Reading more in the question than the subject

I noticed a poll question on Sen. Bill Frist’s new medical/health blog, Medical Matters. Behold:

Do you support S 2754, legislation which supports research to produce pluripotent cells without destroying human embryos?

Yes
No
Undecided

I’m trying to determine if that question is intentionally or unintentionally misleading. I support the talking point aspect of this debate, which is stem cell research. It’s stupid to pretend like every cell ever created that could be a human will be a human. Restricting science from exploring stem cells is anti-progress that will harm people who exist while protecting people who never will. If that was S 2754, sure, I’ll take Yes please.

But if it’s the two specific aspects of S 2754, I must say No. Federal funding would be better spent on legitimately federal tasks. I have little doubt that private companies, as well as research organizations and universities (I’m ignoring the public funding for simplicity), will do the necessary research to uncover whatever potential stem cells hold. All they need is for the government to get out of the way. It’s almost a broken record.

That plays into point number two¹, which is that “destroying human embryos” will encourage politicians to pummel any scientific research that doesn’t meet their agenda. In this case, it’s the fundamentalist Christian ideal that life begins at conception, even when the cells involved could never be a human. After all, S 2754’s sponsor is Sen. Rick Santorum. I’m sure he expects “destroying human embryos” to be interpreted in a particular manner, which may or may not be grounded in science. Science should remain rooted in evidence-based discovery, not political expediency.

In a shameful yet unsurprising probability, President Bush threatened to veto this bill. That would be his first veto in his 5½ years in the Oval Office. Correct decision, wrong reason. I guess by now I should expect that the good things in this administration are mere accidents of circumstance. So be it.

¹ Please read the comments for a better discussion of point number two.

Like a burglar returning your DVD player

I received a surprise in the mail yesterday. It seems I overpaid my taxes, so the United States Treasury sent me a sizable check, with interest, for my overpayment. I’m surprised because I use tax software to prepare my tax return. A card accompanying the check promised an explanatory letter in the near future, so I await that. I can’t imagine what I could’ve missed, but I’m shocked by pleased with the government’s honesty. Sweet.

The smart thing to do is to stick it in my 401(k), not to treat it as found money as so many do when receiving their expected tax refund. I advise that ad nauseam, so using this to justify some unplanned expenditure would be hypocritical. That might save me, too, because I have a sneaking suspicion that it’s a government trick. Give taxpayers a whole bunch of money back, expecting them to spend it, thereby rescuing the economy. After that, just follow up with an “Oops, you were right all along, please return what you owe.” But politicians would never do such a thing. Would they?

Anyway, I must be the favored class that progressives complain about. Clearly President Bush himself is looking out for me. Wait until he finds out I don’t live in Texas and won’t contribute this check to his party’s Permanent Majority Fund. Sucker.

Overheard in Washington, DC

I’m the wrong person to agree, because I like the heat wave we’re dealing with today since it’s warm and not humid, but this strikes me as absurd:

“It’s too damn hot.” – random woman

If I happened to be the type of person who talks to people strangers, I probably would’ve commented on the cup of steaming Starbucks coffee she held. But I’m not, so I didn’t. Instead, I pointed her out to The Internets and laughed..

No society looks good in this debate

Huh?

Writing in the British Medical Journal, Ronan Conroy, senior lecturer at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, says the growing acceptance in Britain and elsewhere of so-called “designer vaginas” was exposing Western double standards.

“The practice of female genital mutilation is on the increase nowhere in the world except in our so-called developed societies,” he writes. “Designer laser vaginoplasty” and “laser vaginal rejuvenation” are growth areas in plastic surgery, representing the latest chapter in the surgical victimisation of women in our culture.”

I think women choosing to have their genitalia surgically altered is strange, at best, but defining this as female genital mutilation is absurd. As I’ve mentioned before with male circumcision, which is worth expanding to include women, I don’t care what adults choose to do to their bodies. If women want to succumb to bizarre societal norms that may or may not be real, they should be able to choose that for themselves. Research it or not, have a good time. I hope it works out for them. But in that context, it’s cosmetic surgery. This is not that:

Mr Conroy writes: “It is Western medicine which, by a process of disease mongering, is driving the advance of female genital mutilation by promoting the fear in women that what is natural biological variation is a defect.”

There was an assumption by Western critics that in the developing world the practice was forced on young girls. In fact, it was often welcomed as the mark of entry into adulthood and they were proud of it, he said. “The high moral tone with which those in richer countries criticise female genital mutilation would be more credible if we in the North had not practised and did not continue to practise it,” he added.

We in the West are barbarians for allowing adult cosmetic surgery, and that’s somehow analogous to girls having genital surgery forced on them? No. Where is Mr. Conroy’s attack on adult male circumcision as male genital mutilation, since society perpetuates the myth that men are defective without surgery? Would he then defend infant male circumcision because most men in the West grow to think that their circumcision is wonderful? The whole idea is preposterous.

Men and women should be allowed to choose any body-modifying surgery they wish for themselves. But only for themselves. Genital mutilation¹ of children is wrong, whether it’s done on girls or boys. Adults can consent. Children can’t. That is the travesty, not the way some adults choose to disfigure themselves.

¹ Some will challenge the use of mutilation to describe male circumcision. Consider the World Health Organization’s definition of female circumcision, which is most often called female genital mutilation:

“All procedures involving partial or total removal of the external female genitalia or other injury to the female genital organs whether for cultural, religious or other non-therapeutic reasons.”

What makes female genitalia more worthy of protection than male genitalia? Male circumcision involves partial removal and injury to the genital organs, so the conclusion is the same. Circumcision for non-therapuetic reasons is mutilation.

More lessons in civics and fewer in social appeasement.

A few days ago, Glenn Reynolds wrote of Tennessee’s proposed Constitutional amendment aimed at protecting marriage from those who believe that individual rights should determine how the government treats the citizenry. Mr. Reynolds and I are in agreement that constitutional amendments for this question are a bad idea, but I mostly added on that last bit as a summary of my own feeling because I don’t care for parts of his explanation. Consider:

…

My own sense is that this sort of thing belongs in the political sphere, and that efforts to insulate it from the political sphere, either by judicial fiat or constitutional amendment, are a bad idea.

UPDATE: This is part of a string of losses for gay marriage advocates, reports Dale Carpenter, who has detail on what’s going on. As I’ve noted before, it seems to me that the big push on gay marriage came before the public was ready. You have to educate first; there’s been good progress on public attitudes toward gays, but it actually seems to go faster when gay marriage advocates aren’t getting a lot of publicity and calling people who disagree with them bigots. (Kaus has noted this, too — scroll down due to lack of permalinks at Kausfiles.) Honey, vinegar, and all that.

My own feeling is that Americans are basically fair, and will come to support gay marriage on their own given a bit of time. And I think that — despite claims that they’re really just opposing “judicial activism” — gay marriage opponents fear that I’m right.

I understand his point, and I believe he’s right that Americans will eventually support same sex marriage on their own. I also think he’s right in describing what will be most effective, given our current political atmosphere in which selling out one group of Americans is an accepted strategy for buying another, larger group. That’s a practical realization of how malignant our political climate remains. We shouldn’t pat ourselves for working within that system, though.

The larger, more troublesome challenge in accepting that thinking is that this flawed climate should invalidate a Constitutional approach to achieving equality. It’s ridiculous to assert that the opinion of a majority of Americans matters in this. Why should a segment of Americans wait for future generations to grant them fundamental rights that should be respected now? We live in a republic based on individual rights, not a land where mob rule should dictate how our courts interpret our Constitution. Judicial fiat or not, the role of our judiciary is to interpret the Constitution, thereby protecting the individual rights of every citizen from government and other citizens. Only in not faithfully administering its duties is a court engaging in judicial activism.

The legislature may be the best location for this fight, but that doesn’t make the courts a bad place for it. The majoritarian mentality consuming the willingness of our elected representatives to uphold the Constitution indicates the fallacy of abandoning the Constitution to meet the mob’s delicate condition that it never be offended by others and that the minority must bow to the majority until the majority is ready. Our liberty doesn’t work that way.

Turn it to eleven and slam that axe

I’ve been away for a few days because my birthday was Saturday. I didn’t really do anything adventurous over the weekend, as I’ve rediscovered the profound genius in occasionally doing nothing. A good bit of the last three days involved little more than rockin’ the free world with Guitar Hero. Fine, the closest I came to rockin’ the free world involved shredding I Wanna Be Sedated with the windows open while Danielle threw the goat a few times. She and our cats were entertained. Or at least she was. The cats mostly begged to have their heads scratched. To-may-to, to-mah-to.

Anyway, that’s how I spent a few days away enjoying the arduous transition from 32 to 33.

Discrediting our principles is counterproductive

A reasonable person who understands and respects American ideals could never write what will surely follow this:

The Geneva Conventions of 1949 govern the treatment of lawful combatants and civilians during wartime. But now a new Pentagon memorandum concludes that Common Article 3 of the Conventions also governs the treatment of unlawful combatants: pirates, drug mafias and especially terrorists. So, five years after 9/11, the U.S. is about to give to people who ram commercial jets into buildings many of the same legal privileges and immunities as the average GI.

Framed that way, it’s easy enough for the non-thinking right-thinking American to be appalled at the Supreme Court’s Hamdan decision. That frame is wrong. The sub-title to the Opinion Journal’s editorial implies that we’re now giving legitimacy to terrorists. We’ve done no such thing. The Supreme Court’s proper decision that America is subject to the Geneva conventions is about re-legitimizing our adherence to trusted and tested principles, not giving some special recognition to mass-murdering lunatics. The heinous nature of their crimes should not alter how we treat them in captivity.

What the world needs is a new legal framework for distinguishing between legal and illegal combatants, but instead we are now heading toward the European model where terrorism is seen as just another fact of life and not a unique evil or grave threat.

I’m open to the case about legal versus illegal combatants, although we’re discussing war, so a man with a gun is a man with a gun. What I want to hear to be persuaded is how the differences matter in law, how we’ll decide who is illegal, and what we’ll do to captured prisoners who receive “illegal” status. Torture is not acceptable, again because it is too reprehensible for us to commit. The tortured is irrelevant. I will never concede this point.

The appropriate questions are simple to agree upon. For example, should illegal enemy combatants be held indefinitely until hostilities are concluded? If so, how will we know when the war is over? If we believe enemy combatants without ties to a specific nation are a threat, and we have proof, we should try them in a court of law. The assumption of future aggression against the United States by such combatants after the war is well-founded, but that indicates permanent incarceration for such initial war-making. That should be imposed through a structured system of justice. If we can prove their guilt, that is a reasonable solution. Because its implementation would be neither easy nor expedient is not reason to avoid it.

Instead of silly amendments and false proclamations of adherence, the President should adhere to his responsibilities as spelled out in the Geneva Conventions (and the Constitution). The Congress should not alter his responsibilities because he finds them burdensome.

Oxymoron of the Day

Commenting on Ezra Klein’s post about Charles Murray’s book In Our Hands is well past its timeliness, but I enjoyed this bit:

I do, however, want to use my blog’s blissfully unlimited space to go into some added detail on Murray’s policy mistakes. The base assumption of his plan is that he can halt the growth of health spending — the primary driver of budgetary inflation — by restoring all power to the individual, who will then bargain with private insurers and demand better care, lower cost, and snappier service. His basic premise is that given the trillions floating around our government, the concept that we have any problems at all is absurd, and it must mean that government waste is subverting America’s abundance.

The problem is, our country’s entitlement programs are models of bureaucratic efficiency. Social Security spends less than one percent of its budget on administration; for Medicare, it’s two percent. Compare that to the private health insurers, who blow about 14 percent on administration. Indeed, if you imposed the Plan immediately, it would cost staggering $355 billion more than the government currently spends. Some efficiency.

Perhaps Mr. Klein’s summary of Mr. Murray’s plan is correct; I haven’t read the book, so I can’t comment on the details. Its details aren’t essential to understand that Mr. Murray is probably not talking about overhead. It doesn’t matter how efficient the bureaucracy is at administering entitlements, if it’s paying too much for unnecessary procedures, there is waste that should eliminated. If the public wants its unnecessary procedures, they should pay for those procedures themselves. So, if you spend 14% on overhead to keep prices in line, you may be able to save more than if you efficiently overpay.

Link from a Balloon Juice discussion on minimum wage proposals.

More than what you need is too much

Do I need to read beyond this drivel from yesterday’s Washington Post?

Wages are rising more than twice as fast for highly paid workers in the Washington area as they are for low-paid workers, an analysis of federal data by The Washington Post shows.

That means the spoils of the region’s economic expansion are going disproportionately to workers who are already well-paid, widening a gap between rich and poor in a place where it is already wider than in most of the country.

Businesspeople cite shifts in the world economy that give educated workers leverage to negotiate for higher wages but make low-paid workers replaceable — a disparity that is especially pronounced in a service economy like Washington’s.

Spoils. Disproportionately. Already well-paid. Capitalism sure is evil, what with the rewards that go to people who make themselves economically attractive to the marketplace. It’s not fair. There should be a law against that.

I won’t be reading beyond those opening paragraphs.

Save our souls (and state monopolies)

Congress: Boo yourself!:

The House passed legislation Tuesday that would prevent gamblers from using credit cards to bet online and could block access to gambling Web sites.

The legislation would clarify and update current law to spell out that most gambling is illegal online. But there would be exceptions — for state-run lotteries and horse racing — and passage isn’t a safe bet in the Senate, where Republican leaders have not considered the measure a high priority.

The House voted 317-93 for the bill, which would allow authorities to work with Internet providers to block access to gambling Web sites.

Work with is a euphemism for force. Anyone still want to claim that Republicans and Democrats are for economic freedom, and liberty in general? I don’t. Paternalism marches on.

I don’t have any more to say on this bill specifically, but I want to savor the stupidity of this quote:

“Never before has it been so easy to lose so much money so quickly at such a young age,” [Jim Leach, R-Iowa] said.

When will Congress act to outlaw citizens from using credit cards to finance a new business? As a business owner, I could lose everything I own. Won’t you protect me?

Ass.