Posted on 01/08/2004 11:19:24 PM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
Look, I told you before it is understandable that reasonable disagreements can occur over expenditure of public funds. And I told you the best way to deal with that was to convince your elected representatives to consider your opinions on the matter. Like you say, "that's the breaks". In the end, it's doubtful any of this will come to pass as any of us envision. Bush is proposing an outline of things he'd like us to pursue. There will be fits and starts along the way. But the vision of the possibilities has been laid out. We need only act on it.
I have no doubt that such disagreements have been around since the first public funds were collected and proposed to be spent. Likewise, there will be those who worry about every last penny they might be able to put in their pockets, that the government is stupid to spend, or has no business doing so. Likewise, there will be others with a longer-term vision, knowing something that may cost a few pennies now may have a reasonable potential for incalculable payoff, if only one has the eyes to see it.
People, and nations, often face these choices. For example, I am raising a handicapped child. Doing so will likely cost me everything I've saved for my retirement, and perhaps keep me on the job until I drop dead, providing for his future. In a sense, he a consumer of my "tax dollars" (income). I will never realize a penny of monetary profit from this endeavor. But you know, I am now and will be a richer man for it, even though it's cost me, and, in the process, I will have helped another person thrive and flourish who otherwise would not. It is a long-term "project" (so to speak), with a reward not measurable in pennies on the bottom line of some bank statement. I have treasures beyond counting stored by in the deepest recesses of my heart. I have gained something that no one will ever be able to put a price tag on, something that will live beyond my years on this Earth. Yes, it has required the expenditure of "public" (family) funds, with no immediate or long-term prospect for monetary recompense, but I still have come out ahead.
Likewise, I have made my arguments for the value of the long-term development of space technology and the benefits of space travel. Admittedly, those arguments appeal to somewhat intangible, more non-material benefits. They are unlikely to sway or even be understood by those who take a strictly materialistic, hard-hearted, dollars and cents, greed-is-good it's-all-about-bucks-kid-the-rest-is-conversation what's-worth-doing-is-worth-doing-for-money point of view. But I cannot help to think that we, as a people, and a nation, are better than simply counting pennies on the bottom line, and fretting over those, while our national soul withers away and dies, sold out like thirty pieces of silver bartered in the marketplace.
We hold in our faltering hands the keys to immense treasures. We can be, literally, the sowers of the seeds of dreams, seeds that can take root and flourish among the stars. We have the chance to scatter adventurous and bold, visionary people throughout the planets, people thoroughly indoctrinated with a love of being free. Yes, there will be a price to pay, like there always has been for those who would dare to take the risk to build a better future. But, in the long run, it can be a relatively small cost when folded into the larger picture. But it is a future wherein the seeds of future generations are planted, and the return on our relatively modest investment in planting those seeds reaps the kinds of rewards not measurable by pennies on the bottom line of a bank account or tax statement.
We have always been a people to rise to the challenge of striving to be greater than what we are. I fear our national spirit dies when we become so concerned with preserving what we have that we fear taking the risk, collectively, as a people, to build something better than what we have. And when that fear dominates us as a people, we cease to build, our creativity and resolve fades, and we become obsessed with hoarding and saving every last penny, when we could multiply that paltry sum we think we are saving many times over. If we turn our backs on the stars, and crawl back to our holes, content to count the pennies we've saved in the short term, then pat ourselves on the backs for being so penny wise and frugal, that we lose everything we think we've saved.
You have said you're perfectly willing to go down this path. But it is a path that leads us to stagnation and death as a people who would strive and build something better. I, and I hope others, are not willing to take such a path. Thankfully, we have a hope and vision for the future that is one of a healthy, thriving, and adventurous people, people who actually reach out for and attain the realization of those dreams, and not be content to sit around and count the pennies in our bank accounts or contemplate our navels. It is my hope that, as a nation, we keep the dream alive, one wherein our future is not bounded by the limits of our known world, and one populated by people who do not live out their lives worrying over pennies, when they could be amassing fortunes beyond value.
The space program is essential. Which particular projects are to be done within the domain of the space program is a fair question. What should the focus be right now? ISS, moon, or Mars?
In what way ?
What disasters would happen tomorrow if the U.S. "space program" vanished today ?
Could be yet another philosophy tome in there somewhere. Adorno's negative dialectic ought to put an inpenetrable twist on the whole discussion.
In what way is the space program "essential" ?
It saddens me that you would either use or believe a line like that.
Where would we be if people (And governments) did only things that would bring an immediate and foreseeable profit or benefit? We'd be living in caves and knocking rabbits over the head for supper.
Another "line" all to justify landing on the moon. You are being downright dishonest now.
Do you really think we should only do things that produce proven benefit? To be consistent, you'd have to be in favor of de-funding all scientific research because there's never any guarantee that the benefit will be worth the cost.
Constitution experts might argue that the government has no business doing a lot of things it does. I was very much in favor of the space telescope and NREL. But if the government was going to start spending money to research colonizing the moon I'd scream. I guess I know enough about science and economics to know pork when I smell it.
So heres the question.
Should the government be spending money on things that have a purely scientific benefit, with no KNOWN AND PREDICTABLE return either monetarily or in direct improvement the security the nation or to the improvement of peoples lives?
There is money and then there is money and there is research and then there is research. Spending a conservative amount of money dependant on the state of economics in the Country on pure science based on real requests from the scientific community can be a good thing but I'll never issue a blanket statement because science is clouded by politics and religion and governmental money spending is always an opportunity for politicians to spend pork in their states.
No doubt about that. You'd probably have been there 200 years ago on the banks of the Mississippi screaming bloody murder about the Army spending money on the Lewis and Clark expedition. Look what a waste that was, what a boondoggle! And it even cost one person their life! Oh, my God! Cripes, if those guys had stayed home and we'd spent that money building windmills, then, by God, we have settlements as far west as Columbia, Missouri, by now, maybe with a few thousand people in them, grinding grist with their wind-powered mills! Why'd the Army waste all that time and money just to go out there and explore the Louisiana Purchase like Jefferson wanted?! Why, geez, we all knew what they'd find, just trees and rocks and rivers and mountains and fish and grizzly bears and native people. What good are those? We've got plenty of trees and rocks already discovered in the east. We've got problems enough here, why bother going further west?! All that way and for what? Just to end up at the Pacific Ocean! What a waste...
I guess I know enough about science and economics to know pork when I smell it.
Maybe it's not pork so much as one's own internally generated gases.
There. All better now?
Hey, it's an invite to slap me down now and then. We all need it. Good for the soul (of me and thee). Go for it.
And where the h*ll do you get off calling me dishonest? You do not know me sir and you have NO business calling me dishonest.
It's an OPINION. You've herd of them I'm sure. Are you suggesting that's not really my opinion? What the heck are you talking about?
I was very much in favor of the space telescope and NREL. But if the government was going to start spending money to research colonizing the moon I'd scream.
So it sounds as if the only point on which we disagree is in how FAR we should go with a government space program? Not weather the government should be involved in space research at all.
You just can't see the value that others see in a moon program involving people. That's fine. I won't accuse you of lying about it.
Good day.
Get over yourself. I accused you of repeating or crafting a line that reads like a campaign speech not lying. Therefore it is you who are lying by accusing me of saying you lied. Where the h*ll do you get off doing that, you don't know me at all sir.
You are being downright dishonest now.
Those were your words. I can't imagine what logical gymnastics you employed to make "downright dishonest" translate into "repeating or crafting a line that reads like a campaign speech." (Your words again.) But in my world it's not a great leap to equate "downright dishonest" with "lying".
It doesn't get much clearer than that. At least, not for me. That small logical step seems to be to great a concept for your intellect to handle.
Therefore it is you who are lying by accusing me of saying you lied.
At this point your post has degrading into complete silliness.
It seems to me one would have to have a short in their logic processing center to reach that kind of conclusion.
Since, in my experience, it is pointless to attempt a rational discussion, on any topic, with a person who displays the disconnect from rational thought AND civil discourse that you do, there's no point in continuing.
It's like trying to point out facts to a liberal. Futile.
(Note: I did NOT just call you a liberal.)
We seemed to be having a mature disagreement untill you said this. I took this as your saying that since I am not in favor of wasting money on manned space travel I lack all of these things. That didn't sit well with me.
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