[CardCarryingMember.VastRightWC]

Anybody else remember the political arguments over the "ABM Treaty" in the late 60s? Stood for "Anti Ballistic Missile" - ie anything that would destroy incoming ICBMs. All the usual "doves" on the political Left (who controlled Congress in those days) wanted to kill our research into this technology so as to "not provoke the Soviets into a dangerous arms race".

In 1968 in Civics Class, I chose to be on the pro ABM side in an assigned one-on-one debate. I thought my hours of extended research at the school library (remember microfilm rolls? 20-pound volumes of The Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature?) and my bullet list of arguments would win the day, because, after all, they were logical rather than emotional. But after my opponent and I each made our presentations, the class voted lopsidedly for my opponent over me.

How could I have possibly lost that debate, I wondered?

Oh, wait, maybe there's a missing piece of context I shoulda provided. This Junior High that I attended was located in .........

Boulder CO.

Nuff said.

[blueunicorn6]

Your closing argument should have been,

“Finally, everyone who votes for me gets a free doobie.”

[Fred Hayek]

I know a few people who were associated with the early ABM project, and my father was one of those people. It worked a lot better than they led people to believe.
I will just say that with 1960’s computer technology, and the intent to have a nuke warhead go off in close proximity to the incoming if it were a warshot, some test intercepts resulted in hard contact hits. That’s hitting a missile launched from Vandenburg heading toward Kwajalein.