Baghdad (AP)–The world was shocked to learn that Saddam Hussein has been preemptively cloned and is currently in utero. A perfect clone of the recently hanged butcher–said to be eight weeks along–has been revealed to be “doing fine.” The identity of the Iraqi woman carrying the deceased dictator’s clone is being kept strictly secret.
Immediate cries for the abortion of the fetus were resisted by the Iraqi government at the behest of the Bush White House. In a short statement, President Bush stated, “As a civilized nation, we must fight for the sanctity of human life except in those instances where we decide it’s not sacred…and this is obviously not one of those times.”
Officials have declared that, shortly after the clone is born, it will be put on trial for slaughtering the Kurds, found guilty, and be executed. Upon announcement of that decision, there was much celebrating and shooting off of guns. Stray bullets were responsible for the accidental deaths of three children and two more US troops.
PAD
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Dosn’t seem real, but they do say… Life is stranger than fiction!
Happy New Year PAD!
I take it no one warned the Iraqis about how badly the Spider-Clone saga worked out for Marvel.
1You know, the sad part is, they might just try to do this. Some people live with a need to either continue to punish thier abusers or relive their greatest moments. I could see Bush doing this because, and this not to be funny, rebuilding the world trade center and knocking it over again would just take to much time. And time is not on Bush’s side.
I’d like to wish Peter David and his family and everyone who comes to this site the happest and safest of new year’s.
Funny, PAD.
But seeing how I’m both pro-choice and pro-death penalty, I don’t think I’m subjected to charges of hypocrisy and inconsistency myself. 🙂
It still warms my heart to see a guy of Saddam’s caliber being executed for his crimes.
I think this settles the arbortion controversy in the US: fetuses can now be executed for the mass-murder of the 120 million sperm who lose out in fertilization.
I’m reading through the New Frontier books, and yesterday I happened to be finishing “Once Burned” (the Captain’s Table one).
(SLIGHT SPOILER WARNING)
I didn’t notice the parallels (only superficial, really) between Kenyon and Bush until their stories seemed to come together with the final scene on Anzibar Four and Saddam’s hanging. It’s sad that our^H^H^H the president identifies so easily with the archetypal villain, going nuts with a vengeance and killing thousands of people. I guess there’s a whole bunch of history and stories that warn against what current events are repeating, and apparently we still won’t have learned our lesson even 250 years into the future (assuming Star Trek is all true, even the “non-canon”). I’m sad now.
I guess I don’t really have anything interesting to say about it, but here would definitely be the place to do it, so. 😛 Great book, BTW.
The Baathists from Brazil?
But Hey! At least now the war’s over, right? I mean geeze, one more life to stop the loss of possibly tens of thousands more……I mean….wow guys….c-c’mon…
*sigh*
On the upside, only 750 days, 21 hours, 40 minutes and 18 seconds..17 seconds…16 seconds….on the Freedom Clock left!
Let me get this straight. The US, Britain and Austrailia landed on Iraq with both knees looking for WMD that wasn’t there anymore, based on questionable evidence that even that den of the Liberal Elite (CIA) pretty much called so much fertilizer, even though most of it was from the US and Britain?
Of course he got axed. Hadda keep him quiet
Not a clone, but Saddam’s ghost has had several sightings.
http://www.indiadaily.com/editorial/14948.asp
Hmm. So we now execute a twin for what his “duplicate” does.
I know the post was in sarcastic jest, but assuming, for the moment, cloning was possible, why would you execute an infant Saddam? It would be because one believed that he was predetermined by genetics to repeat the crimes of his “parent.”
I, for one, do not believe we are predetermined by our genetics. We make moral choices and are responsible for them. Therefore, a clone would be innocent.
Not to mention, the staunch pro-life crowd (of which I am a part) would never agree to the killing of the fetus or the infant clone. If you really think that is true (which I doubt), then you don’t understand our position.
The death penalty is a topic for another day and thread.
Iowa Jim
“I know the post was in sarcastic jest, but assuming, for the moment, cloning was possible, why would you execute an infant Saddam?”
You, uh…wouldn’t.
Are you SURE you knew it was a sarcastic jest?
PAD
Thanks for demonstrating that comedy is, indeed, very hard, and at times utterly elusive.
Alix, have you ever had an original thought? Because, y’know, the first time I saw you post here you asked PAD if he’d like “some cheese with [his] whine,” which is straight out of a musty old Reader’s Digest anthology of jokes my grandparents used to keep in bathroom next to the toilet in case anyone needed to be there long enough to flip through a few pages. And your post today is a rip-off of a come-back David Letterman used to fire off at hecklers (and it may not even have been original to him). And Letterman delivered it in a more concise and biting way: “This gentleman has taught us a very important lesson — not everyone can do comedy. Thank you for that, sir!”
Aw, hëll, I forgot to close one of my HTML tags in the post above. Oh, well, the point is still valid.
Here I just thought you were being passionate, Bill.
Of course, the final word on the life and death will be made on the place that truly captured his essence: SOUTH PARK.
James, James, James—-
You had to do it. You just HAD to. You had to go there.
Now, I’m going to have the uncle song from rhe South Park movie AND an image of Hussein singing
“I Think I’m A Clone Now” in my head for at least a week.
DARN YOU!
The point of this post seems to be to point out the inconsistency of having both a “anti-abortion” and a “pro-death-penalty” point of view. But isn’t it equally inconsistent to have both a “pro-abortion” and “anti-death-penalty” point of view?
I don’t think either pair is necessarily inconsistent; both allow that “killing” is allowed in some instances, most moral codes do, (immediate self-defence being probably the most common instance), people just disagree about what those instances are. Vegetarianism and euthanasia are two other points of contention, I think you can choose your values independently of one another.
For the record, though, I am pretty much “pro-death” across the board, pro-abortion, pro-death-penalty, pro-meat, and pro-dying-with-dignity. I use the “pro” construction to be semantically consistent, I would not take joy in any of these types of presumably necessary deaths.
If Saddam’s clone were aborted, could we use it for stem cell research?
Not at least until abortions cost $9 million a pop.
The “cost” of the death penalty isn’t a good argument against it, since a very large part of that cost is because of the groups who are against it (making it as difficult as they can for the government to administer it). This is like saying that you are against abortion because it causes clinics to blow up.
A question was asked, and I answered it.
I have no idea what you are saying. All I know is that my answer to his question is still true.
Mike:
“All I know is that my answer to his question is still true.”
Your answer may be true, but it’s not an answer to my question. (Which by the way, was a rhetorical question, not requiring an answer). If I asked “What were the effects of the Industrial Revolution?” and you said “Ronald Reagan was the 40th president of the United States,” your answer would be true but not a proper response to the question.
I was questioning the idea that one must either believe or not believe in both abortion and the death penalty. Your answer, pointing out the cost differential, actually reinforces my point, that these are two separate issues.
“The Baathists from Brazil?”
Sorry, we don’t have iraqis blowing stuff around here.
Mauricio straight from Brazil
Mauricio – I was referencing a movie “The Boys From Brazil”, which is about a different dictator being cloned.
But isn’t it equally inconsistent to have both a “pro-abortion” and “anti-death-penalty” point of view?
1)
I have never heard a single person argue what I would call a “pro-abortion” stance. “Pro-abortion” to me would mean someone who feels more women should choose to have an abortion, because abortion is a good thing, and we need more of it. Once again, I haven’t heard this argument from a single person, ever.
2)
I am against the death penalty because it kills a human. A sentient life form. (Sentience requires a functioning brain.) Killing a sentient life form is irreversible. Mistakes can’t be undone. Years in jail can’t be given back, but at least the wrongly jailed individual can be set free.
Individual cases can always be brought up: but we know person X is guilty, so what about them? But individual cases are meaningless because we have to rely on a faulty justice system that is going to make mistakes because it’s controlled by humans. If we were God-King we could make a decision on a case-by-case basis…but we’re not, so we’re against the death penalty.
3) a fetus is not a sentient life form. It is a potential sentient life form. So is a sperm. I know there are some churches that still are against birth control, but there is no law against the use of birth control, and there shouldn’t be. Men and women should be allowed to choose to use birth control, even though it kills sperm. And abortion should be a choice too. It’s a good thing to reduce unplanned pregnancies trhough more and better education, and therefore reduce the need for women to make this difficult decision.
I mean, I wouldn’t want mášŧûrbáŧìøņ to be outlawed either…that kills potential sentient life as well…and darn it, I enjoy it.
I see no hypocrisy.
Perhaps what Iowa Jim should have said is that, while he knew Mr. David’s post was meant as a joke, he was hard pressed to find something humorous in the attempt. Beyond that, he may have found the concept of executing a clone for the crimes of the original evocative of certain questions – questions PAD did not intend to explore, but which were nonetheless interesting to Iowa Jim, as well as to me.
The basic problem here is that PAD seems to feel that while he has the right to joke about whatever he pleases, and to criticize wherever he thinks it proper, the idea of someone else joking about him or, God forbid, criticizing him quite disturbing.
“The basic problem here is that PAD seems to feel that while he has the right to joke about whatever he pleases, and to criticize wherever he thinks it proper, the idea of someone else joking about him or, God forbid, criticizing him quite disturbing.”
A premise put to the lie by the simple fact that I have a pretty open policy in terms of discussion. If I *really* found criticism or joking disturbing, I would simply forbid it. I would use this forum as a pulpit for my opinions and delete or block anyone I don’t like or anything I don’t want said.
Actually, it always breaks me up when someone accuses a professional writer of “not being able to handle criticism.” It displays a staggering lack of awareness of just how much criticism and critiques are a part of a writer’s day-to-day life. If one can’t develop a thick skin about criticism, one shrivels very quickly in this business. At the very least, it manifests in self-destructive attitudes that become more and more pronounced (as the recent meltdown at the Byrne Board has shown.)
I’ve been making a living full time at this job for over twenty years and have an open-expression policy that extends to just about anything short of hurling vile epithets at my wife. That should tell you something.
In Jim’s case, I really, truly didn’t know if he knew it was a joke.
PAD
“But isn’t x?” is a boolean question. The answer is either yes or no. The answer to your question is still no.
Of the cardinal positions of your question — pro-death penalty, pro-choice, anti-death penalty, anti-abortion — pro-death penalty is the only option that costs over $9 million a pop.
“What were the effects of the Industrial Revolution?” is not a boolean question. Many answers answer the question.
The joke is that where the invasion of Iraq was justified as a preemptive strike, an abortion of a Saddam Hussein clone is also justified as a preemptive strike. All you need is George Bush citing forged x-rays the mother’s womb is hiding uranium bought from Niger in the state of the union address, or Hans Blix denying the mother’s fallopian tubes can be used as a centrifuge.
I’m gonna hate myself in the morning for this, I can tell, but Mike might have something there. The state of the union address is NOT a place they would’ve looked for uranium bought from Niger. Still don’t know how the speech got into a woman’s womb, though.
“Of the cardinal positions of your question — pro-death penalty, pro-choice, anti-death penalty, anti-abortion — pro-death penalty is the only option that costs over $9 million a pop.”
But what does that have to do with anything? What I’m talking about is whether you can be pro-death-penalty AND anti-abortion at the same time. You can be both pro-space-program and anti-talking during movies, only one costs several billion dollars, but so what? My point is that your argument is irrelevant.
And “John”; if you were to read my entire comment rather than just posting your standard arguments regarding abortion and the death penalty, you would see that I clearly say that “I think you can choose your values independently of one another.” I did not suggest that anyone was hypocritical.
It’s my own fault I guess…Mr. David made his point with a much more appropriate level of humor I think…
¡No, Nurse Ratched, no lo dice a mi madre, por favor!™
You asked where holding pro-death-penalty and anti-abortion positions are considered inconsistent, is holding anti-death-penalty and pro-choice positions not also inconsistent.
The answer to your question is no, because you can object to executing a convict on the grounds of the extreme expense.
OK, Mike, I still don’t get how that connects to the original argument, so instead I’ll just take a quick look at what you seem to believe is the germaine part of the argument, the 9 million dollars it takes to execute someone.
First; that seems like kind of a cold way to look at things. Most people are anti-death-penalty for reasons of compassion to humanity. Even those who think the death penalty is necessary for the most part do so because they believes it serves the greater cause of justice. I think it would be a sad world if we all chose our moral positions based on which was the cheapest.
Second; your $9 million dollar figure doesn’t come from the mechanisms of the execution themselves, (i.e. the noose, the electric chair, the firing squad bullets) The cost (and I’m letting you have that as an unsourced factoid) comes from the legal fees for the required series of appeals. Before we execute someone, we make sure they have every possible appeal. And the lawyers, of course, cost money. But that raises the question, shouldn’t we exhaust every possible appeal for everyone? If I was unjustly accused of a crime, maybe it would be better for me if it was a capital crime, because I’d get the defense share of the $9 million dollars, instead of the much cheaper life sentence defense.
It isn’t my fault the answer to your question didn’t make your point. That isn’t my problem.
Executions are times of celebration, are they?
So we’re doing the defendent a favor by prosecuting to execute? Because they get more money for defense?
I like ice cream.
a fetus is not a sentient life form. It is a potential sentient life form. So is a sperm.
John, I think I have to point out that this is, really, not the case. A sperm can never become a sentient life form.
Arguably, an egg could, though it would have a high liklihood of genetic defects. (A komodo dragon recently pulled this off.)
True, a aperm that combines with an egg has that potential but it has ceased to be a sperm at that point. One could argue that through cloning (the real cloning, not the Sci-Fi stuff) ANY cell could be used to fertilize an egg and thus has the potential for sentience.
So, in conclusion, you can mášŧûrbáŧë guilt free. Let’s shake hands on it…no, nevermind.
(as the recent meltdown at the Byrne Board has shown.)
Oh, great, now I have to go look…yeah, yeah, I don’t HAVE to but you can’t just tell us there’s been a headon collision between a cement truck and a volswagon full of clowns and not expect us to run out to see it!
Would you spend $9 million for ice cream?
Would you spend $9 million for ice cream?
I usually buy Haagen-Daaz. It’s not that much less.
But I’d still have to insist on a sample first.
All right, I know that PAD considers himself extraordinarily open minded. After all, he says so quite frequently. I suppose it is true in so far as he seldom (I would say almost never, but really don’t know the facts) bans posters who criticize him. The fact that I am posting is good evidence of that. Nonetheless, I still feel that he expresses an unsupportable certainty that his take on any subject is the only common sense position, and that anyone who finds fault with him “just doesn’t get the joke.” The way he has expressed himself here seems quite self-righteous, but he is accurate in characterizing himself as tolerant of opposition: He allows it, but thinks it is pretty silly for not seeing things exactly the way he does. He insists that his response to Iowa Jim came from a real uncertainty that he understood that the premise was a joke. I think he should have felt very certain that its intention as a joke was understood. “I know the post was in sarcastic jest” indicates that he knew it was meant as a joke. The real question is whether he found it funny. Perhaps he did not. I found it somewhat, but not extremely, funny, but it is each reader’s prerogative to decide for himself. His post went on to raise a real question – whether a clone of a monster should be held responsible for the crimes of its “father.” For me, the answer would be very simple: No, no one should be held accountable for someone else’s crimes, but other people may feel differently. The fact that PAD didn’t feel like addressing that particular subject at this time doesn’t establish that Iowa Jim just didn’t get it.
Posted by: Jeffrey Frawley at January 3, 2007 12:29 PM
The way he has expressed himself here seems quite self-righteous, but he is accurate in characterizing himself as tolerant of opposition: He allows it, but thinks it is pretty silly for not seeing things exactly the way he does.
I find it interesting that you perfunctorily acknowledge that PAD’s blog is open to anyone — even people who choose to insult him — and then try to follow that up with a “but.” As though giving people a forum in which to speak their minds — a privilege for which they didn’t pay and to which they are by no means entitled — isn’t tolerant enough.
Expressing disagreement isn’t the same as expressing a lack of respect. In fact, when I really don’t respect someone I usually limit my interaction with them or ignore them completely.
Posted by: Jeffrey Frawley at January 3, 2007 12:29 PM
He insists that his response to Iowa Jim came from a real uncertainty that he understood that the premise was a joke.
Iowa Jim asked, “I know the post was in sarcastic jest, but assuming, for the moment, cloning was possible, why would you execute an infant Saddam?”
That question missed the point of this post. PAD was poking fun at what he apparently sees as a contradiction in Bush’s philosophy. Bush opposes abortion based on the idea that “life is sacred,” yet is a strong advocate for capital punishment.
Iowa Jim, you and I disagree about a lot of things, but I do respect you. So I hope you understand that this is not a criticism or a jab, but merely an observation: you missed the boat on this one. If it’s any consolation, I’ve missed the boat here more than a few times myself. 🙂
There’s absolytely no reason to believe that the clone of anyone would be likely to result in a rebirth of whatever it was that made that person worth cloning. Identical twins are clones and end up as different people–and this is usually with very similar upbringings.
Imagine we clone Lincoln. What do we get? A homely tall kid of above average intelligence. He will not free any slaves and his unnattractiveness may limit his political ambitions, if he has any, which is by no means likely. He was a fortunate product of his time and even if we clone the man we can’t clone the time.
I suppose we might get good results from cloning purely physical traits, like athletisism, but personality traits are less likely and circumstances are impossible.
At least THE BOYS FROM BRAZIL made it clear that to recreate Hitler they would have to replicate his life events, to the best of their ability. Why they would want to clone a proven loser instead of, say, Rommel, is beyond me.
“Mauricio – I was referencing a movie “The Boys From Brazil”, which is about a different dictator being cloned.”
Right… Sorry, I would never remember that movie…
Posted by: Bill Mulligan at January 3, 2007 01:11 PM
There’s absolytely no reason to believe that the clone of anyone would be likely to result in a rebirth of whatever it was that made that person worth cloning.
Well, thank God for that. I was scared someone might clone me and then I’d have to kick my clone’s ášš for doing all of the stupid things I already did. But now there’s hope that someone might clone me and my clone might have a chance to get it right.
Go “other me!”
Bill Myers: PAD said “In Jim’s case, I really, truly didn’t know if he knew it was a joke,” whereas Iowa Jim had already acknowledged that it was a joke – so I think it is either disingenuousness or careless reading to miss the cue “I know the post was in sarcastic jest.” I have no reason to presume it is the former, so it could well be careless reading (with which everyone on this site, no one excluded, is sure to be familiar). PAD knows very well that “sarcastic jest” is a reference to a joke, and you may also. PAD’s response “missed the point of the post,” which was: “Yes, I know you’re kidding, but if this were really, seriously, truly so, then…” It’s a speculative leap, something like creative writing – you know, the sort of thing PAD does as a career.
“Giving people a forum in which to speak their minds” is far more generous than the practice of many blogs, certainly. That’s lovely, and I appreciate it, but (Yes, “but” – a word you don’t like) derision of opposing views can certainly exist even in a forum, such as this, which graciously permits such views’ expression. Obviously, you and I disagree as to whether PAD is intolerant in this matter, or perhaps just on what we mean by “intolerant.” What I think is this: 1. PAD goes far beyond any obligation to permit dissent on his site. That’s great, and I thank him. 2. He is much like an old professor I had 25 years ago. He has a generally superior sense of humor and enjoys making jokes, but he responds very negatively to other people doing the same, even in direct response to his own jokes. This is irritating.
At first, I, too, thought Jim missed the point of the post, but upon reading it again I realized that he didn’t miss the point, he just didn’t appreciate the point. I think what he’s saying is that the joke was stretched too far, that he didn’t find any satirical value in the part about executing the clone, because that’s not something conservatives would ever support.
I appreciate Peter’s joke, but I can also see where Jim is coming from.
But now there’s hope that someone might clone me and my clone might have a chance to get it right.
Imagine we clone Lincoln. What do we get? A homely tall kid of above average intelligence.
Even that’s not guaranteed, as both intelligence and height are greatly influenced by childhood nutrition and environment. Raise Lincoln’s clone on the Super-Size Me diet and let him play video games 24/7 and see what you get.