Barack Obama And The "False Choice"

In Mr. Obama's inaugural address we find this statement:

As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals.

It's a stunning bit of vapidity: safety is one of our ideals.

And in Mr. Obama's speech regarding the use (and destruction) of human embryos for scientific inquiry, we find this statement:

But in recent years, when it comes to stem cell research, rather than furthering discovery, our government has forced what I believe is a false choice between sound science and moral values. In this case, I believe the two are not inconsistent.

The stunning vapidity apparently never ends: No one in the Bush administration ever created the false choice described by Mr. Obama. For President Bush, science informed his ethics, and vice versa: It is science that shows us that life begins at conception, and it is our ethics that draws a clear moral line between the willful destruction of human life for unknown medical gains and research that is not so inhuman. Mr. Obama even acknowledged the "unknown" in his speech the day he repealed Bush's ban:

At this moment, the full promise of stem cell research remains UNKNOWN, and it should not be OVERSTATED. But scientists believe these tiny cells† MAY have the POTENTIAL to help us... [emphasis added]

Of course, lost in Mr. Obama's emptiness is the unavoidable fact that the Bush administration PERMITTED embryonic stem cell research to continue; President Bush only limited the number of embryonic lines that could be generated (and the administration funded stem cell research as well).

In other words, only Mr. Obama has created the false choice: the choice between his false-choice straw man and the actual facts. There was no false choice save the one in his own imagination.

A REAL FALSE CHOICE

Lastly, the capstone: Here is what Michelle Obama said of her husband on the campaign trail; this was meant to sell him to us as something special. Check out this skewed logic:

The first major decision he had to make in his life, after college - "Do I go to Wall Street and make money, or do I work for the people?" - Barack worked as a community organizer in some of the toughest neighborhoods on the south side of Chicago.

Here, finally, we have evidence of a legitimate False Choice. Mr. Obama's alleged quandary is utterly manufactured. He is alleged to be unbelievably bright, and yet apparently not quite bright enough to see his false either/or. For there is no evidence that a man going to "Wall Street" to "make money" does not "work for the people." In fact, a good case could be made that a Wall Street job is far better for "the people" than community organizing in Chicago. Regardless, the point is clear: Michelle and Barack Obama presented themselves as better people than those who they falsely believe don't "work for the people"; and if Ms. Obama's testimony regarding her husband is to be trusted, then she and her husband have either fallen prey to their own false choice, or they've pandered to the envious masses by giving themselves props concealed in a false choice: We are for the people, and our refusal to work on Wall Street -- though we could have! -- proves this.

And yet, somehow, as workers for the people who rejected the allure of Wall Street, they've still managed to become millionaires.

It is now quite clear, I should think, that a colossal false choice was made some time around November 4, 2008.

Perhaps this also makes clear why Mr. Obama looks with such disdain on those who've been more successful than he. Envy nearly always poses as social justice -- for the good "of the people." In fact, it seems perfectly obvious that the whole of Mr. Obama's economic policies rests upon his most fundamental false choice.

_________________

†In the third Obama quote above, I placed a †. I wanted to draw your attention to the Orwellian diminution Mr. Obama provides: he uses a reductionistic euphemism to distract you from the fact that these are HUMAN EMBRYOS that are being destroyed; that these cells are the very rudiments and foundations of each and every human life that has ever existed or ever will exist. Each of us IS one of these "tiny cells", and each of us WAS one of these "tiny cells." This "great man" believes the weakest among us are strictly here to serve those who happen to have the privilege of walking around, you know, the advantaged; the strong. The embryos in power.

And why DID he repeal the executive order? You know why. The answer is almost genomic: $.

Mr. Obama is so disturbing precisely because he has been presented as anything but.

Peace through dissent.

©2009/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.

Monstrous Conceptions

I recently read about a scientist who discovered a new method of creating human babies in a laboratory. He begins simply by putting a baby in a test tube and adding a few enzymes. A few days later, he pulls the baby out into the open air. Presto! A baby.

This new process is a huge advance. Up until now, scientists could only create babies in the lab by taking fully grown adults and jamming them into test tubes. It was a very arduous process, especially for those adults unfortunate enough to find themselves in such a tight spot.

Forgive the absurdity.

If human life does not begin at conception, then it seems reasonable to assume that scientists could begin life in the lab at some later stage in human development. But scientists can do no such thing. Hence, it is safe to conclude that human life begins at the instant of conception.

Barack Obama, the loftiest intellect to ever lead the free world, promised that he would "restore science to its rightful place." He also pronounced that his administration would be based on "facts." Hence, he will repeal Bush Administration restrictions on the use of human embryos for research. To Mr. Obama, killing is the first step toward a healthy worldview.

How wonderful! How lofty! How noble! How progressive!

The incredibly attenuated, truncated, amputated view of the world represented by Mr. Obama is utterly monstrous. The most current advances in the medical sciences -- advances that have made international news for months and months -- prove that embryonic stem cell research is nearly antiquated. Besides, such research is purely speculative: there is nothing certain about any of the alleged gains gleaned from the harvesting of human life. Sadly, Mr. Obama is remarkably consistent on investing in phantoms: He's pouring billions of dollars into technologies and energy sources that do not yet even exist; and he's pouring monies -- during times of alleged desperation -- into biological speculations that reduce the beneficiaries of the apparent benefits of zygotic mutilation to cannibalistic parasites. We create and kill other humans solely for our benefit ... and profit.

Clearly, Mr. Obama DOES believe in building a society and economy from the bottom upward, using, and abusing, the poorest and most vulnerable to boost those of us who have the privilege of maturity on our side.

Bottom (bloody) line: This is all about $$$. That's it. $$$ distributed among allies. By Dr. Barackenstein.

And you thought Barack Obama was about a better world.

(Please take one moment to reflect on the monsters loosed upon the world by science -- "restored to its rightful place." Imagine a world where no one but embryos ever dies. It isn't hard to do.)

Peace through dissent.

(The Wall Street Journal published this excellent challenge to Obama's bold claim that he has removed politics from science.)

©2009/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.