re: #251 FurryOldGuyJeans

And there has been lots of government boondoggles as well.

So beyond that, which really help neither side’s arguments, are you prepared to produce any evidence that embryonic stem cells are a “boondoggle”? Or are you just going to stick to your guns that there is no private funding (not true) and therefore must be a worthless endeavor.

About the private funding, you might want to let some of your fellow conservatives(fiscal) know that, since they often said that there was enough private funding for such research that federal funding was unnecessary. Or are you simply going to change your tune and adopt that stance? I’ve just been doing this dance too long. I know all the steps people take to dodge the issue.

Honestly, besides the principled fiscal conservative stance, all other stances are purely religious in nature. And fiscal conservatism is highly relative. Fiscal conservatives often look back on certain government research efforts or federally funded projects and decide they were good ideas, but only in hindsight. Yet hindsight is useless to us here and now for deciding whether or not embryonic stem cell research is something that should be eligible for federal funding.

I will always take a principled stand against government handouts and bailouts, but research and development is one area where I think the government can play a positive role. NASA may be a bit of a wasteful entity, but at the time, no other agency in the country let alone the world could have undertaken spaceflight. And now, thanks to the advances of GOVERNMENTS around the world pushing into space, we have private corporations beginning to take over.

If you had waited for private companies to tackle space, we’d still be waiting. Military necessity, together with national ego and federal funding fueled our huge leap for mankind, and we reap the benefits of such efforts daily. It’s something to think about.