President Obama is expected to sign an executive order on Monday to loosen Clinton era restrictions on Embryonic Stem Cell research. An embryo is any multi cellular animal in a developmental stage preceding birth or hatching. A human embryo contains a totally unique DNA code, created from the union of a male sperm & female ovum. Left alone it would multiply, grow, and eventually become a human being with limitless potential to do good in the world. Using embryos for stem cell research destroys them, thereby ending human life.

President Obama has vowed, with blatant appeals to Americas moral reputation, to close down Guantanamo Bay, Cuba where he claims “enemy combatants” are tortured. What the President calls “enemy combatants” or “insurgents,” many others call terrorists who are known to play significant roles in terrorist operations around the world, including but not limited to the bombing of the U.S.S. Cole and the attacks of 9/11.

Embryonic Stem cells aren’t known to offer any greater hope for curing disease than adult stem cells, which wouldn’t require the destruction of a human embryo. The issue in Obama’s order isn’t simply embryonic stem cell research, but government funded stem cell research. If embryonic stem cells offered hope to cure cancer or AIDS or some other gruesome disease, I wonder why the private sector wouldn’t jump on it, develop it, and make a bunch of money. If embryonic stem cells were the hope of the universe, why would the government have to fund the research? Could it be that embryonic stem cells don’t offer any greater hope medical hope than adult stem cells do, and the research isn’t really about medical science?

The “enemy combatants” (read: terrorists) at Gitmo are avowed enemies of the United States. During their detention at Gitmo, they have been given (at tax payers expense) three meals a day (which many weren’t receiving in their home country) and complete religious freedom. Detainees have been portrayed as nearly sympathetic figures by Senator Dick “Turban” Durbin and his ilk who likened Guantanamo Bay to Auschwitz. The difference was that the Jews at Auschwitz were innocent citizens persecuted by an evil dictator leading a regime of evil. The terrorists at Guantanamo Bay are members of an evil regime of terror who have persecuted, murdered, and sought to control by fear innocent citizens around the world.

President Obama’s impending order for Embryonic destruction can’t be separated from his clearly demarcated position as the most radical pro-abortion president in history. Each embryo (life) that President Obama destroys has not had the opportunity to make a positive impact on the world. In Florida, a doctor set to perform an abortion (on an embryo) showed up late to take the life of the unborn child. Before he arrived, the baby was born alive and the medically unlicensed owner of the clinic cut the umbilical cord and deposited the dying baby in a bio-hazard bag, and discarded it to die. There was, rightfully so, an uproar from both sides of the abortion debate. If, as the pro-abortion camp says, the baby that died was simply a mass of flesh, why the uproar? At what point in the baby’s trek through the birth canal did it change from a “mass of tissue” to a baby, worth fighting for? If the baby was going to be terminated any way, why was what the clinic owner did any great travesty? I would say that the outrage the abortion rights groups displayed was what they should feel every time a life is terminated. They should have been outraged.

The detainees that President Obama will pardon have used the life they were given to bring terror and destruction to the world. As adults, they have chosen, and continue to choose to bring terror, mayhem, and evil to a world already struggling against atrocity. By their own volition, they use shame and fear to conscript their own countrymen to become suicide bombers and knowingly take the life of innocents. That is the path they have chosen.

President Obama is not restoring America to the place of moral world leader. He has not increased our ability to speak to the nations of the world about moral issues, he has lessened it. These conflicting orders do not bring clarity to what it means to be an American, they bring confusion. They place the lives of murderers and terrorists over lives of the unborn. By President Obama’s government sponsorship of the destruction of unborn American lives, while releasing our enemies who have and will do us harm, he is propagating a culture of death in America. A generation is coming that will be further hardened and calloused to the serious implications of abortion, even in the name of (pseudo)science. Also coming is a generation that will be hardened and calloused to the news that terrorists live and move and breathe in our world.

Terror and abortion are issues of life and death. Killing stem-cells is voluntarily terminating a unique DNA strand created by two gametes. Embryo’s, through all forms of termination, are punished for no fault or choice of their own, while terrorists are released as the leaders of the people they have brutalized cow-tow, apologize, and send them back to the places they came from. Stem cell research isn’t the answer to all of our medical problems or it would have been developed & researched in the private sector long ago. The executive order on stem-cell research isn’t about scientific research, it isn’t even about “choice,” it’s about who defines life.

If we are to be a country that loves and believes in the value of human life, even for those who would take it (terrorists), then that same right must be extended to the most helpless and innocent among us.

Crossposted at realityunwound

It’s good to see Michael Steele, the new chairman of the RNC squaring off against the DNC Chairman, Governor (VA) Tim Kaine. Conversations like this are a good tool for him to make the point that, regardless of what rhetoric Democratic policy is wrapped in (“we just care about the middle class, blah blah blah”), the summum bonum of political policy (on either side) ought to be the establishment of a truly free (from government intervention, etc) middle class, and leftist policies just don’t do that. In other words, a hand up is always better than a hand out. So let’s take a look at what Gov. Kaine says. His primary point before the break is that the stimulus does three things:

1. Tax cuts for working class Americans making less than $150,000 per year - Hey, tax cuts, those are good, right? Yes they are. But ask yourself this, why would this stimulus contain tax cuts at the same time that Nanci Pelosi is bellowing about King Barry repealing Dubya’s tax cut? Why would his tax cuts be bad, but these tax cuts be good? Because this isn’t a tax cut, it’s a tax CREDIT you can take, similar to the Earned Income Credit. That’s way people who pay no income tax at all get money back. You say “tax cut” I say “redistribution of wealth,” on Obama, Pelosi, and Reid’s terms.
2. Infrastructure spending work. Michael Steele makes a good response to this, which is similar to what he said to George Stephanopolous that I talked about here. Basically, government work isn’t the same thing as a sustainable job. More on that below.
3. Relief for taking care of the unemployment & medicare needs for the jobless. This is the one that chaps my chorizo. This is where, just like Gretchen said, we start to slide into socialism. Language is everything. Why wouldn’t we want to give some relief to those who have lost their jobs in this economy? Don’t you want them to have health care? Yes. That would be great, BUT, it doesn’t stimulate the economy, and once you start “relieving” them, you’ll never stop relieving them. Why would they go look for a job if you will pay them while they’re not working? What’s more, if they can not work, get paid, AND receive medical benefits. Why would anyone work?

The largely Democratic U.S. Senate (along with 3 (barely) Republicans Olympia Snowe & Susan Collins of Maine & Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania) thumbed their nose at a majority of Americans and voted 67 – 31 to foist debt upon generations of Americans by passing the Economic Stimulus bill.

Before we jump into the specifics of this legislation, let’s answer the question about whether a government sponsored economic stimulus package is a good idea philosophically. In other words, is the government dumping money into the economy a good idea to begin with, specific spending items not withstanding?

I take the line that it’s a bad idea, almost irrespective of what items actually make it into the bill.

1. The government doesn’t have any money. How does a government get money? Largely, even primarily, by a public tax. For a government to spend hundreds of billions of dollars for this enormous chunk of legislation, it will have to some how come up with the money. What are the options? Raise taxes, print more money, or borrow the money. Raising taxes doesn’t stimulate the economy, it takes from those who SHOULD be stimulating the economy (you & I). Simply printing more money begins an inflationary spiral that makes the money we do have worth less, solving nothing. If we borrow the money, we have to pay it back. Why will our children be better able to pay for the messes we’ve made than we are?
2. Jobs & Work are not the same thing. We kept hearing our President talk about the “shovel ready” infrastructure projects this bill would fund, and those projects would help us out of this mess. I don’t think they would. George Stephanopolous got a blank look when Michael Steele shared this line of thinking, but I think most of you are smarter than George. What happens when the shovel ready projects are finished? All those people who are employed on them… are unemployed again. Unfortunately, then, because government artificially propped up the job sector, there has been no “stimulus” for the private sector to create jobs and people are once again unemployed. Now the government must either continue to employ them or figure out another way to get people work… er, jobs. People get wistful & misty eyed talking about FDR’s brilliance and how he led us out of the depression with his lettered programs (CCC, TVA, BFD… I made that last one up). I contend that WWII led us out of the depression because it provided the opportunity for THE PRIVATE sector to be re-energized. Now there was reason for people take risk and create jobs. Don’t believe me? What happened to all the people who had those government jobs after WWII? Why don’t we have them today? Because people got private sector jobs, which were sustainable.
3. Inertia. What is at rest tends to stay at rest until acted upon by an outside force. In this case, the government is trying to be the outside force acting upon an inert economy. The goal, I assume, is to someday get to the place where the economy will be able to sustain itself without government help. If that’s the case, this is bad legislation. All form of business & personal taxes will go up to pay for this legislation. That means less money in your pocket and mine. Broad sections of the population with less money to spend won’t get an economy going in the long run (even the Congressional Business Office agrees). Now, if your frame of reference is, say, an 8 year period, this might allow you to dump the mess into the next guy’s lap (my sense is that this mess we’re in right now is the result of poor fiscal policy mounting up since Bush the elder) and escape as a President who started to right the ship (see FDR). For the long term, however, it does very little positive, and I think most likely does very much damage.

The key to long-term, successful, fiscal policies rock-solid, proven PRINCIPLES that you simply don’t violate, even if it seems like things are going down the tubes. I believe we’re in this mess because George W. Bush (and to a lesser degree, his father), not to mention Bill Clinton, abandoned the fiscal principles that helped America recover from the Carter years. Determining to live by the principle of limited government should dictate the action in this case:

1. Begin by cutting government waste and spending, not legislating it in the largest pork barrel spending in history. (See Sen. Tom Coburn’s (R-OK) list of stimulating items). A slimmer government allows you to…
2. Cut taxes, especially business taxes & capital gains taxes. This is often derided as the conservative pancea. Don’t deride it until you try it. Cutting taxes gives the private sector incentive to put money into the economy. The private sector will spend it better, and get a better return on it than the government will. That is sustainable economic growth. Where George Bush takes a bad rap (rightly so) is that he cut taxes, then went on a spending spree. Of course that’s a recipe for disaster. Call it a tragedy, just don’t call it a failure of conservative principles.

Washington D.C. is a funny place where things are usually what they seem, but those who live and move and breathe in it’s rarefied air only occasionally acknowledge things as they are. That leaves most of us publicly and/or privately scratching our heads, wondering whether reality is unwinding (ahem) or those we cast our votes for are liars or just naive.

I have been lately thinking about the countless millions who must be walking around confused, thoughts spinning, scratching heads over what is shaping up to be more of the same from the candidate of change living behind the hallowed White Walls at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Just like those two men, walking to Emmaus post-crucifixion, you can actually hear dreams deflating at the Huffington Post and Daily Kos (not so much at the Kos)… “we had hoped that he was the one who would redeem… ”

In reality, what we’ve seen splashed across the daily news every day so far is simply the implications of electing a flashy, brash, unproven charismatic personality. Atleast three of his appointments are tax frauds (Timothy Geithner skated through to be Treasury Secretary, Tom Daschle & Nancy Killefer withdrew as Secy of Health & Human Services and Chief Performance Czar respectively). He promised to not appoint lobbyists to his White House, and so far he’s only appointed 17. He’s castigated the American people for their carbon footprint, all the while keeping the White House heat cranked up. He asks us to tighten our belt and serves $100/pound beef.

There are definitely a couple of talking points here that are really, really significant:

1. What you’ve done matters: Obama won the rhetoric battle this past campaign season. Unfortunately, his rhetoric didn’t match his record. He made our hearts flutter and Chris Matthews legs tingle, but whether it’s because of the media or because of the masses didn’t clamor for it, what Barack Obama had actually done was never allowed to become an issue. Obama’s never been anything but a rabid, leftist partisan. His record in the Illinois Senate shows that, and his microscopically short tenure in the U.S. Senate only reveals that he’d been running for President since day one, so he steered clear (Present) of any actual votes. President Obama is exactly what he’s always been. A radical Democrat.
2. Truly left-leaning Democrats are elitists: By that, I mean there is an intrisic belief that they are better than (or at very least smarter than) the rest of us in most ways, so they don’t actually have to play by all the rules that we have to. The Speaker of the House doesn’t feel the need to get involved in the Pop Culture she was elected to represent. The man who will run the Treasury can’t be expected to pay his taxes, neither can the appointed Secretary of Health & Human Services and other high ranking officials. The God of Green, Al Gore thinks nothing of fanning the flames of fear & frenzy over global warming while racking up a $30,000 utility bill. John Edward’s briefly ran for President to dismantle the two America’s dichotomy from the comfort of his 30,000 square foot estate. They tell you what they want you to hear, whether or not it’s true, or whether or not they actually believe it themselves.
3. The Ends don’t always justify the means – Elections make people say crazy things. They have a tendency to draw out inflated claims of power and potential. It seems to be a unique belief on the left that whatever needs to be said to gain power is acceptable. This goes back to the elitism above. They are so convinced that they know something we don’t, so convinced that they hold they keys of knowledge and understanding that the only hope we as a uinverse have is to get them elected. So if they have to stretch truth or appoint “indispensable” tax cheats to head the Treasury after promising reform in Washington, it makes little difference. What matters is that “The One” is in office.
4. Principles matter: Precisely because of all these things, principled leadership is crucial. Well established principles do the right thing, even if it’s not politically expedient. Principled leadership is what drove President Bush to leave office as possibly the most unpopular President in history. I disagree with many of the decisions that he made (especially at the end), but to look back, he did exactly what he said he was going to do to the best of his ability. He was guided by his principles. So far, it seems President Obama is being guided by his lack of them.

<div class=”mceTemp”><dl id=”attachment_164″ class=”wp-caption alignleft” style=”width: 310px;”> <dt class=”wp-caption-dt”> <div style=”text-align: auto;”><img class=”size-medium wp-image-164″ src=”http://www.realityunwound.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/hope-progress-300×224.jpg” alt=”When? ” width=”300″ height=”224″ /></div> </dt> </dl></div> Washington D.C. is a funny place where things are usually what they seem, but those who live and move and breathe in it’s rarefied air only occasionally acknowledge things as they are. That leaves most of us publicly and/or privately scratching our heads, wondering whether reality is unwinding (ahem) or those we cast our votes for are liars or just naive.   I have been lately thinking about the countless millions who must be walking around confused, thoughts spinning, scratching heads over what is shaping up to be more of the same from the candidate of change living behind the hallowed White Walls at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Just like those two men, walking to Emmaus post-crucifixion, you can actually hear dreams deflating at the Huffington Post and Daily Kos (not so much at the Kos)… <em><a href=”http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke%2024:19-21&amp;version=31″>”we had hoped that he was the one who would redeem… </a>” </em> <em></em>In reality, what we’ve seen splashed across the daily news every day so far is simply the implications of electing a flashy, brash, unproven charismatic personality. Atleast three of his appointments are tax frauds <em>(Timothy Geithner skated through to be Treasury Secretary, Tom Daschle &amp; Nancy Killefer withdrew as Secy of Health &amp; Human Services and Chief Performance Czar respectively). </em>He promised to not appoint lobbyists to his White House, and so far <a href=”http://www.indiadaily.com/editorial/20471.asp”>he’s only appointed 17</a>. He’s castigated the American people for their carbon footprint, all the while keeping the White House heat <a href=”http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/29/us/politics/29whitehouse.html?_r=1&amp;scp=1&amp;sq=white%20house%20dress%20code&amp;st=cse”>cranked up</a>. He asks us to tighten our belt and serves<a href=”http://www.realityunwound.com/2009/01/29/obama-thinks-bankers-over-spend/”> $100/pound beef</a>. There are definitely a couple of talking points here that are really, really significant:   <ol> <li><strong>What you’ve done matters: </strong>Obama won the rhetoric battle this past campaign season. Unfortunately, his rhetoric didn’t match his record. He made our hearts flutter and Chris Matthews legs tingle, but whether it’s because of the media or because of the masses didn’t clamor for it, <em>what Barack Obama had actually done</em> was never allowed to become an issue. Obama’s never been anything but a rabid, leftist partisan. His record in the Illinois Senate shows that, and his microscopically short tenure in the U.S. Senate only reveals that he’d been running for President since day one, so he steered clear (Present) of any actual votes. President Obama is exactly what he’s always been. A radical Democrat.  </li> <li><strong>Truly left-leaning Democrats are elitists:</strong> By that, I mean there is an intrisic belief that they are better than (or at very least smarter than) the rest of us in most ways, so they don’t actually have to play by all the rules that we have to. The Speaker of the House doesn’t feel the need to get involved in the <a href=”http://www.realityunwound.com/2009/01/30/the-speaker-of-the-house-cant-be-bothered-with-popular-culture/”>Pop Culture</a> she was elected to represent. The man who will run the Treasury can’t be expected to pay his taxes, neither can the appointed Secretary of Health &amp; Human Services and other high ranking officials. The God of Green, Al Gore thinks nothing of fanning the flames of fear &amp; frenzy over global warming while racking up a <a href=”http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/story?section=news/national_world&amp;id=5072659″>$30,000 utility bill.</a> John Edward’s briefly ran for President to dismantle the two America’s dichotomy from the comfort of his <a href=”http://archive.redstate.com/stories/featured_stories/two_americas_indeed”> 30,000 square foot estate</a>. They tell you what they want you to hear, whether or not it’s true, or whether or not they actually believe it themselves.</li> <li><strong>The Ends don’t always justify the means</strong> - Elections make people say crazy things. They have a tendency to draw out inflated claims of power and potential. It seems to be a unique belief on the left that whatever needs to be said to gain power is acceptable. This goes back to the elitism above. They are so convinced that they know something we don’t, so convinced that they hold they keys of knowledge and understanding that the only hope we as a uinverse have is to get them elected. So if they have to stretch truth or appoint “indispensable” tax cheats to head the Treasury after promising reform in Washington, it makes little difference. What matters is that “The One” is in office.</li> <li><strong>Principles matter</strong>: Precisely because of all these things, principled leadership is crucial. Well established principles do the right thing, even if it’s not politically expedient. Principled leadership is what drove President Bush to leave office as possibly the most unpopular President in history. I disagree with many of the decisions that he made (especially at the end), but to look back, he did exactly what he said he was going to do to the best of his ability. He was guided by his principles. So far, it seems President Obama is being guided by his lack of them.  </li> </ol> <div>Our responsibility on the right is to not let it happen. Talk to people you know about it. The tone of our discourse should be all together different from the whining and whimpering of the past 8 years. It should, however be pointed, direct, and laden with facts.</div> <div>The citizens of the United States elected what we hoped would be the candidate of hope and change, two ideas that apparently struck a chord with the masses. What we have been dealt so far is heaping helpings of the same old thing. It’s imperative that we go forward, because right now hope can rise again. 2010 is around the corner, and there is a lot of work to do getting the right people in place to stem the tide of Obamalitics. So get involved. Learn the names of the players on the state and national scene. Have a conversation with your friends, especially the ones who voted for King Barry the Hopeful. Ask them if they are satisfied with what their President is doing. Ask them why.</div> <div>Most of all, don’t lose hope, trust that your voice matters, and hold your leaders accountable to principled leadership.</div>