Violent and loud rutting...
2002-10-27 03:10 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
archershipsI found the transcript of a Crossfire debate between Max More and Jonathan Moreno, director of the University of Virginia's Center for Bioethics, over the Ted Williams cryonics case. Prior to the debate, however, was this amusing exchange:
"...CARLSON: You've seen the Democratic donkey. You are familiar with the Republican elephant. Now meet the progressive moose. After many difficult years without an official animal symbol, the Progressive Party of Vermont has settled on the moose.
We're kind of branding a little bit, explained a party spokesman. It's just a way to connect people. People love moose. Indeed, they do -- tourists from New Jersey, that is, who regard the animals as handsome, noble and quaint. A perfect emblem for a coffee cup or a bumper sticker.
Actual Vermont voters, however, may react differently. In Vermont moose are better known for giving off noxious odors, attracting bloodsucking insects and killing motorists in collisions. They're also famous for their loud and violent rutting, during which they compulsively urinate and knock down trees.
(LAUGHTER)
CARLSON: A fitting symbol of progressive politics.
BEGALA: I could have gone all night without hearing you talk about violent rutting, Tucker.
CARLSON: Violent and loud rutting. "
"...CARLSON: You've seen the Democratic donkey. You are familiar with the Republican elephant. Now meet the progressive moose. After many difficult years without an official animal symbol, the Progressive Party of Vermont has settled on the moose.
We're kind of branding a little bit, explained a party spokesman. It's just a way to connect people. People love moose. Indeed, they do -- tourists from New Jersey, that is, who regard the animals as handsome, noble and quaint. A perfect emblem for a coffee cup or a bumper sticker.
Actual Vermont voters, however, may react differently. In Vermont moose are better known for giving off noxious odors, attracting bloodsucking insects and killing motorists in collisions. They're also famous for their loud and violent rutting, during which they compulsively urinate and knock down trees.
(LAUGHTER)
CARLSON: A fitting symbol of progressive politics.
BEGALA: I could have gone all night without hearing you talk about violent rutting, Tucker.
CARLSON: Violent and loud rutting. "
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Date: 2002-10-27 04:57 am (UTC)I actually went ahead and read the transcript (and Max More seems like he has a lot of really fascinating thoughts, so I'll have to read up on him in a bit)... I thought More did as good a job as humanly possible on a show where everyone is set up to tackle him with various non-arguments and assumptions that the family members who disagree with suspension have all their facts right. (Selling DNA for cloning??!)
This is the kind of attitude that scares me the most, though -- the "nobody should do this because it's JUST WRONG, and by the way, that money should go to this and this and this and who cares what you think because you're already dead." It's the same thing that scared the heck out of me when I read The First Immortal. I'm still ready to go for it, because, like More said, I think my chances are better suspended than cremated or embalmed. And I still think there's no reason not to, and that I'm going to leave a very big pile of evidence that explains exactly what I'm doing and exactly why I want to do it, on the off chance that some offspring of mine decides that suspension is just wrong (though, honestly, I can't see that happening...).
But *shudders*. It's going to be a very uphill battle right until the first person is successfully revived. At which point I think a lot of people are going to decide they don't want to die just because their body's time is up.
Re:
Date: 2002-10-27 03:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2002-10-28 06:42 pm (UTC)