[quote=“Vay”]Great NYT editorial:
nytimes.com/2009/03/15/opinion/15rich.html
[quote]When Barack Obama ended the Bush stem-cell policy last week, there were no such overheated theatrics. No oversold prime-time address. No hysteria from politicians, the news media or the public. The family-values dinosaurs that once stalked the earth — Falwell, Robertson, Dobson and Reed — are now either dead, retired or disgraced. Their less-famous successors pumped out their pro forma e-mail blasts, but to little avail. The Republican National Committee said nothing whatsoever about Obama’s reversal of Bush stem-cell policy. That’s quite a contrast to 2006, when the party’s wild and crazy (and perhaps transitory) new chairman, Michael Steele, likened embryonic stem-cell research to Nazi medical experiments during his failed Senate campaign.
What has happened between 2001 and 2009 to so radically change the cultural climate? Here, at last, is one piece of good news in our global economic meltdown: Americans have less and less patience for the intrusive and divisive moral scolds who thrived in the bubbles of the Clinton and Bush years. Culture wars are a luxury the country — the G.O.P. included — can no longer afford. [/quote]
Now, according to something TC posted - that I admittedly didn’t read, so I don’t know if it really says this! - Obama has reversed himself on stem cell research already. Possibly because the point may already be moot, as scientists now know how to create stem cells without destroying embryos. Still, it’s an interesting editorial, pointing out parallels during the Great Depression. I never realized that FDR got the repeal of Prohibition in the works straight away on being elected. No wonder Republicans hate him so much! Let’s hope the “War on Drugs” goes the same way.
Let’s also hope these ‘cultural climage changes’ stick once things turn around. America can do without Jimmy Swaggart and Jerry Falwell.[/quote]
Yeah, President Obama reversed himself. Here is the link from the 2009 House Appropriations website on H.R. 1105 FY 2009 Omnibus Appropriations Act. The text is in under “Division F Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies”. It’s a PDF so I linked to the main House Appropriations page, but it’s on page 128 line 9 titled Sec 5.09.
[quote=“House Appropriations Bill Division F Page 128”]
SEC. 509. (a) None of the funds made available in this Act may be used for
(1) the creation of a human embryo or embryos for research purposes; or
(2) research in which a human embryo or embryos are destroyed, discarded, or knowingly subjected to risk of injury or death greater than that allowed for research on fetuses in utero under 45 CFR 46.204(b) and section 498(b) of the Public Health Service Act (42 U.S.C. 289g(b)).
(b) For purposes of this section, the term “human embryo or embryos” includes any organism, not protected as a human subject under 45 CFR 46 as of the date of the enactment of this Act, that is derived by fertilization, parthenogenesis, cloning, or any other means from one or more human gametes or human diploid cells. [/quote]
So I ask you Vay, if scientists have already figured out ways to create stem cells without destroying human embryos, why overturn the executive order by President Bush? If it was for purely scientific reasons, instead of moral avoidance of destroying life, then why reinstate it a few days later? If it was totally unnecessary because scientists figured out a way to create stem cells without destroying the embryos then what was the reason for overturning it in the first place? The only thing I can think is that either someone didn’t read all the riders on the appropriation bill or they wanted to make a grand gesture of overturning it in a public demonstration but were sneaky and hid it in the omnibus bill.
As for legalization, look at the next lines on the same page in the omnibus bill.
[quote=“House Appropriations Bill Division F Page 129”]
SEC. 510. (a) None of the funds made available in this Act may be used for any activity that promotes the legalization of any drug or other substance included in schedule I of the schedules of controlled substances established
under section 202 of the Controlled Substances Act except for normal and recognized executive-congressional communications.
(b) The limitation in subsection (a) shall not apply when there is significant medical evidence of a therapeutic advantage to the use of such drug or other substance or that federally sponsored clinical trials are being conducted to determine therapeutic advantage. [/quote]
FDR was a crafty politician. He realized that the public opinion had turned away from prohibition and that the government could make money by taxing it again. There was also the urbanization of America when many people moved from the farms to the big cities to look for work. I think you are attributing too much to FDR, since one of the plank’s of the the Democratic platform in 1932 was the repeal of prohibition. Plus, prohibition was an amendment, not an Executive order. It still had to be ratified by state conventions to be overturned. Give FDR his credit for pushing Congress, but it still was a groundswell of public opinion for it that made the difference.