It Pays To Look

Normally I don't do this but after talking with a friend (who happens to be a wonderful person) I realized that something needed to be straightened out. This person told me that she voted for Obama because she believes in stem cell research and has someone close to her that would benefit from it's potential.

This has bothered me since then and I must get it out now. I consider myself the poster child for conservatism but I have a quarrel with some of my brethren. The loud minority of right wingers has pigeon holed all of us into the belief that the stem cell debate is all about abortion. That misconception has pushed many, otherwise conservative, voters into the arms of the Socialists that are now chipping away at our greatness.

First let me say that i recognize the potential for a moral and ethical disaster so I understand the fear. I do not, however, consider that the primary reason to attack the new federal support of stem cell research. Let me explain...

First of all we have been fed a line about which party supports that particular type of research. We were led by our incompetent media to think that the Republicans are dead set against it and that Democrats are the knights in shining armor who will defeat those murderous people haters and raise a cure for all of the worlds problems through the investment of gazillions of taxpayer dollars into the mighty stem cell.

Don't forget that it was Bush and a Republican congressional majority that first brought federal funding to stem cell research. They did it in an attempt to create more interest as well as a way to "raise the stakes" for any enterprising private industry that would be willing to invest in it's potential. That was acceptable and should have been the end of federal involvement in the field of medicine.

That might sound selfish but let's back up and think this through (something we right wingers like to do). What do you do for a living? Let's pretend that you are in charge of creating a product that would supply a vast and endless market. We'll call it a widget. Now, let's say that I (your boss) promised that the first person to create a marketable widget would receive 100% of it's profits but you would be responsible for funding your own research. It would be safe to say that you'd investigate the likely hood of your idea working before investing your entire savings into building your widget. If you had a good enough idea you would present it to others and try to gather financial support through the promise of the vast reward for your creation. Those who have the money would get to choose the most promising ideas and take the risk of investment.

Your widget would be similar to Viagra. With little or no help from the boss (government) they gathered private investors to finance a team to come up with a solution for a serious problem and are reaping the rewards. That, my friends, is the American dream!

Now let's pretend that your boss told all of you that you would be paid a decent hourly wage for the research and creation of your widget, but, once you've successfully created your widget your boss would have soul rights of distribution and profit from the product. Furthermore, once the widget was made there would no longer be a need for widget makers and you all would lose your jobs.

The point that I'm making is that Federal funding for research creates a huge market for research but no market for cures. On the other hand, if you allow the private industries to take loans at their own risk and profit from their own success then you create a smaller, more promising market for the cure.

Maybe if it weren't so lucrative to search for the cure for cancer (4.6 billion tax dollars spent in 2008) then someone might have found the cure.....



For more info on Federal Stem Cell Funding go to...
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL33540.pdf