Opinion
Words are not violence – Why Will Smith was wrong to strike Chris Rock.

This article submitted by Levi Kump
It is news to exactly no one, that Sunday night, Will Smith responded to a contentious, and arguably tasteless joke, by walking on stage at the Acadamy Awards and slapping the the offending party, one Chris Rock, across the face. Much has been made already about whether or not the incident was staged, though the ensuing furor has rendered that debate largely moot. Many people have chimed in on the issue, some saying the Smith was unequivocally wrong, and some, including no less than The National Post’s Barbara Kay, coming down on the the side of a face slap being fair play.
Let it be known, I believe Smith and Kay, are both wrong. First and foremost, because one of the tenets of civilization in general, is the old adage that, “ones right to get angry, stops at the next fellow’s nose”. Nothing new here. Setting aside for a moment that the slap was to the cheek/jaw area, I believe that notion still holds water. Genuine or not, this incident implies that there are some statements for which the only possible rebuttal, is the fist. The challenges with this way of thinking are legion, and until only a few years ago, seemed to have already been worked out in western society. Not the least of said problems is this: if words are violence itself, and answerable as such, then we no longer have any reason to use words. When one equates the verbal with the somatic, it is a very quick descent indeed, to using violence in any given situation. Why struggle for the ‘mot juste’, when one can move stright to a head kick?
Following this line of reasoning, we end up back, hundreds of years, to the time of, “might makes right”; which again, our civilization had once worked out, but now seems to be forgetting. One of the more common lines of reasoning for the “speech as violence” crowd, is that disparities in power give far more weight to some people’s words, than others. In the Smith/Rock debacle, this is hardly worth a mention, as both men are of the same demographic, read: multi-millionaires of the same skin tone. Though there are those who will point out, as did Barbera Kay, that the target of Rock’s joke, was not Will Smith himself, but rather his wife, Jada, who does in fact suffer from an auto immune disease, and whose hair loss is by no means her own fault. A powerful comedian making jokes about a/an (equally powerful?) woman’s physical condition should be off limits, or so goes the argument. The easy reply here is that there are
those, myself among them, who do not believe that anything should be off limits in speech.
Noting here that, not unlike our separation of words and action, society did away with the idea of ‘lese majest’ some time back. There are yet some who do not believe in this, and who think that the relative power of two parties (and exactly how do we quantify this?) matter to a verbal exchange. That the words of the more powerful party are in fact so weighty, that again, the only fair response, is a physical one. This begs the question, that if the words of the powerful are
unfairly weighted, how much more so are thier blows? It is to me, an untenable position. Slapping a man for speech only ends badly for everyone. Until very recently, we all seem to have understood this.
There was once a common convention, that words, for all their power, are clearly not violence. The fact that this is now somehow considered up for debate, does not bode well for society writ large. Any reasonable person will admit that words can be incredibly hurtful, damaging, and cruel. To deny this is foolish. Physical violence however, has all those dangers, along with a side order of split lips, contusions, and concussions. Indeed, whatever “damage” one suffers from words, one is still left with the ability to speak in rebuttal. A solid blow of any kind can not only dissuade retort, but neuter it completely. Perhaps this is what the proponents of violent response are after in the first place? If so, its disappointing. As I said, i thought we had worked this out.
Levi Kump is a former competitive international Muay Thai champion.
Opinion
Some scientists advocate creating human bodies for ‘spare parts.’

From LifeSiteNews
The Stanford researchers admit that some people may find these ideas about clones repugnant but justify them on the basis of research already in progress.
In the 2005 sci-fi thriller The Island, Scarlett Johansson and Ewan McGregor discover that they are clones, created as an “insurance policy” for wealthy people who might need them for “spare parts.” Now, scientists at Stanford are proposing that we make this dystopian fiction a reality. On March 25, 2025, Carsten T. Charlesworth, Henry T. Greely, and Hiromitsu Nakauchi wrote in MIT Technology Review:
Recent advances in biotechnology now provide a pathway to producing living human bodies without the neural components that allow us to think, be aware, or feel pain. Many will find this possibility disturbing, but if researchers and policymakers can find a way to pull these technologies together, we may one day be able to create “spare” bodies, both human and nonhuman.
These researchers say that “human biological materials are an essential commodity in medicine, and persistent shortages of these materials create a major bottleneck to progress.” Using techniques reminiscent of Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World (in which fetuses destined for menial tasks are selectively poisoned to diminish their intelligence), they propose using human stem cells and artificial wombs to create human clones which they call “bodyoids.” The article describes it this way:
Such technologies, together with established genetic techniques to inhibit brain development, make it possible to envision the creation of “bodyoids”—a potentially unlimited source of human bodies, developed entirely outside of a human body from stem cells, that lack sentience or the ability to feel pain.
The researchers say that these neurologically impaired human clones could provide an almost unlimited source of organs, tissues, and cells for use in transplantation. They admit that some people may find these ideas repugnant but justify them on the basis of research already in progress. They correctly point out that we are already using neurologically injured people as research test subjects.
“Brain dead” people who are biologically alive but who have been declared legally dead are currently being used as test hosts for the implantation of genetically modified pig livers and kidneys. These brain-injured people who are being used as xenograft hosts are certainly alive (since they are stable enough to be used as test subjects for implanted animal organs) until they are killed at the end of the experiment for further anatomical and microscopic analysis. The Stanford scientists use this ethically problematic practice to justify creating human clones for research: “In all these cases, nothing was, legally, a living human being at the time it was used for research. Human bodyoids would also fall into that category.”
The scientists admit that human cloning raises ethical problems, saying that the use of bodyoids “might diminish the human status of real people who lack consciousness or sentience.” But the article is clearly written in the spirit of the ends justifying the means. In their call for action, the authors conclude, “Caution is warranted, but so is bold vision; the opportunity is too important to ignore.”
On the contrary, the value of every human being is what is too important to ignore. We value and protect every person because they are made in the image of God, regardless of the way they were brought into the world. Using unconscious people as research subjects is wrong, both in the case of brain-injured people declared “legally dead” (under the logical fallacy of brain death), and also with this new proposal for bioengineering human clones. Salve Regina University philosopher Dr. Peter J. Colosi explains it this way:
You, as the person who you are, exist even when you are not conscious, and this means that other human beings who are not conscious could also do that. In the branch of philosophy that I am calling Christian personalism, there have been many convincing arguments developed to show the reasonableness of the presence of a person in all classes of nonconscious or minimally conscious living human beings.
Also, it is wrong to create people with the sole purpose of using them to fulfill our own desires. Dr. Colosi makes this clear:
Furthermore, the creation of human beings with the deliberate intent to destroy some of them for the sake of others…is a clear example of what Pope Francis has referred to as “The Throw Away Culture”: The throwaway culture says, “I use you as much as I need you. When I am not interested in you anymore, or you are in my way, I throw you out.” It is especially the weakest who are treated this way — unborn children, the elderly, the needy, and the disadvantaged.”
Creating people to be used as commodities for “spare parts” is unconscionable. Do we really want to be spending our taxpayer dollars this way? Yet Stanford Medicine’s Center for Clinical and Translational Research and Education just received a $70 million NIH grant. The purpose of this grant is to “accelerate the translation of newly discovered biomedical treatments into interventions that improve patient care and population health.”
READ: The case of Zack Dunlap shows the incoherence of ‘brain death’
Rather than accelerating, we need to stop, expose, and defund these morally abhorrent attempts to purposely bioengineer neurologically impaired human clones as a source of “spare parts.” A pro-life ethic protects all human life from experimentation and abuse.
Heidi Klessig MD is a retired anesthesiologist and pain management specialist who writes and speaks on the ethics of organ harvesting and transplantation. She is the author of The Brain Death Fallacy, and her work may be found at respectforhumanlife.com.
International
Trump’s ‘Golden Dome’ defense shield must be built now, Lt. Gen. warns

MxM News
Quick Hit:
Lt. Gen. Trey Obering (Ret.), former director of the Missile Defense Agency, is calling on Congress and the Department of Defense to move quickly in support of President Donald Trump’s vision for a next-generation missile defense system—dubbed the “Golden Dome.” In a Fox News op-ed, Obering argues that a constellation of up to 2,000 satellite interceptors could defend against modern threats from China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran at a fraction of the cost of today’s ground-based systems.
Key Details:
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The Golden Dome initiative will be presented to President Trump following his executive order mandating the development of advanced national missile defense.
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Obering says a space-based system, enabled by AI and peer-to-peer networking, could intercept missiles earlier in their trajectory, significantly enhancing U.S. deterrence capabilities.
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Estimated cost for the full satellite constellation would be less than the price of today’s 44 ground interceptors and global radar network.
Diving Deeper:
In a March 31 op-ed for Fox News, retired Lt. Gen. Trey Obering, who directed the Missile Defense Agency under President George W. Bush, laid out a detailed argument for why President Donald Trump’s “Golden Dome” missile defense shield is both technologically feasible and strategically necessary. “We can do this — and we must,” Obering wrote, emphasizing the urgency of the moment.
According to Obering, the current U.S. missile defense architecture—reliant on ground-based interceptors and radar systems—faces serious limitations in light of the increasingly sophisticated missile technologies being developed by U.S. adversaries. “Our existing missile-defense system cannot easily defeat some of our adversaries’ more modern, sophisticated weapons,” he noted.
The “Golden Dome” proposal envisions a network of up to 2,000 satellites in low Earth orbit, operating as both sensors and interceptors. The concept, which builds on Ronald Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative and the shelved “Brilliant Pebbles” program, is now achievable thanks to advances in artificial intelligence, satellite production, and space-based communications. “Each satellite has the knowledge of every other satellite,” Obering explained. “They all serve as both threat sensors and hit-to-kill interceptors.”
Obering pointed to real-world applications of this model in Ukraine, where a peer-to-peer software system—built using concepts from Uber—has helped the Ukrainian military effectively target Russian positions. A similar concept could be applied to satellite-based missile defense. “The networking concept has already proven its effectiveness on the battlefield in Ukraine,” he said.
Importantly, Obering stressed that while no missile shield is perfect, the deterrent power of such a system would be undeniable. “The capability and capacity now exists to defeat single and multiple missile launches, thereby creating strategic deterrence — or ‘peace through strength,’ in the words of both Reagan and Trump,” he wrote.
Cost is another key factor. Obering argued that this next-gen system would come in at a lower price than the 44 ground interceptors currently deployed in Alaska and California. He cited SpaceX’s Starlink, which already has over 7,000 satellites in orbit, as proof of concept for rapid and scalable deployment. “For a defense system charged with safeguarding countless lives and trillions of dollars in assets, this would be money well spent,” he said.
He also warned that bureaucratic delays must not slow the project. “We cannot allow unnecessary bureaucratic hurdles to stifle our progress,” Obering urged. He called on Congress to expedite confirmations of key defense leaders and fully fund the Golden Dome initiative, with the Missile Defense Agency as the lead coordinating body.
With China racing ahead in artificial intelligence and space defense, Obering concluded with a stark warning: “Golden Dome must be built first; the alternative is too terrible to contemplate.”
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