There is absolutely no point to settling Mars. The Moon at least has massive reserves of Helium-3. @hat does Mars have? And it is vastly farther away.
Mars has plenty of water, you just have to have the equipment in place to get at it and separate out the H2 from the O.
Moon also has Thorium and exotic minerals for mining.
All we need are some Hortas and we’re set!!!
It's absolute absence of liberals seems promising. I've been working on a ship in my garage ever since the pictures came back and showed no liberals in all directions.