can look past sloganeering, whoever has the best slogans will win.

I think Saletan, in arguing that liberals should make a case for the complexity of this issue, forgets that we're living in a time when talking points and soundbites have taken the place of serious debate. Complexity, subtlety, and nuance are all dirty words, thinking too much makes one an "elitist."

You can explain stem cell research until the cows come home, when your opponent steps to the mic and calls you a murderer, he wins.

Lono:

"and soundbites have taken the place of serious debate."

That, unfortunately, is true. I am not sure what to do about it. Please don't pretend it is just the "other side" doing it, as well.

"Complexity, subtlety, and nuance are all dirty words"

I have never encountered such a phenomena, and have encountered very dull, simplistic arguments from people of all political stripes. A true test of your commitment to nuance is your willingness to shoot down the overly simplistic arguments of your OWN party that are defending a policy that YOU are in favor of. How often do you do this? Or do you let the ignoramouses on your side run wide? Can you link me to a post where you criticized something ignorant spewed by Michael Moore or Rosie O'Donnel? They sure have given you plenty of ammunition.

"You can explain stem cell research until the cows come home"

It's an arrogant assumption to believe that your opponent doesn't understand it. It is also off-base. We are not disagreeing about what stem-cell research IS. We are debating about whether the embryos involved should or should not have any meaningful rights.

"when your opponent steps to the mic and calls you a murderer, he wins."

Now you know what it feels like every time a liberal idiot gets his butt whooped in the logic department, and then pulls out some sap-story and cries "The children! The children! We must save the children!" or something equally banal.

When you get around to criticizing the simplistic notion that this is about

Whether the embryos involved should or should not have meaningful rights

Then perhaps you will see "liberals" criticizing the simplistic nature of some of the liberal arguements. One of the common things that both sides do to some extent, but which in my experience Conservatives like you do alot, is the creation of strawmen. An example being

every time a liberal idiot gets his butt whooped in the logic department, and then pulls out some sap-story and cries "The children! The children! We must save the children!" or something equally banal.

I have yet to see any liberal actually say anything remotely close to this. And I have rarely (though I have seen it), liberals get "whooped" in the LOGIC department. I've seen liberals get "whooped" in the framing, the politics and the spin of the issue, but rarely the logic.

As an example I'll point out the issue that defining embryos as "human beings" LOGICALLY has a host of corollaries such as ALL plentipotent and pluripotent human cells separated from the host person are suddenly equally endowed with the same rights as the embryos. Because FACTUALLY, they are indistinguishable.

This means some rather silly things:

• The skin you slough at night in your bed is as protected as a fetus
• The blood that is extracted from you to run medical tests, is as protected as a fetus.
• The DNA testing that is being done for Identification purposes is violating the "meaningful rights" of the plentipotent cells being destroyed in the process

Now you can set arbitrary and capricious distinctions between the blastocysts and the above cells, but those distinctions are distinctions of LAW not of scientific fact.

And we already have a distinction of LAW as to what is and is not a "legal person" with "meaningful rights". Its called birth. Now the fact that you don't like that legal boundary isn't a factually based analysis. It is that you simply want a different capricious set of boundaries.

To argue otherwise is both illogical and dishonest.

for somebody else. If this was still the old Fray, I could, indeed, link you to posts in which I take "liberal" idiots to task. Alas, those posts are now gone and I've not spent much time here lately to have written any new ones.

I don't pretend that one side has the monopoly on idiocy, however, with regard to science, the right has a firm grasp on the market.

George W Bush ran as an everyman. He was the guy everybody wanted to have a beer with, the guy who didn't read very much, the guy who governed from his heart rather than his head. Al Gore was an intellectual (said with one's lip curled into a sneer). This was a big part of the Bush campaign, were you not paying attention? He was PROUD of the fact that he didn't read very much (I can only assume that he still is). And his Presidency is exemplified by a stream of catch phrases and one-liners. He is "The Bumper Sticker President."

And which one of us is using the banal "Save the children," rhetoric in lieu of logic here?