Obama Lifts Restrictions on Stem Cell Research
Filed under News, Revolution & Justice on March 9th, 2009 by Bethany FrenchPresident Obama has overturned the restrictions on the federal funding of stem-cell research that were set in place by the Bush administration in August 2001, when President Bush limited funding because of “fundamental questions about the beginnings of life and the ends of science.”
President Obama showed his lack of concern for these “fundamental questions” when he made these statements:
Our government has forced what I believe is a false choice between sound science and moral values…
It is about ensuring that scientific data is never distorted or concealed to serve a political agenda — and that we make scientific decisions based on facts, not ideology…
Promoting science ‘is about letting scientists like those here today do their jobs, free from manipulation or coercion, and listening to what they tell us, even when it’s inconvenient — especially when it’s inconvenient.’
Restrictions from the Bush administration on stem cell research allowed scientists to work with stem cells which were not obtained through the exploitation or destruction of human embryos. Those restrictions are now lifted:
“The president is, in effect, allowing federal funding of human embryonic stem cell research to the extent that it’s permitted by law — that is, work with stem cells themselves, not the derivation of stem cells,” Varmus said in a conference call with reporters Sunday.
While conceding that “the full promise of stem cell research remains unknown” and “should not be overstated,” Obama nevertheless expressed hope that the order will help spur faster progress in the search for cures to afflictions such as Parkinson’s disease, cancer and spinal cord injuries…
Researchers highly value embryonic stem cells because of their potential to turn into any organ or tissue cell in the body. Stem cells have this ability for a short time. A few days before the embryo would implant in the uterus, it starts to develop into specific cells that will turn into skin or eyes or other parts of a developing fetus.
When the embryo is 4 or 5 days old, scientists extract the stem cells and put them in a petri dish. With the removal of these stem cells — of which there may be about 30 — the embryo is destroyed.
Several polls from different sources indicate that the majority of Americans were in favor of these restrictions being lifted. Scientists are hoping to use stem cell research to eventually develop treatments for people with diabetes, cancer, spinal injuries, and many more debilitating conditions, which garners support from many Americans. However, the ethics involved in embryonic stem cell research are questionable. Some opponents of the bill have this to say about stem cell research:
“Advancements in science and research have moved faster than the debates among politicians in Washington, D.C., and breakthroughs announced in recent years confirm the full potential of stem cell research can be realized without the destruction of living human embryos,” House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, said Sunday.
Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Alabama, said the Bush policy imposed proper ethical limits on science.
“My basic tenet here is I don’t think we should create life to enhance life and to do research and so forth,” Shelby said Sunday. “I know that people argue there are other ways. I think we should continue our biomedical research everywhere we can, but we should have some ethics about it.”
Wendy Wright, president of Concerned Women for America [says this]: “President Obama’s order places the worst kind of politics above ethics. Politics driven by hype makes overblown promises, fuels the desperation of the suffering and financially benefits those seeking to strip morality from science.”
President Obama set his “ethical limits” at using stem cells for human cloning. Such cloning, he said, “is dangerous, profoundly wrong, and has no place in our society or any society.” One might ask, since he has made such clear statements about science not being limited by ideology, why he sets the limits at human cloning as wrong and dangerous? Once the value of human life has been removed and disregarded for the sake of “scientific progress,” why couldn’t the same argument he is making for “science” eventually be used for what many now consider unethical boundaries?
Scientists in Nazi Germany performed many experiments on Jews in concentration camps in the name of advancing “science,” some of the results of which have been banned from being used or taught in the medical community, because of the unethical way in which they were performed. Yet many of their “experiments” were in order to find treatments and cures for diseases, which is the same argument being used for the justification of embryonic stem cell research. The Nazi ideology had so far dehumanized the Jewish people in the German culture that these horrific experiments were allowed and encouraged.
How far have we fallen as a culture, when the majority of Americans (according to some polls) no longer consider these helpless embryos as human, and their lives can be taken simply to bring possible benefits to those who are stronger and have voices that can be heard?
Tags: Barack Obama, embryo, George W. Bush, Holocaust, nazis, polls, pro-life, science, stem cell research
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I have mixed feelings about stem cell research. Scripture says that the “life is in the blood” (Leviticus 17:11). An embryo has no blood until about 20 days after conception. Prior to this the embryo can split into two (twins) and so a definitive person has not been established yet as its not clear if the embryo will be one person or two.
If there is no blood, how can it be considered life by Scripture’s definition of human life? If stem cell research happens before any blood is involved, what would be the rationale for prohibiting it? Except for a slippery slope argument?
Embryo stem research has no proven value like the adult stem cell research. It is my understanding that the adult stem cell research has shown promising results as opposed to the embryo stem research which has not shown positive results. The only reason for the push for embryo stem research is so that the government can fund this particular research. It could always be funded by private companies, but now the government can spend more money on research that has no credible future.
Embryo stem cell research destroys life. It is my understanding that adult stem cell research has promising results. The embryo stem cell research has not proven that it has even the potential to be the miracle cure. Private companies could have put money into the embryo stem cell research because it was legal for them, but private companies and individuals could not get federal money to do research on embryo stem cell. Why won’t the government fund research that has the proven result?
Karen, the entire verse in Leviticus 17:11 is about sacrifice and holiness: “For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it for you on the altar to make atonement for your souls, for it is the blood that makes atonement by the life.” In addition, it was also not talking about human blood or human life, but that’s not really the most important thing. This is a verse which, in context, is explaining why the blood of the animals poured out in sacrifice is holy to the Lord, and should not be eaten. It is a prophetic symbol of the true atonement that Jesus was going to bring. Saying “the life of the flesh is in the blood,” with its following explanation is meant to communicate the Spirit behind the law, not to define what makes something alive or dead, and to say that having blood is what makes something alive simply can’t be true. There are many kinds of animals that don’t have blood. Are they alive, or moving around dead?
As far as then saying an embryo is not alive until it has blood, what was it one minute before the blood appeared and it “came to life?” What was it another minute before that? The dictionary definition of life is this: “the condition that distinguishes organisms from inorganic objects and dead organisms, being manifested by growth through metabolism, reproduction, and the power of adaptation to environment through changes originating internally.” From its first moment, the embryo has been growing and developing from its internal genetic programming. Doesn’t that mean that it IS alive, according to this definition?
Interesting article.
I’m all for medical advancements, but not when such “advancements” are persuade in an unethical way. Especially when there’s another route and quite possibly could produce a better result.
Many people have been preoccupied with the ethics and scientific validity of the usage of human adult stem cells (human life): Most recently I’ve seen an article discussing the scientific breakthrough regarding a newly discovered kind of mouse stem cell, which appears to be something that could conceivably be used for human therapies, even more easily than the lines of human embryonic stem cells available to us!
(It was covered a couple of years ago on Talk of the Nation: Science Friday on NPR):http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=11606647
Comments such as these prove that one has to have gone through what the person on the other side of the aisle has gone through in order to understand an issue’s fullest human implications.
Bethany, this is NOT just some abstract, academic debate of ethics. This is not about politicians and their wheedling nuances. This effects the well-being of REAL, ORDINARY PEOPLE. DAILY. Allow me to clarify. Allow me to put a face to the people who “disrespect the sanctity of life” by wanting to utilize stem cells to alleviate chronic miseries that they did NOTHING to deserve. And then please examine your conscience regarding just how confident you are to condemn this tightly-regulated scientific practice, which has NO TIES WHATSOEVER to the much grayer issues of abortion or human cloning.
Here is the face: Mine. I am a type one diabetic and I am a devout Christian. I have been both for my entire life. I have known suffering firsthand that thank God, few of the rest of you can begin to imagine. Endless hospitalizations. The threat of kidney failure, blindness; limb amputation; a delerious near-death period of two months in the ICU with an insulin drip due to ketoacidosis as the result of contracting a mere stomach virus; heart disease; gastroporesis; inner ear blood vessel damage resulting in fainting, vomiting, and seizures (episodes that force me to go to the ER about once a month); never ever feeling safe from the fluctuations of bloodsugar, not at night, not when I exercise, not when I go on a day trip with friends; seeing every endocrinologist I can and trying every new insulin technology; to fight these things while earning a PhD and trying never to feel like some hopeless invalid at age 25,…this names only SOME of my challenges since the age of six.
Now. You want to place this in a moral–specifically a Christian–context? I will gladly. My disease is my greatest frustration. The things I could do for the Lord, the phsyical limitations eased, the chance to go further, longer, to witness for Christ, through stem cell treatments, which I believe to be a miracle sent from God…mind-boggle me and bring me to tears. What I could do to serve God if I were well, at the risk of sounding maudlin, is my dearest dream. And here in the hands of scientists whom God has inspired is the incredible, amazing means.
To hear you condemn this Godsent scientific breakthrough based upon decontextualized and DEEPLY offensive comparisons to heinous Nazi medical experiments on Jews saddens me, kills me, in a way that I cannot express to you, Bethany, my old friend. Am I, then, tantamount to a “Nazi” for wanting to just feel better? That is absurd and poor logic. Bethany, if you want to refer to political affiliations and the agendas which they endorse, it is your own neo-conservative Republican party that is closer in belief to the ultra right fascist political schema. But believe me, I am not going to stand here with misplaced righteous indigation, with socio-cultural blinders on, and accuse you of supporting that kind of historical movement of atrocity and ultimate immorality. Because I have more faith in you than that. Furthermore I have more faith in the American government that it would not dissolve into some recycled German nationalist dictatorship; rather, so many check-and-balances exist in our government that any stem cell research funding will be tightly monitored and slowly, cautiously approved. We are not opening the floodgates to some dystopian nightmare here. I am able to see the nuances between cells, otherwise discarded, put to noble use in curing diseases in the framework of a democracy, and the complete inhumanity of a totalitarian regime conducting experiments in social Darwinism and racial supremacy. You are a brilliant young woman, so you should be able to recognize this nuance (which is more than a little glaring) as well.
But on a personal level, something saddens me even more. You were there, Bethany, when I had dangerous low blood sugar at Immanuel Lutheran’s trip to Washington, D.C. You were the kind and loyal friend who missed seeing the Washington Monument and Smithsonian Museums because you stayed behind while I struggled: with my bloodsugars. Bethany, I believe that there is a kind person in you still, a loving Christian who KNOWS my suffering and knows better than to condemn the means to ending it.
So many lives–lives of God’s children–have been lost to diabetes, Alzheimers, Parkinson’s, Cystic Fibrosis, Leukemia, and a score of other sources of human suffering because for the past 8 years George W. Bush allegedly thought it “against the sanctity of life” (but was really just courting the Religious Right politically with his neo-conservative platform) to federally fund stem cells (and not NEW stem cells, but rather those which were ALREADY going to be discarded anyway). Many issues in politics today are ethically sensitive, but that only makes it CLEARER how there are TWO sides to the issue, TWO sides GENUINELY concerned about the moral implications of stem cells. What about MY side? Where is your respect for the faces of the suffering who have already been born? Don’t you have respect for OUR lives? God loves us and wants us to have this chance at a less miserable life. God has granted gifted scientists and researchers the ability to do His healing work through stem cells. We suffer and suffer daily and go on having faith in God’s healing mercies. Don’t obstruct these miracles when God makes them manifest to us! Don’t be the guy who stood on the roof in the flood and told the boat and the helicopter that God sent to let him alone, because “God was coming,” and then, not recognizing God’s aid in the hands and the tools of fellow human beings, drowned. Because you’ll be drowning others too.
I cannot tell you how disappointed I am to read this article. Disappointed, hurt, and saddened, because you know better, firsthand.
May you truly be at peace with your convictions. And I will continue to be at peace with mine, and with President Obama’s.
Amber, thank you for your comments. Believe me, I understand and really feel for the struggles that you have gone through, and others like you. I remember very clearly how tough things were for you with your blood sugar and insulin issues in grade school and college, and I want you to know that I am truly saddened by how hard it has been for you to live with this disease and try for a normal life at the same time! I know the frustration and the hardship of diseases like diabetes, and I have multiple relatives who have MS, and one who has died of Parkinson’s Disease. These are tortuous diseases to live with. I in no way want to minimize the pain and suffering that people living with these debilitating diseases go through, and will rejoice when a cure is found for them. I pray that God will pour out His Spirit and move powerfully for the healing and restoration of so many broken lives, inside and out!
However, creating human embryos, and then destroying them by removing their stem cells, is crossing a line that should never be crossed. Nothing has yet been proven that using the stem cells of embryos is necessary or even more beneficial than using research using adult stem cells, or other kinds of stem cells that do not involve the destruction of an embryo. But even if it were the case that it HAD been absolutely proven to be effective, even if my unborn son was born with a disease that the research could cure, I could not with conscience before the Lord disregard my deep concerns with this issue.
I did not equate you or other people on the side of embryonic stem cell research with the Nazi Party or their experiments. But one entire category of the awful experiments conducted by the Nazi party was this: “experimentation aimed at developing and testing pharmaceuticals and treatment methods for injuries and illnesses which German military and occupation personnel encountered in the field… scientists tested immunization compounds and sera for the prevention and treatment of contagious diseases, including malaria, typhus, tuberculosis, typhoid fever, yellow fever, and infectious hepatitis.“ The point of this example is that once you set a goal of the greater good, rather than setting down clear boundaries on moral grounds, eventually the line will be pushed back to include things we would be horrified to find were possible. The Nuremburg code that was established after WWII set down clear ethical boundaries for experiments, so that human testing could not be coerced, harmful in any way, nor could you use information in publishing research that was obtained in an unethical manner. Yet in the past 15 or so years, there has been a rising debate to overturn some of these rules so that the results of some of the Nazi experiments could be included in current research, “for the greater good.” I may do a story about this in depth at some point, because this is utterly wrong. If there is no ultimate moral line that is set apart from that of what the majority of people see as benefiting the greatest amount of people, there will be no limit to how far that logic can eventually set the lines, only how well someone can eventually argue their case and get a majority of people on their side.
As far as politics are concerned, and your statement “it is your own neo-conservative Republican party that is closer in belief to the ultra right fascist political schema,” I do not consider the Republican party or any other political party as something that will bring a moral and/or political solution to these issues. The root of this issue as I see it, as well as many others that we see and address on this website, is not one of politics, but of the state of the hearts of people in the nation toward God, and our deep need of a radical transformation at the very core of our being. Once the MOST important thing in our hearts becomes one of looking with concern at our own lives (or even humanity in general) rather than laying down our lives for the glory and kingdom of God, we lose sight of the depth and width of not only the utter holiness, but also the love and true kindness of God. We put our trust in what we can do for ourselves, or for humanity, rather than trusting God for His ultimate purpose to be fulfilled in a supernatural and glorious way! His love is unfathomably deep, and His desire to reveal His glory through the lives of His servants is also unfathomably deep. But will we let Him have His own way, and conform ourselves to His standards rather than asking Him to conform to ours?
In regards to life being in the blood– there are other Scriptures that focus on blood and the significance of it. It is Jesus’ blood that covers our sins. The significance is in shed blood. Blood is the symbol of life. There are many things that have life–such as plants, but we don’t consider them persons. But, when it comes to human life, there seems to be a strong connection with the blood.
Also, not all early Christians necessarily had the same views on conception being the moment when someone becomes a person.
I am not necessarily saying I am for or against stem cell research. I just am not sure that I am convinced that we can consider an embryo a person at that early stage when there is no blood and we don’t even know if it will be one or two people.
I’m curious how this can happen with issue above. Regarding your governmental system, I am slightly confused as to how the USA government decision making process works. Sometimes I read that things have to go through the Senate, other times it seems the President can overturn something by his own accord. Could maybe some of you Americans clear this up for me? (As I’m British :-) The UK system is that our government is led by a Prime Minister, who brings new laws to the table to be debated and then voted upon by the House of Commons. He has a strong influence due to the fact that his party represent the majority of the House. Is yours the same or slightly different?
Karen, certainly the Scriptures use blood to symbolize life in many contexts, but there is nowhere that says that God’s definition of life, or when life begins, has anything to do with the presence or absence of blood. The verses that address the beginning of life in God’s eyes make no mention whatsoever of blood, but rather God’s knowledge and care about the person He is forming. God says to Jeremiah “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you?” (Jer. 1:5) And Psalm 139 says “You formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb…Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, ever one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there were none of them.”
If we do not yet know whether an embryo will be one or two people, doesn’t God already know? Is that person not yet a person in HIS eyes? I believe this is the ultimate question, not whether WE know or not, or whether all of the early Christians considered it to be the case either. Shouldn’t we search out the heart of God rather than look at things from our own perceived knowledge or base our conclusions off human (and/or religious) traditions?
Andrew Yeowman wrote: “I’m curious how this can happen with issue above. Regarding your governmental system, I am slightly confused as to how the USA government decision making process works.”
In all seriousness, I haven’t got the slightest clue how this mess came about. I don’t know if Mr. Obama took this to the US Senate (which I’m guessing is similar to the UK’s House of Commons), to be deliberated on and voted, or if it was just of his own accord, which sounds undemocratic to me—–I’m also kind of curious as to why the restrictions were overturned without him making any further inquiries of when human life begins? Instead of an investigation he spouts out a statement like this: “Our government has forced what I believe is a false choice between sound science and moral values…”
Anyway, I hope someone here with knowledge can answer your question.
A reminder to all, from our Commenting Rules Page:
Two comments on this thread have been unapproved for violating these rules. We value input from all sides of the debate, and comments in disagreement with the ideas presented by the author or other posters are fine, but attacks on individuals and their motives are not allowed.
Marcus French
Editor: Voice of Revolution
Amber has repeated a common lie of the secular left - namely that Nazism was on the extreme ‘right wing’ of the political spectrum and therefore is closer to conservatism than any of the ‘left liberal’ political parties. Actually Nazism like all totalitarian ideologies is an example of the far ‘left’ of the political spectrum if you take the ‘left’ end of the spectrum to mean total government control of society. At the opposite end of the spectrum is no government control or anarchy. Conservatives are closer to this end. Conservatives take a much more biblical view of the nature of man and of the role and extent of government, so let’s not hear any more of this nonsense that the Republicans are closer to the Nazis than the Democrats. The full name of Hitler’s party was the National Socialist German Workers’ Party which gives a much clearer indication of how we should think of them in political party terms.
Obama and the Democrats are examples of the godless secular left. Some like Obama claim to have some kind of ‘faith’ but it is clearly not Christian faith. It is in many cases just evolutionary humanism with a Christian veneer.
Readers may be interested to know that here in Australia our own version of the godless secular left, the Australian Labor Party, is copying some of Obama’s anti-Christian policies. Just this week the ALP which is in power federally, followed the lead of Obama and reversed a 13 year old policy of preventing foreign aid from being used to fund abortion. You can read about it here.
I find it highly revealing that my remarks (and those of several others) have been deleted and censored as “personal attacks,” but that an individual above stated, “Obama and the Democrats are examples of the godless secular left.” and this slander has not been equally filtered as a personal attack.
How profoundly disappointing and sad! May you be at peace with such double-standards! =( This Christian, who thought she could speak with sincerity and respect without being judged, is taking her faith and her free thinking elsewhere!
My criticism of Obama and the Democrats, was primarily a criticism of their ideology. It is not the same thing as calling them a “bunch of idiots” for example. That would be personal abuse. We have to retain the right to critically examine belief systems. It is an important aspect of Christian apologetics to be able to point out the various fallacies of false religious worldviews.
Amber, how is it that you can judge others for their perceived “double standards” and then in the very next breath complain about “being judged”?
And another observation. “Free thinking” is often code for “liberal thinking”.
Amber,
To clarify, two comments have been censored, yours for your personal attacks toward the author, and another for profanity.
Marcus French
Editor: Voice of Revolution
Earlier post:
“What about MY side? Where is your respect for the faces of the suffering who have already been born? Don’t you have respect for OUR lives? God loves us and wants us to have this chance at a less miserable life.”
This issue is not about your side or my side, it is about truth and what is right. End of story. What about the person dying so you can have a less miserable life? Who asked her? Who asked him? What about THEIR side? I guess the silent have no rights, none at all.
God does love us. God hates sin and the catastophic effect it has on HIS world. He hates the misery on this fallen world. With that, I don’t argue. I imagine He would hate one person’s suffering as much as he would hate the murder of an innocent. Again, this is not about ”MY” side or “YOUR” side. It’s about the silent murdered innocents. It is about destroying an innocent life so that another may live (or worse yet, merely live better).
Blessings,
Justin
Deuteronomy 6:4-9
But still no outcry over creating life in test tubes in the first place.
“Obama and the Democrats are examples of the godless secular left.” This sentence was approved, not censored, though it calls anyone who does not identify as a right-wing conservative ”godless.” This is an attitude that is driving people away from the church in droves.
Hitler is turned into a liberal. That’s incorrect. The words “National Socialist” having nothing to do with socialism. Many conservatives accuse Hitler of being a leftist, on the grounds that his party was named “National Socialist,” an argument that is nothing more than semantics. Socialism requires worker ownership and control of the means of production. In Nazi Germany, private capitalist individuals owned the means of production.
I’m a God-fearing Christian. I am a registered Independent and am able to vote both ways. I voted for President Obama and I do not regret it for one minute. I guess that makes me “godless.” What arrogance.
Regardless of where the two cells are joined to make a baby, and whether a new life is created in a mother or a test tube, it should not be destroyed. I was addressing the attitude that makes it acceptable to kill an innocent baby to have the (remote, distant, possible) chance of saving or improving another. The creation of a person in a test tube is another subject in and of itself.
I would not automatically call you godless for voting for Obama. I would call you mistaken. When you see the long-term damage his policies will cause, mark my words, you will regret that vote. I do, however, call the decision to murder babies a sin, whether conceived in the womb or a test tube.
Speaking of arrogance, it is arrogance to immediately upon entering office wave away policies enacted by another elected US president. That is arrogance.
Blessings,
Justin
Deuteronomy 6:4-9
Connie,
Thanks for sharing your perspective. I’m interested to hear why you consider calling the “secular left” godless, an attack? Is it an insult to be labeled a non-theist?
Also, we’re doing more research on IVF, Bethany just did an article about it tonight: “Leftover” Embryos: What Are Our Options?
Marcus,
Please read the context of the remark about the secular left above. The poster calls them liars and associates them with Nazis. I call that an attack.
Connie,
“But still no outcry over creating life in test tubes in the first place.” I don’t know of any Christian conservatives who endorse the practice of creating excess embryos than are absolutely necessary for fertility treatment. In fact I think the whole procedure ethically dubious. So what is your implication? That if we don’t object to the creation of embryos then we can’t object to their destruction? Some logic.
How does it follow that the sentence “Obama and the Democrats are examples of the godless secular left” can be interpreted as saying that “anyone who does not identify as a right-wing conservative [is] godless” ? Again, great logic.
The term ‘godless secular left’ is actually a tautology. Secularism by definition is godless. What I meant by the comment is that Obama and the Democratic Party in general represent a particular worldview and in this case it is secular humanism. It doesn’t matter what Obama chooses to call himself, the fact is that on every issue of which I’m aware, his words and actions are those of a secular humanist not a biblical Christian.
The “attitude that is driving people away from the church in droves” is not the one that suggests that conservative political views and Christianity are natural allies, rather it is this idea that one can be a ‘foaming at the mouth’ leftist and still somehow claim to be a Bible believing Christian. Whenever liberalism has infiltrated the church, apostasy has not been far behind. I’m talking about theological liberalism here, but I also notice a strong parallel between theological liberalism and political liberalism.
For someone to claim to both fear God and to have voted for Obama and to “not regret it”, I can only observe that at best you are deceived and at worst you are in rebellion. If fearing God means anything it means to ‘tremble at His Word’, but anyone who endorses Obama and by implication his anti-family, anti-life, and anti-Christian policies, must have a very morbid understanding of God’s Word indeed or a total disregard for it. So call me arrogant.
The problem is that the church in the Western world has become very superficial and no longer teaches stuff like doctrine or theology. It doesn’t teach people how to think biblically anymore. Consequently we have various groups of Christians who allow their politics to be informed by worldly thinking rather than by God’s Word. Such Christians make God’s Word subservient to their (mostly leftist) politics, instead of allowing their political views to be subservient to God’s Word. At bottom the issue is one of the authority of Scripture.
The Nazis were a totalitarian regime, the secular left have totalitarian tendencies. They favour a form of government in which the political authority exercises absolute and centralised control over all aspects of life, the individual is subordinated to the state, and opposing political and cultural expression is suppressed. Conservatives, on the other hand, believe in a limited role for government and the primacy of the individual as a person made in the image of God.
Re post #21: Wrong again Connie. You are the one who needs to pay attention to the context of my earlier comments. I was simply responding to Amber who in post #6 above first compared the Republican Party to the Nazis. I simply pointed out that the Nazis had more in common with the ‘left’ side of politics than the ‘right’. I did say that it was a “common lie” to compare conservatives with nazis, but this is to indicate that I think it is untrue. What should I have said, that it is a ’common untruth’?