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Taxes shouldn’t pay for stem cell research

To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.
—Thomas Jefferson

Because they shouldn’t pay for anything. Associated Press reports:

Eight years of frustration are close to an end for scientists seeking ways to use embryonic stem cells to combat illness and injury.

On Monday, President Barack Obama plans to reverse limits imposed by President George W. Bush on using federal money for research with embryonic stem cells.
[...]
But it stirs intense controversy over whether government crosses a moral line with such research, and opponents promptly denounced the move.

The moral line is crossed not when the State decides to fund some controversial or questionable endeavor, but when it forces anyone to pay for anything he finds objectionable. The pertinent part of the matter is not how useful the stem cell research will be (probably moderately) or whether there is some objective ethical standard that the State is adhering to or violating (there probably isn’t). The most important issue is that the State makes one rule for everyone and forces everyone to fund its decisions, no matter how unethical or immoral some people find them.

I was proud to say I voted against my state’s ballot initiative that would allow already-available tax money to be spent on stem cell research in my state. The issue was not whether I approved of the research that would be permitted; the issue was whether any single person whose tax dollars would fund it opposed it. There are many such people, and I stick up for them by siding with them in their fight to keep the government from taking their money against their will and funding things they abhor with it.

Most people don’t think that way. They think, “If you support it, vote Yes; if you oppose it, vote No. That’s what a ballot proposal is for. The side with the most supporters wins, and by the way you should think like me.” How abominable. How monstrous. How barbaric. It is by propagating that type of attitude that democratic governments secure their power over their subjects: pit the citizens against themselves and condition them to believe the good of the society lies in securing the police power of government and forcing their way of life on the minority. Democracy is mob-rule. It is Might Makes Right. Invoking the right of the majority or the authority of the State (when it happens to be on your side) automatically and instantaneously puts you in the wrong.

Posted in Democracy, Divisiveness, Obama crimes, Science