1. Clinton continues to look good in a three-piece suit while undercutting the president’s proposed tax policy.
It’s abundantly clear that Bill Clinton either doesn’t care if President Obama wins re-election or is currently engaged in a passive-aggressive strategy to aid in his defeat. What isn’t necessarily as clear is why. Is Obama too liberal for Clinton? Has Obama been too ruinous for the Democratic Party? Is it retaliation for the Obama campaign’s (temporary) fracturing of the Clinton bloc within the DNC? Or retaliation for dashing both Clintons’ hopes of a return to the White House? Perhaps least likely of all: does Clinton have a primary challenger in mind?
2. Romney’s Mormonism won’t cost him the critical evangelical vote.
Of course it won’t, because there’s a difference between Mormonism and Mormons. Mormonism is religious slapstick. Mormons are sober, socially conservative, family-focused and successful business people actively involved in their communities and politics.
3. Reports of al Qaeda’s demise may be greatly exaggerated.
Assuming the key leadership of al Qaeda™ is eventually eradicated in its entirety, there is an essential debate that needs to happen as to whether that constitutes a victory in the now rebranded War on Terror that will allow us to bring our troops home. A critical aspect of that debate will, of course, be that destroying al Qaeda’s leadership doesn’t equate to a destruction of the Fort Hood and Umar Farooq-Abdulmutallab brand of low-cost, low-tech Islamic fundamentalist terrorism. I suppose that’s another compelling reason for Congressionally-declared war against a clearly defined enemy with pre-defined victory conditions.
4. “My poverty but not my will consents.”
This is one of many examples of a clear confusion of bioethicism and social policy that has resulted from the broadening of the scope of bioethics itself. What caught my eye was the assertion by Ellison and Meliker that paying women for their eggs might induce a disproportionate number of poor women (under duress, seems to be the inaccurate and underlying presumption) to put themselves at risk of health problems. This whole notion that the impoverished may somehow be less responsible for entering into an agreement after being made fully aware of the risks to their own health, apart from being baseless, doesn’t seem to have any place in bioethics.
@2: The whole "mormonism costing him the vote" arguement has been inflated from the start. This is going to be an ideological vote against President Obama, and the evangelicals aren't going to pass up the opportunity to get their "we don't like Obama" message out by not voting, regardless of the candidate. Heck, isn't spreading a message what evangelizing is all about?
ReplyDelete@4: The claim that poor people will be disproportionately influenced by monetary rewards for egg donation and therefore is unethical has three critical flaws:
ReplyDelete1) Most women have far more eggs than they could ever need, so why would we deny the poor an opportunity to earn money by (safely) donating a surplus resource? This could presumably lift many people out of poverty.
2) If egg sales to research were permitted, one could safely presume that the supply would rapidly expand, thereby lowering the price of an egg until equilibrium is found. While this would potentially shift the donor pool further towards the poor (as the rich would get marginally less benefit per donation, while the benefit to the poor remains proportionately high), this is a *good* thing in that more low income women could participate without wealthy women diluting the value for them.
3) Being poor frequently leads to participation in higher-risk activities in order to earn money, such as manual labor jobs or criminal activity. Providing low-risk income streams accessible to the poor is not only just, it is advisable.