I try to be a tolerant man. If people want to believe stupid things, that’s one thing. If people want to engage in suboptimal behaviors because of those stupid things… well, I may not like it, but I can’t save the world. But when the scientific illiterates at Greenpeace decide (in classic bloody I’m-a-Western-progressive-here-to-take-up-the-White-Man’s-burden-so-all-you-natives-just-shut-up-now fashion) to condemn poor people to what would otherwise be an easily-preventable blindness? Yeah, there’s a limit to tolerance.

On August 8th, 400 protesters ripped out seedlings of a new genetically modified plant called golden rice at a testing ground in the Philippines. Genes from bacteria and corn have been added to the rice to make it a source of vitamin A. Vitamin A deficiency can lead to blindness and weakens the immune system, contributing to 2 million deaths every year. (Golden rice is being developed by a non-profit organization, not Monsanto.) As the Philippine government prepares to rule on whether or not to allow farmers to grow the wonder-crop, the anti-GMO movement is digging itself in for a fight.

Look, I’ll be blunt: I have personal theological issues about whether we really need the concept of the Devil in order to explain sinfulness. Yeah, I know, I’m a bad Catholic that way (not to mention a host of other ways). But never mind me: clearly radical environmentalists require the physical presence of Satan on Earth in order to get their moral system working properly – or at least a Satan. Genetically modified organisms is apparently doing that job for them right now.

And, again, that’s their privilege. But if your ethical framework requires – requires – that you take actions that will make a Third World subsistence farmer watch his family go blind, then your ethical framework is an abomination and you should retire to a monastery in order to contemplate your sins.  And no, I am not particularly trying to be funny, there.

Via Instapundit.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

PS: I was being nice. I didn’t call Greenpeace a bunch of racist, crypto-imperialist sociopaths once.

PPS: The NYT article was, by the way, shockingly unsympathetic to the radical environmentalists on this one. Gives an idea of just how depraved the Greenies are being, here: usually the Left can expect a more uncritical reception from the Old Grey Lady.