As someone said on vodkapundit, if it was viable, they wouldn't need federal money.

Actually it is viable and doesn't need Federal money.

None the less the American people like it and so it is an issue the Ds can use against the "American Taliban".

Libertarians like it, so they think Americans do.

M. -

Every story I've read indicated that embryonic stem cells were better at growing tumors than curing diseases.

Ya see the thing is there are lots of people in America who know exactly what you should and shouldn't be doing with your money and your time. And they will pass laws in order to get men with guns to force you to do the right thing.

Now the problem here is that few of the people forcing you to do the right thing agree on what that is.

So of course each attempt at improvement moves us in the direction of unlimited government. Thus the attempt to do right leads us to the very wrong.

If we really want limited government we are going to have to be content with the arts of persuasion and leave the men with guns out of it.

And that goes for all sides to almost every question.

We give men guns because we are rightly afraid of one another.

To minimise police efforts and insure the rule of law you need to pass laws that people will comply with.

For effective enforcement you need better than 99% willing compliance.

Take our drug laws. About 5% of the American people violate them and it causes havoc through out the nation. Alcohol prohibition had the same effect. Boy are we stupid.

You know there is so much stupidity about. Something needs to be done. Perhaps we could get a law.......

Jeff,

You know that says that we might learn a lot about tumors and their control by studying such cells. Because obviously very few stem cells wind up as tumors under invivo circumstances. Why?

Personally I'm content that the government stay out of the issue. In fact if government stayed out of research it would be a good idea. Which is probably the hardest thing you can do. Every one in America is addicted to government. Some like the money, others like the power. I have a few bad habits of my own. Thing is I'm not deluded about what is really going on. Collectivism has taken hold on the right and the left. Some want an economic collective and some want a spiritual collective.

Well the disease is obvious. What we need to to is find a cure. Call your congressman......

M:

A decent society needn't pimp itself out for the most aberrant 5%.

Life is collective, only the cheese stands alone.

Of course not oj. With only 5% at issue a civil war is easily possible and not very expensive.

If you count the murder, theft, higher insurance rates, and other bad properties of the current prohibition law it probably only costs us $200 bn. to $400 bn a year.

It is not like we had anything better to do with the money.

On top of that research is starting to show that what we call drug addiction is self medication for pain that current medicine doesn't recognize (generally).

For 80+ years we have been persecuting people in pain. Kind of makes you proud of putting your thumb on the deviants. Don't it? Just what Jesus would have done. Init?

I'd say that was a pretty good example of American Christianity. Well I go back to Jesus. Forgive them, for they know not what they do.

Certainty - morally or other wise - can be very dangerous to your morality.

The Christian support of drug prohibition is going to be a very black mark on Christianity as a whole and the American Christians who foisted this misbegotten program on the world. Didn't Billy Sunday and alcohol prohibition teach you guys anything?

Evidently not.

Every religion has its way of inflicting its punishment on the world. To think that with Jesus at the head your religion would be any different is hubris.

Pray in silence in your own bedroom. It is safer for all concered. Including yourselves.

There's a clinical name for pain that medicine doesn't recognize currently--self-indulgent hokum. Keep defining deviancy downwards and anything any percentage of people feel like doing has to be allowed. The clinical name for that is Europe.

Remember, Christ scourged the money-lenders, even though their loans were consensual.

You know it is just possible that Jesus with his infinite compassion saw the pain of the deviants where ordinary people only saw the deviancy.

I am personally convinced tat most of what is called deviancy is an attempt to control pain.

Heartless Christians. It must be a miracle.

Either that or Christians are nothing special. Just as willing to run the persecution machine when they gain power as the next guy. Wot a surprise.

Well it is a gentler persecution machine. Jails instead of firing squads. Well I suppose it is an improvement.

Do you suppose humanity is ready for the next step?

Stopping the persecutions altogether.

Not yet. The hatreds are too deep.

Why aren't Bush supportes scourging Haliburton? And Citibank.

I mean government, religion. What's the difference?

Immorality is to be persecuted.

Right on oj.

You must be the new Jesus. I'm going to bow down to you right away.

A man without sin.

I'm surpised no one else has noticed.

Well I'm your first convert. Let us together spread the good news. And the persecutions.

We can call it the New Christianity.

The Enron gang is all headed to jail.

You know the guys Jesus seemed to be up against practiced the wrath of the righteous. Perhaps Jesus was wrong to oppose them.

OK. Bring back the old time religion.

We can forget about mercy. There is persecuting to be done.

Now it is possible you are right and I am wrong. But as with all things in this world I have my doubts.

It's the old Christianity. I gladly accept punishment for my sins.

M., the problem with your approach is that people are willing to cause untold pain to others in order to alleviate their own pain. Pain is universal, it is not restricted to the 5%. We all have pain. A decent society is only possible when people are willing to be good citizens in spite of their own pain.

Don't think it humane to allow an addict to have free rein with his addiction. The addiction will only cause him more pain, and will eventually destroy him. He will do damage to many others on his way down, his family, his neighbors, his coworkers, the people he kills while he is driving high. The government's first duty is to protect those people from the harm that the addict would do to them, secondarily it is government's duty to protect the addict from himself.

From the mind of John Stuart Mill ( a famous philosopher in England in the 19th century ):
Is the tyranny of the majority a necessary unremovable part of democracy? After this last election; welcome, my friends, to the the tyranny. Must we stifle dissenters? Kill them? Jail them? I believe this is why it is so very important to keep ALL religion out of the house of government.

Of course he didn't believe that in practice:

http://www.nhinet.org/15-1.htm