[Speed Gibson,
Thursday October 7, 2004 at 1:52pm]
Carping
Jo's Attic discussed the carping of the left regarding stem cell research. As Jo notes,
Allow me to add the recent carping of candidates Kerry and Edwards regarding the No Child Left Behind, which they initially supported. I have seen this phenomenon over and over in life. You have nothing to address a need, and you get some grumbling. But once do buy or build something to fill that need, then the real carping begins.
Example 1: I was the first among my friends to buy a home computer, a Radio Shack TRS-80. I was repeatedly told how Apple or Imsai were better choices. They, of course, had not bought anything yet, but I had clearly bought the wrong machine in their eyes.
Example 2: At a former employer, we had no security system installed on our mainframe computer system. The auditor could write little more than the fact that we needed one, which we did. Well, we bought one. The next audit went several pages, with point after point how our security hierarchy was wrong, procedures lacked proper controls, management didn't read the reports, on and on. You would think we had impaired security by buying a security system.
So here too, where George W. Bush is the first to fund stem cell research of any kind, he now draws a mountain of nuanced criticism that is insignificant compared to having no program at all.
Where George W. Bush greatly expands Federal aid to education, with Senator Kennedy's direction and blessing, he now draws many more times the criticism than he would have received had he done nothing. And I wonder now if Bush would not have received far less criticism if he had merely applied sanctions and bombed from 10,000 feet in response to 9/11.
Certainly far less from the Democrats.
All of the advances that have been made with stem cells have been made with adult stem cells, not some...all. The investors into this research (either adults, or embryonic) saw that the great strides were coming from the work with adult stem cells. What does that mean? That means the funding for those working with embryonic cells started to dry up. So, they run to newspapers and celebrities to tell the average man how all of their research is going down the tubes because it's not being funded and babies will die and the sky is falling...blah....blah...blah.
Allow me to add the recent carping of candidates Kerry and Edwards regarding the No Child Left Behind, which they initially supported. I have seen this phenomenon over and over in life. You have nothing to address a need, and you get some grumbling. But once do buy or build something to fill that need, then the real carping begins.
Example 1: I was the first among my friends to buy a home computer, a Radio Shack TRS-80. I was repeatedly told how Apple or Imsai were better choices. They, of course, had not bought anything yet, but I had clearly bought the wrong machine in their eyes.
Example 2: At a former employer, we had no security system installed on our mainframe computer system. The auditor could write little more than the fact that we needed one, which we did. Well, we bought one. The next audit went several pages, with point after point how our security hierarchy was wrong, procedures lacked proper controls, management didn't read the reports, on and on. You would think we had impaired security by buying a security system.
So here too, where George W. Bush is the first to fund stem cell research of any kind, he now draws a mountain of nuanced criticism that is insignificant compared to having no program at all.
Where George W. Bush greatly expands Federal aid to education, with Senator Kennedy's direction and blessing, he now draws many more times the criticism than he would have received had he done nothing. And I wonder now if Bush would not have received far less criticism if he had merely applied sanctions and bombed from 10,000 feet in response to 9/11.
Certainly far less from the Democrats.
"There is nothing more difficult to plan, more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to manage than the creation of a new system. For the initiator has the enmity of all who would profit by the preservation of the old system and merely lukewarm defenders in those who would gain by the new one." --Machiavelli, 1513