X-Message-Number: 20790 Date: Sun, 05 Jan 2003 07:04:19 -0800 From: James Swayze <> Subject: The lawyer irks me big time References: <> > Message #20780 > From: "John de Rivaz" <> > References: <> > Subject: Re: Cloning > Date: Sat, 4 Jan 2003 10:35:22 -0000 > > I am surprised at the Florida lawyer story. Is it really possible for > someone with no family interest in a child to file such a claim? Looks like > legalised kidnapping to me. Yes and yes. Yes it is possible here in the US for strangers to butt-in to people's lives and affect a removal of one's children by the state. Gone are the days of beating one's kids senseless with impunity, spare the rod and spoil the child, the bleeding hearts won. But were they wrong? Who can say for certain? Freedom vs humane behavior is the issue. It's obvious that too many children have been abused by bad parents and gone ignored in the days of "a man's home is his castle" and his wife and kids are property to be beaten if he so choose. Does society, the village, have the right to step in when our neighbor is murdering his children either directly or piece meal, killing their psyche or flat out physically causing their demise? We know now that the sins of the father (and the mother) do indeed pass down many generations. Serial killers are often the result of generations of abuse as are pedophiles as are also physical and mental abusers. But then there are the cases of false accusation. Here it certainly is sanctioned kidnapping. Then there are the cases of religious practice that go against society norms and mores. Being anti religious I am glad to see children taken from ignorant idiots that refuse their children medical attention or starve them or lock them in closets for spiritual obedience, exorcism and any number of wacko practices. However, in this case of the lawyer butting in to the cloning issue, unless John is correct and he's part of a ruse, it makes me wish I was a lawyer and poised to take this guy on myself. My reasoning is thus. Based upon his claim that the procedure of conceiving the child is itself the abuse based upon the speculation that complications could arise and that it amounts to experimenting on a human being and thus abusive due to speculative results and possibility of complications, then I must likewise protest to each and every invitro fertilization procedure and each and every instance of a woman being pumped full of fertility drugs so that she ends up becoming a mere bitch with a pack of puppies! Assuming it is not a hoax--I have my doubts as to it being a hoax and I'll get to that, if it is abuse to subject this child to existence, through this experimental procedure then so also it is abuse to experiment each time with the procedures of IVF and fertility augmentation. The reason it is still an experiment in each of those other cases is that, despite having a reasonable idea of the outcome, it is not, and especially in the fertility drug use matter, anywhere near one hundred percent certain what the outcome will be and therefore each and every time an experiment based upon speculation. We had better start rounding up all the IVF children and all the twins, triplets, quadruplets, quintuplets, sextuplets and heptuplets (has their been octuplets yet--no doubt their will be) conceived and born through these above mentioned procedures so we may protect them from their abusive parents for having the audacity to and shear mendacity to cause their existence in so unnatural of manners. > Seems odd - my cynical mind suggests that it is > a good wheeze to produce a plausible reason not to do the DNA tests. A > through check on the background and connections of the lawyer concerned > could be very interesting! Similarities are disturbing: It looks as though > it was intended that the cloned baby was to be born on December 25. The > lawyer story sounds a little like King Herod. Yes, the date is quite noticeable. But as I said, "I have my doubts as to it being a hoax" and here is why. The Raelian movement seems quite willing to tie themselves to Ms. Bosselier despite their leader saying he has no legal connection to Clonaid. They have to know that their movement on its own merit is seen as a bit strange to say the least. Maybe it is true that any publicity, even notoriety, is welcome in order to bring notice to oneself or a group but I have my doubts there too. The difference between notoriety and fame are often lost on people today but it used to be a 'bad thing', a negative, to be notorious. It could be risky where one's movement is already seen as totally bonkers. We cryonicists would never on purpose do something negative or perpetrate a hoax so to get people to take notice of us. The possible negatives from such a thing would far outweigh any rise in visibility. In fact visibility tied to a so far very unpopular concept is exactly what one should avoid lest the Justice Department and the ATF come a knocking again. They have to also know that the curiosity will not ever die down. However long we must wait society will demand DNA testing eventually. No matter what efforts are made to hide those involved, whether their be any cloned babies or none at all, secrets rarely stay secrets for long. It will all come out in the wash eventually so it is in their best interest to either not be a hoax or to have never said anything in the first place. > But if it is possible for any citizen to make such claims and file such > cases and take away other people's children (or cause them to be taken away) > then I can sympathise with the mother wanting to remain untraceable. So can I. It's outrageous and it goes to show just how mindless and abjectly frightened of science and progress conservatives can be. I know I know, there's been no mention of the lawyer's philosophical bent but I feel justified in applying that moniker to him due to the fact he so aptly represents the current administration's and its advisor's feelings and efforts. Read the following for fodder to make one really really angry. http://www.cbhd.org/ http://www.cbhd.org/resources/aps/cameron_02-12-27.htm http://www.cbhd.org/resources/aps/clancy_02-11-19.htm Grrrr arrrrrrrrgh this one especially!! http://www.cbhd.org/resources/aps/earll_02-11-26.htm At first this one seemed halfway reasonable but soon he digressed and again brought GAWD into the discussion. http://www.cbhd.org/resources/aps/kilner_02-11-15.htm To further give you an idea how mindlessly lost these people are this is something they felt newsworthy and listed among other related to their cause news. http://www.newsday.com/news/local/state/ny-stcath313067414dec31,0,5753371.story I am of the opinion that we may lose our dreams and goals if drastic measures are not taken to silence these luddite fools. Measures such as ruin their reputations by any legal means necessary. Perhaps take some cues from Larry Flint where he scrapes up every bit of dirt possible on hypocritical opponents to his magazine and free speech. How I wish I were wealthy. > In fact > she should leave US jurisdiction before she could be identified. > > In general terms I cannot see what the fuss is about -- a cloned baby is > just an artificial twin of the original, it has no continuity of > consciousness. > > However, on http://www.clonaid.com/ it says that "Cloning will enable > mankind to reach eternal life. The next step, like the Elohim do with their > 25,000 years of scientific advance, will be to directly clone an adult > person without having to go through the growth process and to transfer > memory and personality in this person. Then, we wake up after death in a > brand new body just like after a good night sleep!" Ra l > > I have to say that I have a problem with this idea. Assuming the cloned > adult person has a brain (which it would have to if the scenario is to be > correct) what would it think of having its "soul" (ie program and data) > replaced by someone else's? Also, after transfer what remains in the old > body? > It would be murder and not only that but as has been so often discussed here the re-imprinted clone would not be the original but would be a copy. ;) Recently members of my extended family, a couple cousins, an uncle, my stepfather and my grandfather were having their usual theological discussion. I sat in my room at the end of the hall from them and fully able to hear it all simply cringing at the narrow mindedness in my own family. I was trying to ignore it all when my uncle spouts off what his idea of heaven would be. Something about tilling the soil with our bare hands, getting back to basics and of course always on bended knee in appreciation for gawd's mercy in allowing us to be dirt farmers for eternity instead of smoldering lumps of carbon in the lake of fire. With this I'd had enough. I spoke up and said, "What? No machines in heaven? Simple dirt farmers for frickin ever, scratching the dirt with our hands!? Not me, I want nothing to do with that!" One of my cousins, Tony, backed me up feebly saying something about we not having any evidence for that alluding to the oft touted notion that heaven is beyond imagination, but failing to mention that the whole theological notion has no evidence to support it whatsoever let alone logic and reason. They continued on with their discussions basically ignoring me. Then I heard Uncle Carlos again spouting off as he is wont to do something about, "if Abraham had left Hagar alone we'd not have all this trouble in the middle east". For the bible uninitiated, he was alluding to the biblical notion that Abraham supposedly fathered the Israelites from his wife Sarah and illegitimately the Arabs from his wife's maid Hagar. Well again I couldn't keep quiet and called out that all that was archeologically not true and that according to the latest archeology they all came from out of Caanan right along side the rest of the middle eastern peoples. They didn't hear me above the din of their pontifications so my cousin Steve came back and asked if I needed something not knowing I was actually commenting on their discussion. I repeated for him what I said whereupon he chuckled the kind of chuckle that goes along with a pat on the head to amuse the poor cute little addle minded atheist. They still are all in denial that I have grown out of their religion and rejected it. They are certain that either my injury affected my mind and gawd will forgive that and so keep me safe with them in their dirt farmer heaven or that at bottom I am deluding myself and still really believe but won't admit it. It's really maddening sometimes to not be taken serious and to be told what I truly do believe and am in no way really an atheist... as if they knew better the insides of my mind than even I myself do. Well I sat and stewed there a while over being taken for granted as a lunatic when it is they that are so far off beam. After a bit I got an idea. I'd stir up their minds but good. So I called them all to come back to my bedroom and they did with much jocularity... "we are being summoned by his majesty" and comments such. After getting them to quiet down and take what I was about to say more seriously I asked them the following. "You all have watched Star Trek, yes?" (It used to be my grandfather's favorite show before he got the notion it and all sci-fi was the devil's work setting us up for the antichrist to come down in a space ship and claim to be god) (oh yeah that and more is what I must contend with around here from some members of my family. I won't even go into the amazing powers of the antediluvians... really, there is some off the wall crap being spewed from the Christian networks the out there, really really 'out there'... dinosaurs were pets and ate grass, even T-Rex!!) Everyone questioningly agreed they had so I continued weaving my trap. "So you all are familiar with the transporter, yes? Beam me up Scotty?" "Oh yes", was the answer and other miscellaneous comments so I continued. "Did you know how it was supposed to work?" I asked, and then (for brevity I won't quote all the dialogue) proceeded to explain why matter cannot be beamed and that the fictional character's atoms were disintegrated, in theory, and the _information only_ sent to the destination for the person to be reconstituted from local matter based upon the information of their material pattern. "I didn't know that was how that worked", Uncle Carlos commented, "Very interesting". Other's commented likewise, somewhat astonished at the notion or astonished that they hadn't really considered carefully how it would have supposed to have worked. So I then continued and laid out for them the transporter accident scenario often discussed here were they each were allowed to imagine being duplicated then the original told he must be destroyed. However, I didn't ask them if they'd sit still to be destroyed. I merely asked which one they thought was the original and which the copy. BTW, I'm not trying to resurrect the copy/original perennial discussion here. They all agreed that the copy was not _them_. Most people upon mere common sense and not having thought a great deal about the notion will react this way initially. I reiterated: "So what you are saying is that if your molecules get scattered or otherwise destroyed, turned to dust..." About this time a light went on in my cousin Steve's mind as he caught on to my unfolding trap. I heard him start to utter an "Ahhh" and I looked over at him with a wry smile and then continued. "...and new molecules were assembled together in your pattern it would not be you but a copy, yes?" "You all agree?" Still not catching on to my trap all but Steve wholeheartedly agreed as I followed with: "So when you turn to dust after dying and god resurrects you, what you have agreed is that, it won't be you but will be a mere copy of you?" Caught like rats in trap with tasty cheese! But a half a second later out came the theological objections. Uncle Carlos is a Spanish descended Mexican and once was Catholic and so he couldn't catch himself in time before he mentioned the individual's spirit a very Catholic notion. "Surely one's spirit was safe with god and re-imbued in the new body", or words to that effect. I had to remind him that their is no 'human spirit' in Seventh-Day Adventist doctrine and that indeed the bible only supports one spirit, the holly one. I reminded them that the "breath of life" is said to return to god but that if it also says the one's "love dies also" then there is no essence of the individual held within this alleged "breath of life". Having failed with the spirit attempt after being duly shocked at my biblical knowledge they then all fell upon some passage in Deuteronomy that must be the catch all defend all for magic believers. I gather it goes something like, "At bottom one must just trust that god can do anything", or some words to similar effect. Rubbish!! I had em and they know it!! It does not matter how powerful god is, if there indeed be a god, said god could not resurrect one from dust and keep that being _the_ original. > Nevertheless, this organisation exists, and in financial terms it appears to > be far greater than all the cryonics service providers put together. Don't that beat all though? Why is it things totally irrational and based upon pure conjecture and hearsay are believed enthusiastically over our fact based and reasonable expectations founded upon good science!? Totally incredible! James -- Cryonics Institute of Michigan Member! The Immortalist Society Member! The Society for Venturism Member! MY WEBSITE: http://www.geocities.com/~davidpascal/swayze/ While there follow the links to photos of me and some of my artwork and a radio interview on Dr. J's ChangeSurfer Radio program with me and the father of cryonics Prof. Robert Ettinger, author of "The Prospect of Immortality". A RELIGION I actually recommend: http://www.venturist.org A FAVORITE quote: Last lines of the first Star Trek the Next Generation movie. Capt. Picard: "What we leave behind is not as important as how we've lived, after all Number One, we're only mortal." Will Ryker: "Speak for yourself captain, I intend to live forever!" Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=20790