WHERE'S CHARLIE HODGE?: CLONES NEED NOT APPLY

With the recent scientific break through with the successful cloning of a sheep in Scotland many have began pondering the consequences of human clones.

I am one of those people.

While I am against the idea, I can think up some very interesting uses for clones.

But I'd rather share my predictions for the future, should clones become a part of it.

Cloning of humans is against the law in some industrialized nations, but not here in the good ol' U.S.A.

I imagine a time when clones are abundant on the earth and how we as humans would react to their presence.

We would think ourselves gods and we would treat them as our servants. And in this case, we did create them.

But would that justify our actions, no it wouldn't. But I'll say it again, so as to make it clear. We don't need to mess with cloning people.

I see a future where all clones are by law given the last name Clone and are somehow stamped on their body a signal that says to the world "I'm a clone."

I foresee a sympathetic human becoming disgraced at the way the human society would treat clones and instilling in these clones the spirit of revolution.

A clone civil war. Maybe there will be a Compromise of 2020 where Missouri is admitted as a clone state while Kansas remains without clones.

I foresee a battle for clone suffrage. Clones would of course not be allowed to vote until they have gone through the trials and tribulations of women and minorities of the past.

I see mankind coming together in one common cause against that which it has created.

I also foresee many other effects of this new technology. Mixed marriages (human-clone).

The society would look with distaste towards the human and the children of the union.

We'd have new words entering our vocabulary. The children of a mixed marriage between clones and humans would be called cloneards or clomans (half-man/half-petri dish concoction).

Other children will make fun of them saying that they only have half a soul or that they are just an experiment.

And for the children of clone-clone marriages, well they would be the lowest of the low.

Clones would be created to fill the ranks of a newer, bolder military. One where the human leaders wouldn't mind throwing them into the battlefield for any dispute that arises between nations.

Of course there is your paranoid futuristic scenarios. Where the United Nations sends in clone agents into the United States Government and slowly take control while we unknowingly watch our newly cloned sitcoms of Seinfeld and Cosby.

Think of all the great presidents and people that we would try to clone in the hopes they could save us from whatever ills plague us in the future.

Babe Ruth fans still angry over Roger Maris's single season record would want to see what the new Babe could do.

Psychiatrists might gain the most by this new breed. They could answer the question of nature vs. nurture more definitely. They could use the human as the control and the clone would be the experiment.

Of course, just think if this clone technology becomes something that anybody can do.

Families could clone themselves some servants for the house.

Adolescents might try to clone their favorite super model.

Many others might try to clone themselves to make life easier or to prolong their own existence on this earth.

Whatever happens, rest assured if cloning of humans is a possibility, it will be done somewhere and what a sad future it will hold for mankind and their clones.

The future of clones will be deeply rooted in the past of every minority group that ever walked the face of the earth.

Imagine how wickedly we treat our fellow man already. Man, that which many of us believe to be made in the image of God, be it a Christian, Jewish, Islamic, Buddist, Hindu or whatever else people put their faith in.

Just think of what we would do to something man made. Something most would believe to not have a soul. A new species many would equate to some lower mammal.

It's just something we need to think about and decide not to do.