Earth's ruin complete, Mars next

Auburn Plainsman ^ | 1-23-04 | Auburn Plainsman

[ambrose]

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Earth's ruin complete, Mars next

Column by David Mackey

January 22, 2004

Look out, Mars. Dubya's coming.

Faced with unrest in Iraq, economic worries at home and a growing deficit, President Bush did the only logical thing: he decided to leave the planet.

In Tuesday's State of the Union address, Bush proposed doubling NASA's budget to fund a permanent station on the moon and, one day, a manned mission to Mars, at a cost of more than $1 billion.

One can't help but speculate as to Bush's motives. To the best of our knowledge, there is neither oil nor weapons of mass destruction on Mars. And Martians aren't known for their cheap migrant labor or fat campaign contributions, so I'm stumped.

Mars (soon to be The Halliburton Red Planet Presented by Fox News) does have a few obvious advantages for Bush. No United Nations up there, few minorities, non-Christians or homosexuals to offend and, best of all, it's easy to pronounce.

The last time America looked to the heavens for inspiration, we were engaged in another global clash of cultures, the Cold War.

This nostalgic space challenge is merely a cheap, meaningless way to buy patriotism. It's a resume booster, a guaranteed applause line for stump speeches.

Naturally, the space cowboy's plan raised more than a few eyebrows and a lot of hard questions. Why toss billions into the stratosphere while simultaneously cutting taxes, rebuilding Iraq and Afghanistan and adding a monstrous prescription drug entitlement to Medicare on top of deficits that would already make a drunken Kennedy blush?

Will this do anything to improve the lives of the American taxpayers (besides unemployed rocket scientists)? Will a Mars mission feed the hungry, house the homeless or educate disadvantaged children?

But the most important question is the one no one is asking. Why is this any business of the government's?

Read the Constitution. (It's that document that used to be the foundation of our law.)

Nowhere is the government empowered to explore space, and the Tenth Amendment bars the feds from doing anything not expressly permitted. Of course, that hasn't stopped them since the days of FDR and the equally unconstitutional New Deal, so why quibble now?

Mars may very well hold the answers to scientific secrets that could revolutionize technology and make all of our lives better -- which is why NASA should immediately be disbanded and its assets sold on the market.

Space exploration should be funded by private investors risking their own money, not ours. It is unconscionable to force every taxpayer to pay for a nonessential project they may or may not support.

So let's compromise. Bush can have Mars if he'll give us Earth. We'll even throw in some Tang.

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[Brett66]

Will a Mars mission feed the hungry, house the homeless or educate disadvantaged children? But the most important question is the one no one is asking. Why is this any business of the government's?

LOL! He worries about space exploration being part of government activities, but doesn't even question the social programs.

Space exploration has a tentative relation to defense, so I think it's on more solid constitutional grounds than programs for education, feeding the chil'run, etc.

Spending money on the space program always becomes a rorschach test for liberals where they can supplant the miniscule money spent on space and plug it into their favorite socialist utopia scheme.

How about this for a rationale, let's spend ten times more on space exploration and when the next utopian comes along trying to spend money on their latest socialist scheme we can say "sorry, no money for that!" Works for me......

[Paul C. Jesup]

In order to vote in Rome, you had to be a citizen. That required being male, having had military service and owning property. Hardly 'free' in the modern sense.

You got that confused, to vote you had to be a male citizen of Rome. Now there were three ways to be a citizen, one is to be born by parents who were both Roman citizens, two be declared a Roman Citizen by a Caesar or three join the Roman military and after 25 years of service at retirement from the military you were made a Roman citizen with your own land and a nice pention.

As well, ownership (and by extension trade) was limited to citizens. See above about how this is hardly defined as 'free'.

Yes and no, it depended on what type of property and where it was located. A lot of trade happened in the Roman nation and not all of it by Roman citizens.

For example: (History Channel's special on the Gaul) the Gauls, after centuries of being enslaved by the Romans, were finally given their own homes lands in the Roman Nation and were allowed to trade.

I would fairly wager that I've forgotten more about Roman history than you'll ever hope to know, so why don't you get back to me when you've got a clue? Alright, cuz?

It is not so much that you have forgotten, but that you have the information on the different eras in Ancient Rome all jumbled together in your head.

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

Space exploration should be funded by private investors risking their own money, not ours. It is unconscionable to force every taxpayer to pay for a nonessential project they may or may not support.

Wow. I like this guy's angle on space exploration. Questioning the constitutionality, necessity, and cost of Bush's new space program will get no objection from me. However, his sarcastic derision of Bush, whatever his faults, galls me.

[CaptRon]

Apparently, there's still room for another a-hole here though.

[dyed_in_the_wool]

Well which era are we talking about?

The bottom line is that Rome was not a massive believe in representative government being born after Greece's fall. In fact, the whole idea of a Repbulic was born out of the failure of Greek democracy.

Most of Islam is still at the early stages of that fight. The concept of representative government is bewildering to them and as alien as the Aristotelian works they protected for centuries.

As for Gaul, I understand the struggles of Vercingetorix and how Gaul was ultimately subdued, then allowed equal status mainly to counter the rise of the Huns and Vandals.

Regardless of this history, we are not dealing with similar circumstances. We are an inherently free society built on the idea of cooperation and assimilation. Consider the Roman experience with Christianity.

Rome fell because it was unable to assimilate new ideas and stopped expansion because of the overgrowth of bureaucracy (among other things). If they had sauntered out to follow Alexander the Greats steps, been open to other cultures, they could have established the silk route as a viable Roman trade route, subduing Persia and Southern Asia in a way nobody has been able to do.

In fact, the problems we're dealing with right now are really an outgrowth of Rome's mismanagement and bloating. The problems are without and within.

We're offering a better standard of living in Baghdad. Over time, that will win us the Midddle East. If you've ever seen 'Life of Brian' you'll know what I'm talking about.

[RightWhale]

In Tuesday's State of the Union address, Bush proposed doubling NASA's budget to fund a permanent station on the moon and, one day, a manned mission to Mars, at a cost of more than $1 billion.

Did he? A whole billion dollars? Right in the SOTU?

[RightWhale]

Thanku. We have to know what the reality situation is whether it favors space exploration or not. We should go to the moon and Mars and reform the PTO and do all these things not because they are easy, but because they are hard.

[aruanan]

Is this Mackey the same guy from Southpark?

[RightWhale]

He worries about space exploration being part of government activities, but doesn't even question the social programs.

Great flash of insight. Really. There is something specious about these anti-space zealots.

[Porterville]

That is where you are wrong, a 100 years from now, they will be talking about how the U.S. finally collapsed and they will compare it's Presidents to the Emperors of Ancient Rome.

Are YOU, betting against America?? Are you betting against my family and everyone I know??? Shame on you, bury your head in shame and go pray to God for forgiveness. Disgrace.

[BlueLancer]

"If you've ever seen 'Life of Brian' you'll know what I'm talking about.

Reg: Yeah, all right Stan, don't delay with the point. And what have they ever given us in return?

Revolutionary I: The aqueduct?

Reg: What?

Revolutionary I: The aqueduct.

Reg: Oh. Yeah, yeah, they did give us that, ah, that's true, yeah.

Revolutionary II: And the sanitation.

Loretta: Oh, yeah, the sanitation, Reg. Remember what the city used to be like.

Reg: Yeah, all right, I'll grant you the aqueduct and sanitation, the two things the Romans have done.

Matthias: And the roads.

Reg: Oh, yeah, obviously the roads. I mean the roads go without saying, don't they? But apart from the sanitation, the aqueduct, and the roads...

Revolutionary III: Irrigation.

Revolutionary I: Medicine.

Revolutionary IV: Education.

Reg: Yeah, yeah, all right, fair enough.

Revolutionary V: And the wine.

All revolutionaries except Reg: Oh, yeah! Right!

Rogers: Yeah! Yeah, that's something we'd really miss Reg, if the Romans left. Huh.

Revolutionary VI: Public baths.

Loretta: And it's safe to walk in the streets at night now, Reg.

Rogers: Yeah, they certainly know how to keep order. Let's face it; they're the only ones who could in a place like this.

All revolutionaries except Reg: Hahaha...all right...

Reg: All right, but apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh-water system and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?

Revolutionary I: Brought peace?

Reg: Oh, peace! Shut up!

[RightWhale]

We're all concerned about the future of America. We show it in different ways, but we're all fully invested in America.

[Porterville]

You're right, but I get tired of defeatist...Defeatist lower all boats in the harbor.

[Porterville]

Sorry, that was a little harsh on my part, I'm kinda of working hard right now and have a natural tendency to get angry whenever anybody acts as if things are helpless or even difficult. Again I apologize.

[JasonC]

And all unsustainable trends eventually reverse. Whoopie doo. Doesn't have anything to do with the fall of Rome, or the next 100 years of US life.

[RightWhale]

Defeatist lower all boats in the harbor

OTOH, a pessimistic view can be buoyed. Not to say Don't worry, be happy or other aphorisms, but a positive view can be attractive. Look at the difference between the negative campaigns of some of the Dem candidates versus the more positive campaigns. Then look at the totally positive campaign of the main cheerleader--Dubya, or in his own day--Reagan. Easy to choose.

[Porterville]

You're right, I appologized to him.

[smith288]

[JasonC]

Rome had elections certainly. The senate wasn't a result of them, however. The senate was the body of the Roman nobility, its oldest and richest families. It was their "house of lords". They had elections to the posts of consul and later tribune, and a number of lesser posts. But not to the senate. Membership in the senate was regulated by the census, conducted by one senator (chosen by the senate itself) who could throw out families and include others. The basis of membership was a property qualification, but not everyone over that line was "in" and families that fell below it weren't always kicked out (up to the censor). It was thus a self-perpetuating rich nobles club. It did not have all power in the state, even under the early republic when it was the most powerful branch of the government. The people - which meant adult male full citizens - voted on the most important trials, for instance, and could approve laws etc.

Of course later - after Augustus - all of that became nothing but show. They continued to hold elections for consul, but all real power was held by an emperor for life. Who was initially simply a military dictator, and later became something more like an appointed line of kings each naming his successor. Punctuated by regular civil war over the "crown". German armies fought each other for this crown for some time, before one of them decided he'd rather be called king. Charlemagne tried to revive the title (in the west - in the east it never lapsed, until the Turks conquered Byzantium in 1453) several centuries later, and that attempt became the later basis of the holy roman emperor office in Germany.

The Republic died long before that. In reality as opposed to in name, it died well before Augustus, when Pompey and Julius Caesar had all the real power, and the senate was just a pawn in their rivalry. They each ran enourmous client parties based on extending "citizenship", rewarding veteran soldiers, distributing offices and spoils of war, etc.

From its founding, Rome lasted centuries as a small and local traditional monarchy, a few centuries as a republic during which it conquered most of the Mediterrean world, a hundred years of civil war and successive tyrannies during which it added modestly to those possessions, and many centuries again of monarchy once more, initially military but becoming more and more traditional over time, during which it was itself gradually divided into spoils.

From the initial Roman kingdom (over what amounts to a small town) to the fall of Constantinople was over 2000 years. It is hardly surprising that practically everything that can happen in human government happened at one time or another in that immense period. The entire history of the US is the blink of an eye by comparison.

[KC_for_Freedom]

Well, I have a son at Auburn, but he did not write this. (Thank G-d).

The author only got one thing right that I can see and that is that this will promote employment in the ranks of unemployeed aerospace engineers.

We have not ruined the Earth, and colonization of the moon and planets is still in the province of science fiction.

All one can conclude is that journalists at the Plainsman are not from the college of engineering.