Charlie Rose: July 1, 2003

First, a conversation with Richard A. Clarke, former National Security Council official and anti-terrorism advisor, about his report released by the Council on Foreign Relations, in which he criticizes the Bush government for not taking proper precautions in preventing 9/11. Then, a conversation with Leon Kass, chairman of the president's council on bioethics, about his book "The Beginning of Wisdom: Where We Started".

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[amperro]

Leon Kass almost seems reasonable in this episode. Unfortunately, his draconian opposition to even moderate increases in human longevity make him wholly unsuitable for leading the nation's bioethics policy.

[amperro]

Kass has said that "life's most magnificent mysteries" should be protected from scientific research.

Kass laments the fact that modern medicine has greatly reduced childhood deaths. Kass says it disconnects humanity from its mortality.

Kass has opposed or criticized cosmetic surgery, organ transplantation, cadaver dissection, birth control, in vitro fertilization, surrogate motherhood...the list goes on and on!

Leon Kass-what a choice to begin the 21st century!!

[Kochofication]

Leon Kass is a disgrace to science. He is responsible for the eight year black hole in embryonic stem cell research funding. How many lives has this wingnut been to the detriment of!

[ConstantC4]

This guy is an idiot , it's sad when idiots put towers in the air so they can manipulate societies in an anti-human manner just because X tells them(greed , stupid upbringing , religion , rasicm , liberalism , etc).

[amperro]

"Yeah, ethics is just personal opinion?"

I NEVER SAID THAT!

I said that these ethicists are presenting personal opinions as profound ethical insight! Many bioethics arguments can be discredited by a high school student.

"Enjoy your home in the spinning abyss of nihilism."

I AM NOT A NIHILIST! I believe in moral absolutes and a deeper meaning and purpose in the universe.

Limiting how long people may live (WHICH IS WHAT LEON KASS AND OTHERS SUPPORT) is NOT ETHICAL!

GROW UP!

[AestheticizeAnalog]

Yeah, ethics is just personal opinion? Enjoy your home in the spinning abyss of nihilism.

[AestheticizeAnalog]

Keep on lowering the sights of human life. Animal comfort and pleasure should be the highest ends of man.

[amperro]

There's a great article by Chris Mooney called "Irrationalist in Chief". You'll have to Google it.

[Exertium]

This episode is (I presume) unintentionally ironic, since Clarke is suspected to be a transhumanist (based on his fictional books), while you can't get much further from transhumanism in respectable society than Leon Kass.

[amperro]

Oh, I know all about the ice cream quote. It would be funny if it were not for the fact that this individual has such influence over national policy. I cannot belief any person seriously thinks bioethics is an intellectually rigorous endeavor. It is personal opinion dressed up in florid language to give it the appearance of a legitimate academic enterprise.

[HyperbolaGuy]

...eat--displays [a] lack of self-control: It beckons enslavement to the belly. ... Lacking utensils for cutting and lifting to mouth, he will often be seen using his teeth for tearing off chewable portions, just like any animal. ... This doglike feeding, if one must engage in it, ought to be kept from public view, where, even if we feel no shame, others are compelled to witness our shameful behavior.' WTF?! That Kass is advising the U.S government on bioethics is nothing short of an emergency

[HyperbolaGuy]

This was the quote I mentioned, in case you have not read it, this is Leon Kass, chair of George W. Bush's Council on Bioethics - 'Worst of all from this point of view are those more uncivilized forms of eating, like licking an ice cream cone--a catlike activity that has been made acceptable in informal America but that still offends those who know eating in public is offensive. ... Eating on the street--even when undertaken, say, because one is between appointments and has no other time to...