Peter Lawler, who was on the President's Bioethics Council during the Bush Administration, has an interesting argument about the future of the Conservative/Libertarian alliance we currently have in the Republican Party. Here is his prediction:
The two groups are currently aligned b/c they both believe in limited gov't. This is because they share the same view of human nature, "Out of the crooked timber of humanity, nothing straight was ever made." The Gov't undertaking large social engineering projects are doomed to failure b/c of the imperfect human beings who will be in charge of it.
But Biotechnology changes all that. It promises to redesign human nature (cloning, mood management, etc.) so that perfect beings can now run things. They say we can fix what God botched.
The Libertarians will buy that argument while Conservatives will not. The former will say yes b/c "people should be free to do whatever they like so long as they don't hurt anyone else..." The latter will be reminded of Brave New World and Gattaca and how badly such projects turn out.
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