Conservatives are not anti-stem cell research

How many times have you heard that conservatives simply don't care about finding cures for the various diseases that ail our society today? And some basic proof for this is the fact that conservatives have been against stem cell research since its inception as an idea in science.

Here is a link to a blog, Down with Tyranny, that highlights exactly what I'm talking about, where republicans were blasted last summer because they voted against stem cell research, where in actuality they didn't vote against stem cell research, but fetal stem cell research.

I'm tired of hearing this kind of stuff, and I want nothing more than for Americans to learn the truth about conservatives, about republicans, that we do care about finding a cure for diseases just as much as democrats and liberals.

I have been writing in my recent posts how conservatives get the meaning of their words twisted a lot by the media, a lot more so than liberals do. More recently I've written about how global warming advocates will have those who disagree global warming theories made to be fools, and the media in general makes few if any attempts to discredit them.

Today I wish to talk about another topic that liberals, and the liberal press, wish to have you believe, and which is actually a fallacy that I will disprove. Liberals, either in the press or in the classroom, will have one believe that conservatives are anti-stem cell research.

As I wrote in a previous post, when a conservative talks about how he is against government funding of FETAL stem cell research, liberals claim that “he is against ALL stem cell research.”

The truth is, conservatives are not against stem cell research. What they are against is FETAL stem cell research. They don’t believe it is right for the government to fund research that involves the killing of a fetus. Despite this truth, the media, in their chants, will lump all types of stem cell research together and tell you conservatives are against all stem cell research.

The truth is, there are many kinds of stem cells, the two basic kinds being bone marrow and fetal. Bone marrow stem cell research has directly benefited over 70 diseases. Fetal stem cell research, to date, has benefited zero diseases.

Most conservatives favor marrow stem cell research. President Bush decided, early in his first term, to allot government funding to bone marrow stem cell research because it has proven to be of benefit to society. At the same time, however, he did not approve of government funding for fetal stem cell research because it has NOT been proven effective. He believed, that at that point in time, it was not prudent to send government money to an unproven science.

There is, however, great hope that the new science of fetal stem cell research will one day benefit society, so, in making his decision regarding the controversial issue, Bush decided NOT to ban independent businesses from performing fetal stem cell research. And, therefore, stem cell research goes on to this day -- legally.

Therefore, President Bush, republicans and conservatives alike are NOT AGAINST stem cell research, but for it.

Remember just prior to the 2006 mid-term elections when the media showed Rush Limbaugh on the news chanting about how Michael J. Fox was faking his Alzheimer’s to benefit his political stance. Well, what I’m talking about here is exactly what Rush was talking about on that day. Fox, an ardent supporter of stem cell research, implied in an ad for a democratic candidate that only democrats support stem cell research.

Rush said (I‘m paraphrasing here), “That is not true. It is a lie. Republicans, too, support stem cell research. Fox, and democrats, are trying to tell the people that if they want to find the cures for all these diseases, that they have to vote for a democrat. This is a lie."

And, while Rush could have simply stopped there in making his point, he went on to imply that Fox purposely didn’t take his Parkinson’s medication in order to make his symptoms look worse just so he could get public sympathy.

The media made Rush look like an idiot. (Or, I suppose, Rush made himself look like an idiot. But that’s beside my point.)

One of my friends said, “I knew Rush was an idiot, and now he has proven it to me.”

I said, “How did you learn about what Rush said? Did you learn about because you watched the Rush Limbaugh show? Or, did you learn about it through the media?

“Oh, I watched CBS news last night.”

“Bingo.” I said, “That’s the problem right there. The media hates Rush Limbaugh. Rush is in direct competition with them. The media will do anything in their power to make Rush look bad. And, what better way than to show Rush himself mocking a sick actor.

“What you need to know,” I continued, “Is that the media only showed half of Rush‘s monologue. If they had shown the entire monologue, you might have thought differently of Rush, and you would have seen first hand the point Rush was trying to make. Instead, you only saw what the media wanted you to see.”

“What do you mean.”

“Well, earlier in his monologue Rush quoted Fox saying, “I purposely didn’t take my medication before going before the Senate in order to get sympathy. “ And, Rush said, “If he did this once, who’s to say he didn’t do it again.”

This is where Rush went into his chant about Fox faking his disease. And, because this part made Rush look bad, this is the part the media ran with. Thus, the media twisted his words like onions in a blender.

Had a democrat said something like this, the media never would have shown it. A perfect example is when Rosie O’Donnell claimed the U.S. government was the reason 9-11 happened. If Ann Coulter had said this, it would have been plastered all over the media. But, since what Rosie said supported the point-of-view of the media, it never even made the news -- except for on Rush and the Internet.

Not that I don’t like Rosie, it’s just what she said came to mind here. And, not that Rush needs me to defend him. He has a million more brain cells than I do. And, not that I don’t like Fox, because he’s a hero of mine. Family Ties is my all time favorite sit-com, and the Back to the Future movies were among the best ever.

I know some of my examples here are old news, but the point I wanted to make was that conservatives are not anti-stem cell research, and that conservatives, like liberals and all Americans, want to find cures to the many diseases America faces today, diseases I have to deal with at my work as an RT on a regular basis