the very least, very compelling arguments about WMD’s…but you want to insist they don’t and didn’t exist regardless of anything I bring up.
And on and on and on...
I said in my last post that the “I’m ok, you’re ok.” mentality is what’s wrong with this country. Your response was exactly what I was talking about. I stand by my statement, but I guess I have to put a caveat onto it. The “I’m ok, you’re ok” mentality, while being an awful choice, is the last resource to maintain sanity for those of us who want to debate ideas with the uninformed.
Sorry to be blunt…No, not really.
If anyone has some facts for me, I’ll be in my office.
Doug.
Dear Historian-
I find it unbelievable that you clearly have an expectation of being taken seriously and still choose to start an entry with "Oh my God, this is awesome- just like in high school only I'm a little more educated and confident."
To begin with, your assertion of "increased confidence" is fairly well negated by the fact that you then explained that you went to beliefnet.com to find out what you are.
Secondly, understand that by capitalizing the word God you are negating your non-belief in Him.
Lastly, Historian, a 100% New Age, 97% Unitarian Universalist, 95% New Thought, 93% Neo-pagan individual who paraphrases Jesus on the cross to make her point would not exactly be the poster child of educated and confident. In fact, the word vacous comes to mind.
OMG,let's just all text each other and then have Claire do facials- sorry makeovers.
P.S.- Please quit talking- you aren't helping the cause!
My apologies for the typo- the word is vacuous.
Do you honestly think a hug is going to heal those who want to lop off the head of a kindergarten teacher because she allowed her students to name a stuffed bear Muhammed?
This is real life and isn't going to be solved by sophomoric "can't we all just get along" drivel.
Also, while I generally agree with a lot of Todd’s points, I can’t believe you’re going to relegate the entire struggle of WWII to a need for vengeance.
Certainly, after December 7,1941 there was a cry for vengeance. However, the guys in the Phillipines who found unbelievable atrocities (think Uday and Qusay) would say it was about more than the United States. The soldiers who landed on Utah beach were fresh off the boat from England, the place that was getting the snot bombed out of it by that well-known guy who really just needed a hug. They would tell you it was about a lot more than vengeance.
Yes, humans being imperfect, there were thoughts of vengeance, but talk to a veteran while you still have the chance. Ask them why they went and what they found. Ask yourself why those I have talked to never want to talk about the camp they liberated or the camp they endured but will talk about duty, sacrifice and responsibility to their fellow man.
And if that doesn’t convince you it was about more than vengeance, watch someone unconsciously rub at their tattoo the minute they start to think about that time- >60 years later. Very enlightening.
Well, the overall dialogue is creeping towards what I feared was the inevitable degeneration I wanted to avoid by not participating in the first place. We're not nearly there yet though which is good, just creeping towards it. People are getting louder but otherwise *less* convincing.
Anonymous - I'm sure Todd agrees with you. I think he was only talking about sort of high level, "averaged" or "rounded off" answers in terms of what precedent setting developments got us into wars in the first place, not necessarily all the various and complicated reasons we ultiamtely stayed in the various wars, usually to their conclusion usually upon our being victorious.
Incidentally, I saw Vice President Cheney today at a Shell station pumping gas behind me. His hair was dyed different and I think to throw everyone off there was no sight of the Secret Service, but I could tell it was him. He might have been getting ready for a hunting trip.
Dave,
You were right. You were right. I didn't get what you were saying at first, about not wanting to join the conversation, but you were right.
I, unfortunately, found myself totally infuriated last night as I read through comments. I tempered them, but only after I did some soul searching and discovered why I was so angry in the first place. Which is thus...
It is really frustrating to "think" you are in a dialog, an honest exchange of ideas, and to do some homework, to try and get to the roots of issues, etc, only to find that your dialog, your research, and your attempt to think critically, can be negated by the intellectual equivalent of flipping your hair and batting your eyes at someone.
To try and put my feelings in a better context, I was working hard to make a point only to discover that it was never ABOUT making a point.
I guess the real question, after making a discovery like this, is...Is there any hope for two groups of people, long term, who can't even honestly dialog? Are we doomed as a society to "Facts: Mine and Theirs"? I mean, if we can't even get to the bottom of what should be pretty discernible, empirical things (like were there WMD's? or what qualifies as life?), how can there be any hope to solve much more subjective issues (like how to stop criminal behavior). I don't have the answers to this, at least not any that apparently make any sense, but I don't think that the results (so far) of the micro-experiment that is TGDWDAN bodes well for our country.
Sincerely,
Doug
Dave again,
There was a recent press release from Cheney's office. You might have missed it so I've quoted it here...
"From the Office of VP Richard Cheney,
Vice President Cheney, in blatant disregard for both Wisconsin Law and the Wisconsin DNR will be going hunting Wisconsin's Door County this weekend.
Mr. Cheney realizes that last week marked the end the Wisconsin deer season but truly feels that a small vacation is in order because... "Bitches be all up in my grill on the Hill."
He apologies for any inconvenience the residents of Door County may experience and suggests they stay indoors, wear lots of blaze orange, and make no attempts to befriend him this weekend.
Further, Mr. Cheney will not be escorted by any Secret Service because..."Tha's how I roll."
Thank You."
Check it out here...
http://www.iamtotallymakingthiscrapuprightnow.com
Smiles all.
Doug
Doug, fear not, there is yet much, much hope for dialogue. Part of the challenge is that people apprehend "truth" through different means. For some its ridigly logical and full of maxims and axioms and so on. For others it comes through what they see with their eyes and smell with their nose and touch with their hands. For others it what they feel in their emotions. For most of us its a combination of those things. Secondly, there are people who think in nice clean straight lines. "A" is true therefore "B" is true therefore "C" is true and so on. There are also very non-linear thinkers out there who have a very, very hard time communicating to people who think in straight lines. I'm one of these non-linear thinkers, for example. I sort of gain information first and foremost via intuition, secondarily and backed up by discernable facts or valid logic. Some people are the other way around, they don't "intuit" a whole lot, but they are much better engaging actual data and keeping on task to demonstrate conclusions from them than I am.
The challenge comes in how to meet each other part way into their learning styles, their, for lack of a better term, "truth aquiring style", and so on. I keep putting truth in quotes because I'm sure there are some readers here who don't see life as being full of universal truths at all. Its not worth arguing about at this moment, I'm just trying to explain how we arrive at "our" "truths" whether those truths are applicable to everyone or not.
So...
Its important to engage each other on our own fronts. Doug is interested in using facts (and assumptions - there's a lot of "I think" in the actual podcasts I've noticed) to demonstrate trends and truths - which I admit is more the way I do things too, so Erika if you want to make any headway you're going to have dig up facts and fight some of the battle on his turf.
For her part, Erika is hardly a non fact user, but for Doug to make more headway, he'll need to engage and appeal to the things that sway her - outcomes faciliatated through appeals to common principles. In other words (and she isn't saying this yet because we haven't gotten that far) you are going to need to demonstrate how your own claims *better* serve the common points about which you agree and to which she holds particularly dear, for example, that there is dignity in human individuals.
Obviously at the end of the day since the two of you start from fundamentally different assumptions, you will arrive at a lot of different principles about the universe which, after making a few levels of inference will result in the opinions you each hold about current wars. My job is to get us thinking about those lowest base assumptions (and one would hope to have us change our minds). But to the extent that through different assumptions we arrive at very similar conclusions, you can still make a compelling case that your views actually better serve that common conclusion (e.g. life is precious, individuals have dignity, etc)
One of the problems is that right now, Erika is still sort of half perceiving a bloodlust that I don't think is really there on Doug's part, but he's not doing himself any favors with his mildly combative tone because Erika is in part reacting to the tone, not just the facts he's presenting. (You can claim that's her problem, or you can meet her where she's at.) So, Doug, call off that dog and instead get her thinking about issues like justice (which will tie back in to retribution and violence and so on, but those are not the only or even fundamental issues pertaining to justice. One of the reasons I suggest this is because Erika is really into "fairness" and justice and fairness have a lot in common). Erika, I think Doug genuinely means he'll change his mind if evidence to overturn his thinking, especially the lies about our motives for going in if evidence is brought forth. But he's stuck his feet in the ground in his default position on this issue for whatever his reasons are, and he's not gonna budge from that default short of compelling evidence. We all do this all the time, we default to something for one reason or another. So you're just gonna have to get out there and dig it up and demonstrate he's been snookered, at which point he'll turn a little red for having breathed some fire to defend what is then demonstrated to be an obvious falsehood, but he'll get over it.
And keep in mind when you are fighting different battles. You're both doing ok so far, but just be cautious about what gets lumped into one paragraph and thought process: The current war and all the issues with lying WMD and Bush and so on doesn't really have much to do with whether wars and violence are helpful or necessary. The prior is bound up in the latter, but more at the level of being an example of it. But logically speaking, whether they lied or had interests in oil or any of those things doesn't really cut to the heart of what is acceptable or not acceptable (or right or wrong) about wars and about using violence to achieve *more important* ends (like justice, like mercy, like love, like better lives for the oppressed, like...freedom.) People might need to be punished if they went to war for stupid reasons, but *that* doesn't really address the larger issues of wars and violence which Doug has done a good job of coming around to again and again, and to which Erika keeps trying to counter, but which the two of you keep passing each other like ships in the night on, failing to really engage on the same planes.
Couple other ways we arrive at our truths (I'm sure there are lots more) - via authority figures (e.g. parent says you'll burn yourself if you touch that stove, or your church telling you its wrong to steal). Also spiritual interaction (God, satanism, etc.
Bear in mind of course that in one sense its all just information that is ultimately labeled as true or false or as information falling outside the categories of true or false. So we end up with propositions like: Its true the sky is blue. Its false that Procrustes ever lived. Its neither true nor false that I am funny because we relegate that to a matter of "opinion" where some people would contend its true and some would contend its false but we all recognize its relative and not really bound up in scientific facts like the first claim nor historical facts like the second is.
Obviously none of that is a technical discussion, but its the street level discussion which is how we all operate in real life anyway.
To summarize:
One of the great lessons of my early twenties was that having lots of facts helped convince some people of some things, but, to my surprise, didn't convince everyone of everything, self included.
You have to take my assumptions for granted, but the bottom line is that God made us to deal and interact with reality in a lot of different ways. And while some people have intellectual stumbling blocks to affirming certain truths, for most of us most of the time we have something emotional hanging us up too. That's the reason we're more sensitive in talking about abortion when the room is full of women who've had them regardless of whether they're emotionally traumitized by it or never gave it a second thought. We don't change our message, we change how we deliver it. And perhaps most importantly we internally revisit *why* we feel it needs delivered in the first place regardless of the glibness or "just the facts, m'am" or sensitivity or sarcasm behind our eventual delivery of it.
This is especially true in dealing with the some of the most extreme elements of the right and the left - the people whose racism compels horrible hate filled crimes, or whose radical thoughts on the environement compel them to burn down entire parking lots full of someone else's property like SUVs.
It takes great wisdom to discern when loud condemnation of such things is requird and when a gentle restorative outstretched hand is required.
My own conviction is that once some people have moved that far in a particular direction (not all, but some) they aren't coming back. For that reason it is **all the more** especially true in how we deal with everyone else, because its the rest of us who aren't so far over the edge that we are beyond changing our minds.
Oh, The Wonderer,
Man, I should get a hobby. I tend to agree with most of your last post (and I even followed 95% of it!), except for one core issue, which might have been my issue in the last post.
I know you couched your language in the assumption of a lack universal belief in "truth". And I must say I think I am more like you in the sense that I intuit, and then try and find "truth" to back me up.
But I think my overall argument, or qualm, or issue, or whatever is this idea that there is no such thing as truth. A set of facts, is a set of facts, is a set of facts. And I am not quite sure what the opposite of this last statement is, but it seems like many people subscribe to it, and I can't figure out why? Things are, things happen. How does pretending that they don't make any sense?
Look, I am typing this right now. That is a fact and that is the truth. You are reading this that is a fact and that is the truth. (and I don't want to hear any temporal arguments about how the last statement is only true in the past but not in the future or present or whatever. Apply whatever temporal truth restrictions you might need to and assume that the tense of the statement changes through time.) Blaine is a pain, and THAT is the truth...right Todd? Most everything is an either/or statement and the stuff that isn't is stuff that generally doesn't have a huge impact, so we can let it go.
It is one thing to say "I believe". It is quite a different thing to say "I believe BECAUSE..." and I generally have a problem with people "believing" in something that is an either/or proposition, a big ticket item (if you will) and being unable to articulate WHY they believe.
It is fine to say "war is bad" or "violence is never the answer" but those are kind of big ticket items and should be defended accordingly. So if I say "But violence is good (or at least useful) in some cases" then I have created an either/or scenario and it doesn't solve anything to say BOTH truths can be true. How can both be true if one negates the other? This violates the law of non-contradiction.
I can also agree that straying too far from one point to the next also isn't good, so maybe that is where we need to reboot the conversation. But I also must insist that if this debate is not about debate, then I really want nothing to do with it. Again, one of my life goals is to avoid ever be on the Jerry Springer show, or involved in anything that resembles it.
Thanks for your time man.
Doug
A few things before I head home for the weekend. First, Erika is one of my favorite people in the world, and so even if I disagree with her "hugs for car bombs" approach to disarmament, I certainly can question the integrity and intestinal fortitude of "Anonymous" for calling her vacuous and sophomoric and inferring that she is uneducated and lacks confidence. If you want to call names, try signing yours first.
Doug - at risk of promoting "hysteria," I give you the following:
http://www.bushlies.net/homeliesatoz/iraqlies.html
http://www.bushwatch.com/bushlies.htm
http://pearly-abraham.tripod.com/htmls/bushlies1.html
http://liesofbush.com/iraq-Lies.shtml
Let me say this about that - I'm sure that there could, potentially, be similar websites about every president in our history. It's a tough gig, and, especially in the television age, you are often forced to speak without doing the sort of research that would be preferred - but let's not get lost in that reality and forget that Bush lies and has lied and will lie.
The pretense for invading Iraq was, whether intentionally fabricated or accidentally presented as mistaken fact, inaccurate. There were no weapons of mass destruction. There was no alliance between Iraq and Al Qaeda. There was no credible effort being made to rebuild a weapons program. Whatever the end results, the alleged motivations for war were either incorrect or false, and you can pick the poison that offends you the least. I think both options are offensive and scary.
My point with the historical precedent was not to suggest that the president and Congress need to wage war based on the motivations that existed for prior wars. Instead, I just wanted us to think about the fact that the war in Iraq is without precendent in American history. And the larger point, I think, is that we are fighting either for preemptive reasons (scary enough - kind of like America bombing Okinawa instead of Japan bombing Pearl Harbor) or as the initiation of a broad-scale religious war (even scarier to me, since I don't subscribe to any of the participants' philosophies). I hope like hell that we're not fighting for oil or for Halliburton, but I don't necessarily prefer my other two options.
Whatever the reason for fighting, we can't go back in time. We're there. I take the position that we have done a great deal to further destabilize the San Andreas Fault of geopolitical craziness, but now that we're in for a penny, I guess we should invest for the whole pound and try to clean up our mess. Immediate withdrawal may save American lives, but the impact would be tremendous and devastating, and I believe we have a responsibility to see this to an end one way or another. I don't like seeing American kids getting killed, especially since I know for a fact that I would never have had the balls to put on a uniform and sign up, but there is a bigger picture here that cannot be ignored. Especially since we had a large part in painting that picture in the first place.
It's fine to talk about the frustrations of this forum. Let's try to remember that, in addition to dealing with important topics like abortion and violence, we're also talking about loofahs and peeing in the shower. We're all friends, and though many of us are highly educated, none of us is an expert in any of the fields we are discussing. Let's not pretend that we are right and that those who disagree are wrong. I think it would be better to remember that we have opinions based upon our limited window of information and that, because our point of view is limited, there are plenty of different perspectives to have about just about every issue. Do I diagree with Erika about hugging terrorists? Of course I do. But I also don't think we should simply ignore the facts and circumstances that made them terrorists. Because even if we can't save this generation, can't we figure out a way to save the next one?
I don't want to just agree to disagree. But I want those of us that are friends (and this excludes our neutered friend Anonymous) to productively disagree without resorting to the kind of bullshit that Dave warned us about.
And as for Anonymous, I have to disagree on your revisionism as to World War II. We did not enter the war to end the Holocaust or to end atrocities. That we accomplished both of those things was a feat of strength and industry and incredible bravery, but I daresay that America was, by and large, disinterested in the suffering caused by the Holocaust - we look back in horror, but sixty years ago, we did nothing to prevent what was happening aside from, ultimately, defeating a fascist regime that was only our enemy, at the outset, because of its alliance with Japan. I have no doubt that our soldiers saw great and terrible things and that they have been affected for their entire lives by what they experienced. But bear in mind, also, that our government dropped two atomic bombs on civilian populations, obliterating two cities that had been, for testing purposes, otherwise avoided by the destruction of war. Put more simply, we wiped out two cities of women and children and elderly people that we had ignored with our conventional bombs so that we could show them just how powerful our new weapons could be. And bear in mind that, though we had anecdotal and, eventually, definitive evidence of the Holocaust, our government chose not to bomb the rail lines that transported innocent men and women and children to death camps and that, prior to the war and with the knowledge that Hitler had a bit of an issue with those of Jewish ancestry, our government refused to accept thousands of Jewish refugees. Ours is a great country, but our government has done and continues to do horrible things that get shaded, with history, by other achievements.
Anonymous - the wisest thing anyone can do in terms of the internet is not signing their name. Its not a court of law, the accused doesn't have a "right" to face down their accuser.
I only use mine because I know nobody is ever going to intentionally put in my last name which will ensure that within about 24 hours I show up in a search engine. I have too many degrees yet to earn, too many jobs yet to hold to have someone who holds the keys to my future decide they don't like my views or attitudes or some such thing, probably at least in part because they won't take the time to realize that there's more going on than unnecessarily crude jokes.
Doug
It can be tricky and frustrating to debate people who come at things from such a fundamentally different reference point about truth. Erika isn't one of those people though, at least not based on the flow of her argumentation thus far. She's too passionate about getting people on board with her point of view to be someone who doesn't believe in universals or “absolutes” or whatever, at least at some level. In other words, she thinks there is a way people *should* think, despite her contentions to the contrary. And she already has acknowledged she struggles to be consistent in this regard.
And yet there is a certain sense in which that doesn't bother her, and I think, Doug, *that* may be what's bothering you the most.
I can sort of boil part of the challenge down to this: there are some people out there who believe the metaphysical reality (loosely, the things “beyond”) is just like the material reality (loosely, the things we can touch, taste, etc). So, those folks equate the truth that God exists, and is a certain way, etc with the truth that if someone jumps out a window they will fall down. Many Christians, Muslims, Jews and certainly many, many others are like this. But there are many people who simply don't equate the two the same way. They don't question the truth that if you jump out the window, you'll fall down. But they do question that God or gods or whatever else that might be out there is a certain way and that way only. Thus you get the idea that, “Well, that may be true for you, but its not true for me.” What these people mean isn't altogether clear a lot of the time. Some people mean that whatever it is out there, its not limiting itself to be just one way. That is, somehow, it exists – really does – in multiple ways or something. Its hard to get your mind wrapped around. Some people aren't thinking of it in those terms, they simply mean something more like “Your faith is meaningful to you and mine is different from yours but no less valid in what it does for me as what yours does for you.” Thus the increasingly confusing use of the words “spiritual” and “spirituality” in our culture. I think its safe to say those words used to be linked to beings thought to actual exist – spirits. But that may not really be the case for a lot of people who speak of spirituality anymore. There is an increasing trend to believe that truth (in this regard specifically) is manufactured from subjective experience. Therefore, its watertight in that its their personal experience, how can someone not experiencing it argue that someone else's subjective experience is “invalid” or “untrue” or “false” or a “deception”? Or so goes the line of reasoning.
You are right, facts are facts. But let's give folks some credit where credit is due. We do frankly run them through a grid that is built up of our own experiences and preconceptions. So, for example, when I was in a psych experiment back in college, I got tricked by my grid, it actually prevented me from knowing what was true. They put me in a completely dark room – no light at all. They told me to face one direction and that a red light would appear on the wall. I was supposed to call out “now” when I saw the light move from its original location. Well, seconds would go by and it moved and I said, “now”. We repeated a few times, with the dot moving in different directions. When it was done, they told me what was really going on. It turns out the light never moved. Because the entire the room was dark there was no reference point to compare the red light to in space, so eventually your brain/eyes get tricked into thinking its moving. What can I say? My senses and brain and everything I ever knew about movement turned out to deceive me, and I had 22 years of experience with moving lights! It was a fact that the light never moved. I'd have testified in court it did. What can i say?
So folks who argue that truth is sometimes a little hard to get at aren't being unrealistic or unfair to the realities we face in doing it. Any decent scientist knows searching for truth isn't always super easy. We do get deceived (Christians of course believe people from other religions are experiencing this sort of deception, for example, but in the domain of the spiritual, not the eyes and brain like in the psych experiment.) But its not always that hard to see truth for what it is, to understand what things mean in reality, again not at a technical level but at a sort of “street level” for how real people operate day in and day out.
I think Doug that part of why some people subscribe to the “factless” theory or whatever you want to call it is because they think you can't really know truth – that is, you can't really establish what the facts are. That you can't really ever get to them. That the best you can ever do is get near them maybe, and even then you might just be getting duped. That these preconceptions we all have prevent any legitimate claims to having...ta da...a “monopoly on the truth” of whatever matter it is in question.
But the vast majority of us live most of their lives as though truths are readily accessable. Not all truths, but many – certainly enough to get from 6am when the alarm goes off to 10pm when they turn out the lights. So, we fight over the “invisible” ones – like God, like significance, like morals, etc.
Finally, someone is gonna string you up on your claim about “I generally have a problem with people 'believing' in something that is an either/or proposition, a big ticket item (if you will) and being unable to articulate WHY they believe”. The reason I say this is because I don't think in my own life I have particularly compelling reasons, in the minds of many, for why I believe some of those things. And I think they'd call you out on your own beliefs too. Frankly there are a lot of things I “believe” which, in my opinion, do matter, but where I believe what I believe about them in large part because someone smarter than me believes that way, or because someone wiser than me believes that way. Knowing there are smarter and wiser people than me who believe the opposite, it makes my reason that I believe them pretty pathetic by my own standards. But, I happen to think a lot of things matter and that there's only so many hours in a day to figure them all out :) And so sometimes I change my mind on things when I've had more time to do the homework you're suggesting. Those people who believe he way I used to are still smarter and wiser, but I change my mind anyway. Hard to believe, I know. I'm going to come back to this one a little later tonight.
You said “So if I say 'But violence is good (or at least useful) in some cases' then I have created an either/or scenario and it doesn't solve anything to say BOTH truths can be true. How can both be true if one negates the other? This violates the law of non-contradiction.” You're right, it doesn't solve anything to say that both are true. You need to turn the screws tighter on those who want to cling to something like that and find a way to demonstrate that those things are “real”, not “matters of opinion” which might allow for both to be “true”. I can't remember if you're referring to some point Erika made, or if you're just commenting on the situation as I've described it and how it looks hopeless. She's already admitted violence is (presently at least) necessary. That present necessity is one of the reasons the specific paradigm shift she's talking about isn't going to happen in my estimation. There are others, but that's a key one. We'll get into more of that soon enough I think. But I want to give her a chance to deal with a couple points from several posts back that she took a rain check on first.
In the mean time, I think this mortgage bailout proposal would make an interesting podcast in part because I don't know much about all the issues involved from the larger economy's point of view.
Also, I couldn't help but smile at the first accusation of revisionist history, Todd. It had to happen sooner or later over some issue.
Also, Doug, I think some of us have always had chatting as our main hobby anyway. ha ha
Wow did I get ripped a new one. Sorry, Doug, and Anonymous, for pushing your buttons. You bring up some interesting points. Dave, thank you for your mediation - brilliant and diplomatic. I disagree with your going to Revelations to temper the teachings of Jesus, but that is another debate for another time.
Doug, in order to speak your language, I'll haul out some "facts." But first, as a caveat, I'll tell you why I prefer to debate on philosophical issues than factual issues. In a nutshell it's because facts are a) very hard to nail down, and b) ultimately not very interesting until someone has an opinion about them, and this is where my Historianness comes into play. Just because something is on a website or cited in a journal or in a newspaper or in a book or in a governmental report doesn't mean it's the "truth." God knows people spin the "facts" to fit their worldviews. I'm sure you can go to any of a zillion pro-life websites and pull off some statistics that support anything you want to believe. Likewise, I can go to any pro-choice website and do the same. The facts - after (and if) you've ferreted them out from the scientists, reporter, author, and web designer's biases - are just facts. It's your philosophy and worldview that shapes how you interpret them and what you do with that information. Finally, while you love a good fact-centered debate, to me it seems boring - just a list of pasted-in URLs, countered by a list of opposing URLs - war of the webpages. I'd much rather hear what you think and why you think it.
But this is merely why I don't thrill to a fact-centered debate. As you do, I'll oblige.
Topic: Abortion
From an eight-year study in Professional Psychology
"The experience of having an abortion plays a negligible, if any, independent role in women's well-being over time, regardless of race or religion. The major predictor of a woman's well-being after an abortion, regardless of race or religion, is level of well-being before becoming pregnant...Our findings are congruent with those of others, including the National Academy of Sciences (1975), and the conclusion is worth repeating."
From the World Health Report 2005:
"Around the world, in countries where abortion is illegal, it remains a leading cause of maternal death. An estimated 68,000 women worldwide die each year from unsafe abortions."
These, particularly the second, inform my pro-choice philosophy. I understand that your pro-life facts center around the fact (though I think some debate it) that life begins at conception. So here we go - two sets of facts. How are you going to reconcile them? By bringing your beliefs and philosophy into play, which is why I find such a debate more interesting.
Stem cell research:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/huffpost/20071130/cm_huffpost/074802
It's long, so I'll clip and summarize: it's too early to know if adult stem cells will behave like embryonic stem cells - i. e. will be able to form differentiated cells. In Cell Stem Cell one of the creators of the new technology to make adult stem cells said "We hold that research into all avenues of human stem cell research must proceed together. Society deserves to have the full commitment of scientific inquiry at its service. And science is a practice that works best when it is approached with an open and creative mind."
And, finally, sorry for your frustration, and sorry you don't "think" you are in an honest dialogue just because it doesn't look the way you want it to, or because other people don't debate the way you want them to.
But you still rock.
So, I started my post before Dave's, stopped for dinner, and came back to it after he posted, not having read it. Only to find that he has me totally pegged - completely called my argument on "the factless theory." Very astute, Dave.
I also found that I was a little pissy in my last paragraph to Doug, for which I apologize.
And, trusting as I do Dave's astuteness, I found it eye opening that he also pegged me as passionate about getting people on board with how I think they "should" think. Also slightly mortifying - I'm trying to move away from this. But I appreciate the wake up call regarding how far I need to go. I would venture to say that the proof in in the pudding - that part of the inflammation on these boards comes from being told what one "should" think. No one likes that.
For what it's worth, Doug, I think you're bailing on society way too early. These debates are a success, not in any way a failure. People are talking, people are thinking, people are exchanging ideas, no one has died...well done.
Doug
I've been trying to think of a concrete example of the distinctions I was trying to draw earlier about types of knowledge. The best I've come up with is something a friend of mine back in college said. He declared one day that he pretty much had determined he was going to go to hell, which was an odd thing to say in that he was fairly ok with the notion (in part because of what he thought hell would be like). That is, at a heady, factual level, he felt he had some knowledge of hell's existence as a real place. But more importantly he had a heady/factual knowledge of good and evil, and understood where he stood on a sort of spectrum view of those concepts - kind of "works based" theology, and he knew he was a bad seed by that definition. The difference between him and many (not all) people who call themselves Christians is that those folks have a knowledge of their own being a bad seed but its not limited to a mental transaction like it was in my other friend's case. It was factual yes, but it was also something known to their spirit/heart/guts - however you want to put it. Thus they *feel* convicted of being evil but its not merely at the level of lining up their logic based on a few facts and then acting accordingly. Genuine contrition can't only ever be that mental tranactional sort of knowledge, you know? Christians believe this is happening because the Spirit is convicting them. But for my example's sake, that doesn't matter - the point is they know truth in their hearts which is, I suppose, just plain different from knowing truth in their heads, or lining up arguments, and so on.
That's why Christian apologists know they can do their best work to defend the faith so to speak, and tear down any intellectual barriers to someone coming to genuine faith, but that alone will never be sufficient for the people they are helping to move into genuine repentant faith. In the old testament prophets for example, God speaks of people feeling "ashamed" when they remember their sins. That's a knowledge of a truth that doesn't "do any work" if its only known-in-the-head knowledge and not also known in the heart knowledge.
That's the best example I could think of for the present. And other people who have different philosophies of life still engage with these kinds of truths that are pulled from the seat of the emotions, not merely from the pages of books or someone's logic or whatever. The difference is often what is informing and molding their conscience/guts/emotions. For some its the Koran, others the Bible, other new age spirituality, other Buddhism, others great works of classic fiction, others Greek philosophy, others Jerry Springer, etc. So the head facts still play a crucial role, but they don't play a total role in how we all arrive at the "truths" or knowledge we arrive at. For most of us its not any one source solely. And that's part of why people of the same faith somtimes have differing beliefs (especially when it comes to morality).
I threw around a lot of terms like emotions, conscience, gut, heart etc and they shouldn't really be used so interchangably, but hopefully it made some sense.
All this to say, since Erika is informed by a host of non-Doug sources, its not surprising her insides dictate to her different knowledge. But at the same time, I have to smile at all the times I've heard you, Doug, declare, "That's just wrong", usually with a smile about something inconsequential in life. But you see where I'm going with it. You don't always base that proclamation on a litany of facts and arguments, there's just something inside you that "knows" some goofy little part of life is off kilter, in the same way Erika is trying to contend *you* should appeal to *your* insides to find the truths she's found inside herself, which she has found, in part, after engaging with heady facts, and which will also shape how she engages with future facts. The two work together. The problem is, you're looking inside and seeing different things.
(Is anyone starting to see why I am a Christian? Part of it has to do with seeing it as the best way - to my admitedly limited overall knowledge and experience - of explaining all that's out there both in terms of facts I digest with my head and facts I digest with my heart. It doesn't explain a lot of things, but so far, its the best explanation of which I am aware. I suppose I could just make up an explanation that would cover more. But I'd know its made-up, so it would lose some of its power over me.)
Facts are facts, but knowledge insofar as humanity is concerned is broader than the facts in our books and in our head. You know all this already I realize.
And Erika, I'm going to start a tally of who leads to you being "mortified" the most. I think I have two so far :) And if you keep conceding points, I'll have this paradigm thing knocked off before I ever even get to present my case :)
Darth to Doug: "Search your feelings, you know this to be true." As we move from modernism to postmodernism this is the mantra, for better or worse.
Ok, so I'm posting this stuff late...well after the discussion. However, I still wanted to add in a thought or two.
First, I appreciate the debate/discussion on issues and not personality or character. I applaud Todd’s response to Mr. Anonymous about friends having a discussion. I appreciate Erika’s image of high school friends still being able to debate current issues of their time and age as they did ‘back in the day’. That’s pretty cool, actually.
Second, ‘Princess Bride’ excerpt….EXCELLENT!!!! Very Cool!!!
My two cents of thoughts
Stem cell research. I think the one point that transcends everything I want to say….”Science without Ethics is a recipe for chaos” (Me, 2007). Science can not be separated from ethics. It must operate within a code of ethics as should all fields – law, clinical medicine, education, etc. Without ethics, events like the public health tragedy of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study and medical atrocities of Nazi, Germany occur.
See http://www.cdc.gov/tuskegee/timeline.htm
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/medtoc.html
See also these documents: (1) Declaration of Geneva; (2) Declaration of Helsinki
Funding:
Federally funded research – research essentially funded by taxpayers – must adhere to the good of all humanity. The government regulates how that money is spent; will it benefit society today and long-term? The government does fund studies for original research – research that discovers something new, revolutionary, and helpful for society. However, the pot of money for this is small and only a small percent of all scientists actually discover something significantly new during their career. Most scientists build on the research of others ‘discovering’ in increments – even new drugs are building on the multi-faceted research that originally found that certain chemical types/structures will trigger a particular response in a cell type, for example. The greatest pot of money goes towards continuing the field – building on and increasing knowledge in an area. I think it is important for the government to be advised objectively on how current research trends will benefit and hinder society as a whole and thereby put limited resources (federal funding has been dwindling each year) towards the greatest potential outcome.
Ethics and the naysayers
Biomedical research and all research/study can not operate outside the walls/laws of ethics. All research ultimately (some areas more directly than others) affects humanity. Again, let’s look at Tuskegee. It is for historical reasons such as this that research can easily become controversial and political and the “sign wavers”, as Doug describes them, begin to wave. I believe it was great that James Thomson truly discovered something new…as a scientist myself I bow down in admiration. Very few scientists actually discover something so revolutionary in their careers. In addition, he modified the course of his study to figure out whether he could manipulate adult cells to produce the same effects he noticed in embryonic. I think The White House stated it eloquently in saying in the New York times recently (November 21, 2007) that “By avoiding techniques that destroy life, while vigorously supporting alternative approaches, …encourage[e] scientific advancement within ethical boundaries”. Science can advance in the face of politics, in this case, influenced strongly by ethical debate. I do wonder though, as Nate mentioned, would Thomson’s mind have sought to discover whether the potential existed in a less controversial medium had not ethical guards raised their voice in protest. Would the more significant discovery be found (as Doug rightly pointed out the advantages of using the adult cell lines)? Would he ever have sought an alternative that did not destroy life (I guess you can see my stance on abortion) had not the naysayers raised objection? Naysayers, within reason, do help to keep things within ethical boundaries without taking anything away from discovery. I think naysayers, within reason, have a place in the research agenda. If it were not for them, there would be greater atrocities than what history has already witnessed. I think Thomson was driven by a thirst for discovery whose experimental direction changed – leading to further discovery – due to ethics and the resultant politics.
Have I missed the point?
Simone
12/10/07
p.s. I use a washcloth everyday.