Of Two Minds

R. D. Kushner
May 24, 2005

“Every human life is a precious gift of matchless love."

George W. Bush

Issues may often be portrayed as black and white and right and wrong, but the middle ground is often overlooked as an inconvenient position in the extreme partisanship of radical politics. It is this middle ground however, this middle road, that offers solutions based on the precepts of rational thought. When not obscured by rigid ideology from the left or the right, the middle road is the path of intelligence, compromise, and tolerance; at some point, all other roads eventually lead to irrationality, bigotry, and intolerance.

The President’s position on stem cell research is a perfect example, among many, of the inevitable contradictions in the moral fabric of the mind when rationality takes a back seat to dogma and ideology. The President’s decision to limit stem cell research is purported to be based in the President’s value of all human life. The position of honoring life, at all stages of human development, is not in the least bit problematic; in fact, it is an extraordinary gesture of humanity and love. The problem with this position is that, as charming as it seems, it is not equitably distributed by the President across other layers of his policy and his politics. In fact the President’s position on other issues leads to direct contradictions in his position on stem cell research, and calls into question both his sincerity and his integrity on issues of life and death.

The President wants to have it both ways. He says he supports life, while causing death. In addition to the 1,647 American soldiers killed, an estimated 21,000 Iraqi civilians have lost their lives under the benevolent gaze of George W. Bush. He wants to claim that no human embryo should be killed, even for a greater good of saving lives; and at the same time his policy in Iraq condemns thousands of Americans and Iraqis to death for the greater good of American security and Middle East Democracy. Which is it then? Is all life sacred, or is some life more sacred an others? Is it acceptable to end some lives in order to save others? The answer to these questions are complicated and yet the President makes no attempt to reconcile the blatant hypocrisy of his position.

The President most certainly does not value all human life. On the contrary, his actions reveal a startling schism between what he says and what he does. He is playing a game of Russian roulette in Iraq, in which he is wagering and losing human lives. Nine United States soldiers were killed in Iraq between Monday and Tuesday of this week. Nine Americans sacrificed by the United States government, whose president claims to support human life at all stages of human development. Since when is an embryo worth more than an American soldier in the prime of life? If stem cell research, as the President says, should not be allowed even to save human lives, then why is it acceptable to have American soldiers and innocent Iraqis killed in an effort to do the same?

The President is swimming upstream. The death toll in Iraq continues to rise while he busies himself trying to protect embryos from scientific research. All the while he issues shallow condolences and transparent apologies to the families of dead soldiers as his administration avoids their own accountability for the torture at Abu Ghraib and Guantanimo Bay. What corporation accused of war crimes would leave its top strategists in charge after repeated and credible allegations of torture and prison abuse? In a real Democracy torture is an atrocity which violates the sanctity of human life, which President Bush claims he reveres. In George W. Bush’s Democracy, Donald Rumsfeld continues to lead the American troops into an ideological battle where guns and ammunition are being substituted for logic and reason.

President Bush likes to say things that are principled and strong. But his actions belie his statements and reveal the shaky ground beneath his personal value system. It is often in those individuals most convinced of the truth of their convictions to whom the middle road is most obscured. On issues of such gravity as the sanctity of human life Mr. Bush has shown himself to be of two minds, but he’s only listening to one of them. As a result he has undermined his own integrity and revealed that his respect for human life is simply a convenient position for political ends. If he were sincere about the sanctity of human life, Mr. Bush would seek to make amends; not just with those individuals betrayed by his poisonous and inconsistent rhetoric, but for the integrity of his own intellect. Instead Mr. Bush continues to repress the part of his own mind which he has exposed through his inconsistency and his lies. This repression obscures the middle ground, which leads him to an extremist position of irrationality, bigotry, and intolerance.