It's not exactly fresh news, but I have just come across a very interesting column by William Saletan, on the Slate Web site. The headline: "Rights and Wrongs: Liberals, progressives, and biotechnology."

Saletan identifies himself as a liberal, for what it's worth -- although he doesn't do so until a good way down into the column:

...what makes me think I'm still a liberal? I guess it's a stubborn belief that liberalism isn't whatever dogmas currently possess this or that lefty camp. Liberalism is an admission of uncertainty. It's open to self-correction and to the complexity and unpredictability of life.

What's interesting about the column in general is that he uses it to take certain "liberal" bioethicists (or those who support them, without being bioethicists themselves) to task for, well, their illiberalism:

I have problems with liberals. A lot of them talk about religion as though it's a communicable disease. Some are amazingly obtuse to other people's qualms. They show no more interest in an embryo than in a skin cell. It's like I'm picking up a radio signal and they're not. I'd think I was crazy, except that a few billion other people seem to be picking up the same signal. At most liberal bioethics conferences, the main question in dispute, in one form or another, is whether to be more afraid of capitalism or religion.

But -- lest the reader think he's about to stab his liberal colleagues in the back -- Saletan offers up a deft summation of a common-sense approach not only to stem-cell research, but to many related science-vs.-religion controversies (emphasis added):

I don't even like the idea of taking a general position on biotechnology. The field is just too big and complicated to fit an ideology. In science, things change much more radically than in politics. One month, we're screening embryos for diseases, and everybody's happy. The next month, we're screening embryos for their suitability as tissue donors, and everybody's queasy. One year, ethanol is a corn product and makes no sense. The next year, it's a switchgrass product and makes a lot of sense. I like having the freedom to soak my head in a new topic and come out saying the opposite of what I expected. Committing to a political identity would just get in the way.

In general, the column neatly repudiates the idea that supporting -- or decrying -- a field of scientific study has anything to do with common sense. You can take one position or another, based on one thing or another, but it makes no sense to (a) require a litmus test of someone's beliefs on the issue in order to label them as either a good liberal or a good conservative, or (b) claim that you yourself are a good liberal or a good conservative because of your beliefs on a given issue. Not just bioethics, but life at large, is just too big and complicated to reduce it to a range of acceptable yes and no opinions.

Labels: bioethics, conservative, liberal, stem cell research

This has absolutely nothing to do with the beginning of human life, except perhaps that it discusses someone who is possibly inhuman. I mention (dare I add to her bottom line?) the Conservative Queen of Mean, Ann Coulter. Her latest vituperation has her calling Democratic Presidential candidate John Edwards a "faggot." The exact words:

"I was going to have a few comments on the other Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards, but it turns out you have to go into rehab if you use the word ‘faggot,’ so I — so kind of an impasse, can’t really talk about Edwards."

Also, the Think Progress blog reports:

Previously, Coulter has put “even money” on Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) “[c]oming out of the closet,” said Bill Clinton shows “some level of latent homosexuality,” and called Vice President Al Gore a “total fag.”

Coulter's similarity to Anna Nicole Smith is obvious -- fame at any cost. But where poor Anna Nicole's desperate yearning hurt only herself, Coulter has no qualms about whom she insults, hurts, or slanders. If you doubt, just remember what she had to say about some of the 9/11 widows:

In her book, Godless: The Church of Liberalism, she writes that a group of New Jersey widows whose husbands perished in the World Trade Center act “as if the terrorist attacks happened only to them.”

She also wrote, “I've never seen people enjoying their husbands' deaths so much.”

Nice. I wonder how Conservatives, who include the "Religious" Right, can embrace someone who spews such viciousness?

But the bigger question to me is how do you fight something like this? All this woman wants is fame, because fame is what enables her to demand large advances from her book publisher, guest spots on major television shows, exorbitant speaking engagment fees, and yet more book deals. She, like Anna Nicole, will do anything to be famous. Fame sells. And if Ann Coulter is interested in anything, it is in selling herself.

So, if fame is what she seeks (successfully, I might add, since she's currently #2 on Technorati's Hot Search list), how do you argue with her without giving her exactly what she wants? It's really an ingenious strategy. Every single media mention, blog post (including this one), or outraged op-ed adds to her bottom line. It's a numbers game and Coulter knows that outrageousness generates numbers. So bring on the nice guys, the widows, the orphans, the oppressed -- they're all grist for Coulter's abusive mill, where she grinds out increasingly offensive diatribes guaranteed to prompt impassioned responses. The resulting brouhaha has her laughing, as they say, "all the way to the bank."

So, how do I feel about helping finance her smug, if comfortable, retirement? I feel like retching, of course, but I'm also envious. Envious because I can't think of anyone in the Democratic Party willing to be mean enough to counter her. Is that our loss or not? Is there any way I could slap her and not be arrested? How do we silence someone for whom argument is victory?

Labels: Ann Coulter, Anna Nicole Smith, conservative, fame