PrintDecember 11, 2007
The End of a Debate
What happens when an unexpected development suddenly makes it no longer necessary for adherents of a certain ideology to engage in conflict? The recent discovery that gives scientists the ability to turn skin cells into cells that share identical properties with Embryonic Stem Cells qualifies as such a development.
Up to this point, many from the left had comfortably seized control of the high moral ground on this issue. With aid from the media, and the assurance by the scientific community of the vestigial healing powers of Embryonic Stem Cells, they piously condemned the supposedly callous ignorance of those who objected to their demand to expedite legislation requiring that federal tax dollars be used to fund Embryonic Stem Cell Research (E.S.C.R.).
For these so-called "progressives", the fact that human embryos needed to be harvested and killed in the process did not pose the least moral quandary. Instead, it was favorably cast as a supremely justifiable means towards an unimpeachably noble end. History will deal with them accordingly.
Were it not for this timely discovery -- ever so politely escorted by the media into the moribund registry of superfluous news stories that do not help advance the progressive agenda -- E.S.C.R. would have continued to be enshrined by liberals. The same myopic zeal has -- to name a few other examples -- extolled the dignity of every woman's "reproductive right decision", mandated the moral acquiescence of sexual deviance, defended the unfettered license for physicians to "mercifully" kill their patients, proclaimed the end of the Global Warming debates, applauded the prepotency of the State over religion, and denounced the military interference of empire-driven U.S. presidents with murderous and oppressive regimes.
Ideally, this new development should provide advocates of unrestricted E.S.C.R. -- mostly liberals by definition -- a rare opportunity to exercise some measure of humility on that, and other controversial issues to which they have chosen to bind themselves. But more importantly, it should give them pause to reflect upon the fundamental principles which spur them to wage war against their opponents on such issues in the first place.
The fact that the majority of the causes alluded to earlier are fundamentally premised on life-negating principles should be reason enough for liberals to at least consider a nonpartisan audit of their objectives. A sober appraisal of the latter would most certainly awaken a sense of how profoundly misguided they are.
Not that I am intentionally omitting the fact that the conservative ideology is far from perfect. Both ideologies inevitably tend toward coveting supremacy amongst other competing worldviews vying for relevancy in the public square. It behooves adherents of both ideologies not to shy away from periodically re-examining their long held convictions in these changing times.
But convictions rooted in nonnegotiable principles - by virtue of the fact that they transcend mere fashionable moral trends - should remain unchanged. In so far as such principles are missing from the liberal ideology, the conservative ideology - all its imperfections notwithstanding - stands unrivaled. This disparity is often illustrated by the fact that Conservatives are typically chided for being unfaithful to their core principles, whereas Liberals are indicted by the social decay that ensues as a result of strict adherence to theirs.
Today's liberals suffer from a marring decrepitude, manifesting itself in what their forebears would quickly denounce as the rather illiberal ethos of guiltless autonomy, speech codification, thought surveillance, and retroactive gender and ethnic bigotry.
Mere cosmetic attempts at re-inventing themselves by changing their brand name, or taking stock of the aggregate moral decay from decades of civic prerogative will not likely solve their predicament.
I hope that this recent scientific milestone may help them realize that it is high time they revisit some (if not most) of their ideological stances, and decide how much farther they will stray from the once cherished liberal tradition. But they continue to engage in the dispensation of newly invented rights for a few citizen groups fortunate enough to find shelter under their exclusive canopy of "victims", rather than valuing the fundamental dignity and freedoms of all persons, religious and secular, healthy and infirm, born and in utero.
Here's to hoping it will give them pause. But don't hold your breath.
