For most of President George Bush's State of the Union address, we found ourselves lost in a torrent of economies, militaries and faith-based initiatives. While we heartily disagree with our commander-in-chief on nearly every issue he presented, there was one dire topic that shook us profoundly and that merits immediate attention. Buried under 18 "freedoms," 18 "terrors," 10 "democracies," five "isolationisms" and four "victories" was a single phrase that struck fear into the heart of an already beleaguered nation: "human-animal hybrids."
For those of you who fell asleep during President Bush's awkward shout-out to Coretta Scott King, or those of you who failed to fulfill your duty as patriots and did not deign to bear witness to the most important message of warning since Laocoon and the Trojan Horse, you are in grave danger. During the State of the Union Address, our leader was on a roll as he addressed the need to protect the God-given gift of human life. "A hopeful society," he pontificated, "has institutions of science and medicine that do not cut ethical corners, and that recognize the matchless value of every life." Then, it happened. President Bush spoke the sinister words that will chill even the hearts of our children's children, words that certainly mark the beginning of a new and terrible age. "Tonight," he said, alarm evident in his voice, "I ask you to pass legislation to prohibit the most egregious abuses of medical research - human cloning in all its forms - creating or implanting embryos for experiments, creating human-animal hybrids and buying, selling or patenting human embryos."
Of course, stem cell research and genetic engineering are important moral topics that deserve public discourse in times of leisure. However, in light of Tuesday night's speech, we must consider ourselves to be at war.
Who or what are these human-animal hybrids? Where do they come from? Are they among us? And can they be destroyed? These are the things we need to know.
What form would such hybrids take? Would they be traditional human-animal hybrids, familiar to us from mythology? Will we see Horus, the eagle-headed sky god walking down Thayer Street, resplendent in his kingly accoutrements? Will our next divinations course be taught by the centaur, Professor Firenze? Will we perhaps be served crumpets and tea at the Ratty by the friendly faun Mr. Tumnus? Or will we be faced with a new enemy, a post-nuclear abomination of Love-craftian proportions that we, as mere humans, cannot hope to defeat? Whatever forms such human-animal hybrids might take, we charge Ruth Sim-mons and Brown University to lead the crusade to stamp out this insidious menace from our population.
We were disturbed to find the Democratic response to the president's speech soft on hybrids and hybridism. Indeed, this threat, this gathering storm, did not warrant even a mention from the Democrats. Are they taking their typical stance of spineless ineffectuality on the issue, or could it be that once again they have bowed to special interests in the form of the powerful human-animal hybrid lobby?
Make no mistake, human-animal hybrids are out there and the time will come when mankind must choose to either become obsolete or to fight. While some might easily be taken in by the rhetoric of human-animal hybrid apologists and thereby take the former course, we hold this truth to be self-evident: human-animal hybrids are a deadly peril to liberty and family values and must be exterminated.
President Bush claims that, "A hopeful society expects elected officials to uphold the public trust." As such, we demand that a truth commission be formed to ferret out possible manimals living in our midst. Also, important research institutions, perhaps spearheaded by Brown, should take the initiative in capturing and studying human-animal hybrids so that we can find their weaknesses and exploit them. Only by decisive and forceful action can the purity of the human race be preserved and protected from human-animal hybrid incursion. To be weak on hybridism now is to betray our core American values, and if we are weak, we will deserve the horrible destruction that our hybrid masters will surely visit upon us.
Alexander Bazes '06, Aaron Fritschner '06 and Daniel Hernandez '06 are not human-animal hybrids.
