Chaos

President Bush is famous for saying that he supports "a Culture of Life." What he means is, "I'm against abortion and stem cell research because I think they are morally wrong," which is a mouthful to be sure, but also a perfectly defensible thing to say. Not that I agree with him about the research bit, but that's not the point.

The point is that's not what a culture of life means. Suppose it were an ultimatum from God: "Tomorrow you folks had better have a culture of life or else I'll turn you into amoebas!" Well, that would be a fine sight: we'd have to ax the death penalty straight away, we'd have to kiss goodbye all this trifling war business (whoops, no more nuclear arsenals!), we'd have to institute universal health care, and maybe even more comprehensive welfare systems if we're concerned about people starving and freezing to death. And if we care about our children's lives, then maybe we should do something about pollution as well.

Unless I misinterpreted the President's record with the death penalty in Texas, or the war in Iraq, or his comments about "rationing health care" and "losing jobs" in reference to universal health care and the Kyoto treaty, I think it's fair to say that he does not support a culture of life.