Even without hearing the president’s speech tonight, as a space policy analyst, whenever I hear about a “Sputnik moment” from a politician, I shudder, because I can be almost certain that it will have nothing whatsoever to do with Sputnik, let alone space policy. It will likely be guaranteed to be a foolish and false analogy, just like “…if we can land a man on the moon, why can’t we…”.
Sputnik (like Apollo) was a unique event in American (and perhaps even human) history. It was the heart of the Cold War. We were in an existential battle with an enemy (the Soviet Union) about the capability to bombard each other with nuclear weapons. Both adversaries were developing rockets, with help from captured Germans from the recent world war. We got the cream of the crop, because Von Braun had decided that he had better prospects to pursue his dreams of planetary exploration by humans with the American ideals, and had consciously escaped to the west with his hand-picked team. He was ever the pragmatist with his ambitions (including his looking the other way at Dora and other Nazi work/death camps that supported his rocket program during the war).
But of course, the president’s speech had nothing to do with that. It was about…other things…that have nothing to do with Sputnik, in either analogy or reality.
Sputnik was about pure, raw, technological skill, in an area in which we felt vulnerable at the time.
It had nothing to do with what made America exceptional.
Look, if the president wants to talk about space, then I’m all in favor of it. But, given his political proclivities, I’m glad he doesn’t. Let’s just not talk about what a “Sputnik moment” it was.
If we can land a man on the moon, why can’t we elect a decent President?
Indeed, Carl. As I see it, pretty much anyone who really wants that job is crazy or not to be trusted, not exclusive.
One point of analogy with sputnik almost holds: we are in an existential struggle, but this time the occupant of the white house is among those presenting the threat.
We’re having a Sputnik II moment – Obama and the Dems are the Soviet space engineers, their policies are the onboard life support, and the economy is Laika.
Perhaps his speech writers could have rephrased Obama’s call for an education blitz as being desirably similar to the post-Sputnik hysteria. That’s the horrible and worthless concept that he’s trying to invoke. Of course, what I find funny is that perhaps only 10% of his audience have any idea what Sputnik was or what it had to do with subsequent eduction policy.. and even that’s probably wrong. Those few of us who actually know the history are rolling our eyes.. just as much as if he had recited the NASA-space-pen-vs-Russian-pencil anecdote.
He called for an educational blitz? What a moron. Is there any problem the lecturer in constitutional law doesn’t think can be solved with everyone attending a seminar or two?
Q. The Fed is printing money like a counterfeiter on crystal meth, causing the price of gas to speed north of $4 a gallon. What should we do?
A. Clearly, spend more on education.
Q. A whole lot of people are out of jobs.
A. Education is the ticket!
Q. But many of them already have college degrees.
A. Graduate school, then.
Q. Iran is about to get The Bomb!
A. Have I mentioned the importance of education?
Q. Er…yes. What about Mexico dissolving into drug violence?
A. Education, naturally.
Q. Illegal immigration?
A. Education!
Q. Death and taxes?
A. Ha ha good one, you racist teabagger.
Carl, if you had heard the SOTU or read the transcript you’d be even more upset đ
Using Apollo as an (supposed) insperation, while actively shuttting down the exisiting government space program (and thus unempolying 10’s of thousands of people.
“Fearless Leader” has a sadistic “sense of humor” as well.
I just wish Australia had a better education system.
In general it was a flat, terrible speech.
Regarding the Sputnik moment, he DID actually touch on the educational problem briefly. Yeah he blathered on about needing good teachers and how teaching is a public service.
But he did also point out the central problem: Kids don’t arrive at school with the slightest interest in learning anything. And while this is not universally true in all neighborhoods, it’d definitely true in the poorer neighborhoods.
Now I remember being a kid and I didn’t really have a huge interest in learning anything because..I was a kid. But the difference is that I did it anyway. Nowadays you have peers actively preventing learning…to much like “The Man”.
So Obama did mention that. Briefly..in passing…..
And he also did mention that we still have world class universities. Though he dropped into the usual trapdoor of thinking everyone should get a college education. Not the slightest inkling of advanced trade schools or any other option.
Friend of mine put it best: We have the finest high schools in the world. Only they are in college.
And of course he couldn’t avoid the usual lefty notions of giving citizenship to children of illegals who are going to college here, as well as keeping foreigners who attend out colleges here. The latter is ok but, what are you going to do
put them in indentured servantry?
And of course with regard to children of illegals he said why should we divest ourselves of those hard working (true in a lot of cases) intelligent (true in a lot of cases), now-educated people? We need them.
Of course, I reject the false premise:
We have plenty of smart hard working people who are also legal who would be just as beneficial to us as those children of illegals. It’s not that the children of illegals are the only ones.
Re: Carl at 12:07
Man, I would love to see that dialogue from those little animated bears at Xtranormal.
2011: A Space Idiocy
Carl,
[[[If we can land a man on the moon, why canât we elect a decent President?]]]
That was the original intent of the writers of the Constitution with the Electoral College. Their vision was for the President to be more a skilled administrator then a politician – i.e. like General George Washington. But instead it quickly degraded into a popularity contest.
Meanwhile, Rahm asks Chicago to open the pod bay door.
I think Chicago deserves Rahm Emmanuel. He’ll make the trains run on time.
After reading the transcript I did think that Obama has improved significantly over the last two years, most of it actually said something. Perhaps half of it was focussed on the economy and only every other sentence made me cringe. I did get the sense that there was some recognition that if the US wants to have ten time the average wage of China then it is going to have to achieve ten times the average productivity of China. This realization being something of the Sputnik moment, the realization that the US needs to seriously lift its game in terms of citizen level competition with the rest of the world if it is to maintain its international standing. I was glad that there did not seem to be a significant move towards labor protectionism, and the long term destruction of the US this would cause. Although I did not really see a call for increased competition, standards and accountability in the education sector, which perhaps infers a disastrous health care type initiative is being planned for the education sector…
And of course he couldnât avoid the usual lefty notions of giving citizenship to children of illegals who are going to college here, as well as keeping foreigners who attend out colleges here. The latter is ok but, what are you going to do put them in indentured servantry?
In order to have the best country you pretty much need to have the best citizens. That means actively encouraging the best illegal and legal immigrants and citizens to stay and actively encouraging the worst illegal and legal immigrants and citizens to leave. The US (and most every country for that matter), needs to actively upgrade its citizens by all practical methods possible. A highly competitive and effective education system, at all levels, is a large part of that.
That means actively encouraging the best illegal and legal immigrants and citizens to stay
Presumably you are thinking of passing a law to do that? And how, exactly, are you going to make an immigration law influence illegal immigrants? I mean, in essence you’re talking about setting up a new filter to filter out people who already bypass all filters.
“That means actively encouraging the best illegal and legal immigrants and citizens to stay”
Presumably you are thinking of passing a law to do that? And how, exactly, are you going to make an immigration law influence illegal immigrants? I mean, in essence youâre talking about setting up a new filter to filter out people who already bypass all filters.
That is the nature of life. I did not write the rules and I am not going to tell anyone how to play the game. Other countries are actively competing for better citizens and generally looking to the future. Singapore for example provides tax incentives for more educated people to breed. Singapore also has a higher per capita income than the USA.
Does the USA think it can be the best without fielding the best team? Does the USA still want to win and is it prepared to do what it needs to do in order to win?
Encouraging the worst of a citizenry to leave is routinely derided as a Human Right’s abuse by any country that attempts it. Further, who defines worst?
Alas, there is already a definition for what is and isn’t legal. Perhaps we could just use the existing definition and enforce it?
Encouraging the worst of a citizenry to leave is routinely derided as a Human Rightâs abuse by any country that attempts it. Further, who defines worst?
Indeed, however one method by which it is routinely done is through property prices.
Firing all US citizens and forcing them to reapply for their citizenship is a rather funny thought. Under existing immigration laws, what proportion would make it back in?
Kids donât arrive at school with the slightest interest in learning anything.
Kids are going through four years of college and leaving it without learning anything according to links at the end of my post “Being taught by the insane”.
As for getting good immigrants. We already have [bad] visa laws for that. There is absolutely no need to confuse the issue of illegal immigration.
Obama, while lackluster, did a reasonable job of selling “we’re from the govt. and we’re here to help.” Of course, RR, was better at selling the opposite.
Alas, there is already a definition for what is and isnât legal. Perhaps we could just use the existing definition and enforce it?
I find comments like this pretty amazing. Just a couple weeks ago, it took me two days and three trips to the Department of Public Safety to convince them I was American citizen and it was okay to give me a new driver’s license.
Every time I drive from El Paso to Almagordo, I get stopped by brown shirts who want to know if I’m a citizen. In Washington state, people who live in the Friday Islands get asked for their papers when they simply take the ferry to the mainland.
If all of that doesn’t count as “enforcing the existing definition,” what would? When the existing enforcement is so strict that even an American citizen has a hard time getting a driver’s license, what more do Immigration Warriors want?
“If all of that doesnât count as âenforcing the existing definition,â what would? When the existing enforcement is so strict that even an American citizen has a hard time getting a driverâs license, what more do Immigration Warriors want?”
Uniform application of the rules for a start.
How is it that illegals get driver’s licenses by the bucketfull, if it’s so hard? (Though I commiserate with anyone trying to deal with the DMV). In fact in my Glorious State the Governor wants to make it legal to issue driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants.
Strict or even harsh enforcement of the law in a few isolated cases does not mean the existing definition is uniformly enforced across the board and especially with regard to illegal immigrants.
“In order to have the best country you pretty much need to have the best citizens. That means actively encouraging the best illegal and legal immigrants and citizens to stay and actively encouraging the worst illegal and legal immigrants and citizens to leave. The US (and most every country for that matter), needs to actively upgrade its citizens by all practical methods possible. A highly competitive and effective education system, at all levels, is a large part of that.”
Once again I reject the premise you display..in fact several of them.
Once again to get the best you are NOT required to take illegals. Most populations have a fairly reasonable mix of talents and intelligence. It’s just a matter of maximizing the potential. You don’t NEED to take illegals in order to have a great population. It’s not like they are an especially gifted population.
I reject the notion that you or anyone else are capable of deciding who is the best and who should leave (for intelligence/ talent reasons). I ESPECIALLY reject the notion of the government making decisions like that for ANY reason other than Constitution-based law. Even there you have room for abuse such that the government can use the power for political manipulation.
A legal citizen of the US has the right to stay and should not be “encouraged” to leave.
And I find your statement: “The US (and most every country for that matter), needs to actively upgrade its citizens by all practical methods possible.”
simply repulsive. ALL practical means possible?
The only part of your statement that I agree with is the one about the need for a competitive and effective educational system.
Just a couple weeks ago, it took me two days and three trips to the Department of Public Safety to convince them I was American citizen and it was okay to give me a new driverâs license.
I find comments like Wright’s amazing. Last month, it took me 1 minute to prove my citizenship. It did take 45 minutes in total to get my license renewed, but 40 minutes was spent waiting in line. I don’t see how allowing more people, such as illegal aliens, to obtain driver licenses would make the line shorter.
So, Edward, you’re saying the INS does border control just about as effectively — and with the same smooth experience for the innocent tourist — as the TSA does security control for air travel?
Gosh, what a surprise. Government is here to help, comrades, ha ha. But seriously, don’t worry, it will work much better when the equivalent of the TSA or INS is in charge of your health care.
I wish Obama would learn a lesson from Sputnik/Apollo. When a government program has served it’s purpose, defund it and terminate it.
When a government
programhas served its purpose, defund it and terminate it.Fixed that for you!
How is it that illegals get driverâs licenses by the bucketfull, if itâs so hard?
How did people get alcohol during Prohibition? That’s a dumb question, Gregg. I wanted to get a real, legal driver’s license.
In fact in my Glorious State the Governor wants to make it legal to issue driverâs licenses to illegal immigrants.
So? It was legal to issue driver’s licenses to bootleggers during Prohibition. It’s legal to issue driver’s licenses to robbers, murderers, and rapists. Do you think refusing to issue driver’s licenses would have stopped Al Capone’s boys from driving beer trucks and rubbing each other out?
Drug / immigration warriors ought to examine the history of alcohol prohibition. Turning the country into a war zone didn’t stop the smuggling of alcohol, and it won’t stop the smuggling of drugs or people, either.
And I find your statement: âThe US (and most every country for that matter), needs to actively upgrade its citizens by all practical methods possible.â
simply repulsive. ALL practical means possible?
Sorry I was including ethical in my definition of practical – unethical behavior not being particularly practical in an effective democracy.
As for who decides who gets to stay and who gets to go, economics is often used as an indirect decider in such cases – those who can afford to stay, do. I know that is not necessarily a great way of doing it, but there is no need to have some government department deciding.
How about this for a hypothetical question, would you consider revoking citizenship as part of a punishment for some violent crimes unconscionable? For the cost of a long jail sentence a violent offender might gain access to and a reasonable existence in another country. Some might even freely choose such an option.
Edward, you’d be better off arguing that an improved and rational legal climate did succeed in making liquor safe — the moonshiners were driven out of business — and in eliminating the Al Capone violence associated with bootlegging.
That suggests that a more rational and useful immigration policy might reduce the noxious by-products of illegal immigration, which for most people are the real issue. I don’t think that points to amnesty — oh, sorry, a path to citizenship, or whatever the PC phrase is — but it probably does point to eased legal immigration rules, the abandonment of Teddy Kennedy’s Irish quota and the concept of anchor babies, perhaps some kind of guest worker program, although the second-classism inherent in that nauseates me.
For the cost of a long jail sentence a violent offender might gain access to and a reasonable existence in another country.
I think Australia the penal colony has been closed for a number of years, Pete. On the other hand, perhaps you have found a use for NASA’s heavy lift vehicle. Give every transportee a pickaxe and a full bottle of oxygen. Wagons ho!
How about this for a hypothetical question, would you consider revoking citizenship as part of a punishment for some violent crimes unconscionable?
Arthur Rudolph was stripped of his citizenship and deported back to Germany. A number of mafiosi have been stripped and deported as well.
Deporting natural-born citizens is problematic not only for Constitutional reasons but because of the difficulty finding a country that would want to take them. Heinlein suggested one solution in “The Moon is a Harsh Mistress.”
It seems odd that someone would consider deporting a person to a foreign land “repulsive” but deporting a person to a Supermax facility completely acceptable. And if deporting a violent criminal is repulsive who is deporting someone whose only “crime” is being in the United States not repulsive?
FYI, Gregg, as far as I know, just about every nation in the world allows foreign citizens to drive automobiles. Usually, the only requirement is a valid driver’s license in the home country and some sort of liability insurance. I don’t see what the big deal is about allowing non-citizens to drive in the US.
Pete:
“ALL practical means possible?
Sorry I was including ethical in my definition of practical â unethical behavior not being particularly practical in an effective democracy.”
Oh so if it was effective then it would be just dandy with you?
Now to your hypothetical:
“How about this for a hypothetical question, would you consider revoking citizenship as part of a punishment for some violent crimes unconscionable?”
No. For one thing you could no longer punish them. For another they are free to do the same thing to someone else in some other country. Why is this any better? Why would you want to inflict unconscionable violent crime on some other country?
But more to the point…..
“For the cost of a long jail sentence a violent offender might gain access to and a reasonable existence in another country. Some might even freely choose such an option.”
What sane nation would take them? A reverse Mariel Boat lift? Wanna send them to Cuba? It’s a silly idea. If you need evidence just look at how fabulously successful Obama has been in getting other countries to take the Club Gitmo vacationers.
Edward wrote:
“How did people get alcohol during Prohibition? Thatâs a dumb question, Gregg. I wanted to get a real, legal driverâs license.”
The satire was lost on you I guess. But as someone else wrote, the actual steps in getting the license is a quick and easy procedure notwithstanding your horrid experience. It’s the waiting.
I don’t take your one experience in having to prove your citizenship as nearly meaningful as the simple acquisition of a license by millions of illegals.
The California prison system is actually rather expensive by international standards. For the same cost, a prison term could be carried out in a low labor cost country, with a higher standard of care, and with a substantial sum (by low labor cost country standards) left over for the prisoner to establish themselves in the new country upon release.
Once upon a time citizenship and property rights were something that people had to continually fight to protect. Citizenship was something that had to be earned everyday via war if necessary. Fortunately such times have mostly passed, however that fight continues via economics. If someone else can make more productive use of your citizenship than you can, then eventually they tend to do so. Illegal immigration is perhaps a little indicative of this. More successful cultural groups do tend to eventually takeover, whether from within or without (and this is perhaps how it should be). We should perhaps not forget that citizenship is not actually a birthright, but something we have to continually earn. Evolution does not believe in birthrights. Are the people of the US willing to earn their citizenship? Or do they wish to sit on their economic laurels until someone eventually takes it away from them?
But as someone else wrote, the actual steps in getting the license is a quick and easy procedure notwithstanding your horrid experience. Itâs the waiting.
No, it’s not just waiting. It’s being told that I’m no longer a US citizen because my passport is expired. Or told to have my original birth certificate sent to the office via Federal Express overnight delivery from the hospital in another state — after 5:00 on Friday when the hospital offices were closed and Federal Express had already made it’s last pickup for the day. By a clerk who didn’t even understand why that was impossible. Or spending days rummaging through moving boxes looking for documents you didn’t know you’d need.
It’s nice that you and Leland enjoy your visits to the DMV. As Poul Anderson said, most people never wanted to be free. What’s annoying is that those who choose serfdom insist on imposing their lifestyle on those of us who didn’t choose it.
I donât take your one experience in having to prove your citizenship as nearly meaningful as the simple acquisition of a license by millions of illegals.
Duh. Of course buying a fake idea on the black market is simpler than dealing with the official bureaucracy. Entrepreneurs, even criminal entrepreneurs, have an incentive to please their customers. Bureaucrats have known.
But we obviously weren’t talking about that. You can’t demand “uniform application of the rules” by criminals selling fake licenses. Criminals will do whatever criminals decide to do. “Uniform application of the rules” only applies to the official bureaucracy — and their rules for getting a real license are already so onerous that I don’t know what more you could want.
Do you?
“No, itâs not just waiting. Itâs being told that Iâm no longer a US citizen because my passport is expired.”
Ok so you had a crummy experience. So what? We all have. What does it have to do with illegals getting licenses and NOT from the Black market! They walk into the DMV and get them.
“Itâs nice that you and Leland enjoy your visits to the DMV.”
Show me where I said I enjoyed them.
“âUniform application of the rulesâ only applies to the official bureaucracy â and their rules for getting a real license are already so onerous that I donât know what more you could want.”
Which, of course, was the group I was talking about – the official bureaucracy. NOT the black market or the mob. So all your gassing on about this is a waste of hot air.
“Do you?”
Yes but evidently you need it spelled out:
I want equal application of the law. I want Illegal aliens to NOT be given the privileges of legal citizens and aliens. I want businesses that hire illegals to be tried and if guilty punished under the law. Severely. I do not want anchor babies to be given citizenship. I do not want illegal aliens to be given IN STATE tuition rates at State colleges ( as my Glorious Gov has tried – two times now – to arrange). I do not want illegal aliens to be given licenses, and I want people to have to prove who they are at the polls so that illegal aliens have a hard time voting.
I want equal application of the law by the official bureaucracy.
Which, of course, was the group I was talking about â the official bureaucracy.
Then, answer the question, Gregg. What do you want the bureaucrats to *DO* that they are not already doing? How could they possibly make it harder to prove you are a citizen than they already have? What more would you ask for?
I get that you’re angry and upset and want to stop foreigners from getting driver’s licenses. But you haven’t said *how* you would do that. “Equal application of the law” is a slogan, not a plan. If the driver’s license people are corrupt and issuing millions of licenses illegally, then they won’t stop just because you tell them to stop. That’s like telling cops that they should stop taking bribes from Capone.
(And of course, what you want isn’t equal application of the law but unequal. Equal application would mean both citizens and non-citizens get driver’s licenses, or neither does.)
Edward Wright Says:
January 27th, 2011 at 4:51 pm
(And of course, what you want isnât equal application of the law but unequal. Equal application would mean both citizens and non-citizens get driverâs licenses, or neither does.)
You’re being deliberately obtuse.
How weird. I guess Texas is different. In Virginia I was able to use my expired (in 1986) passport to get a driver’s license. (I moved here from Florida in 2009.) In fact, I had to, because my copy of my birth certificate was lost when I was mugged and had my purse stolen in the mid-Nineties when I still lived in Miami, and I never got around to replacing it because I thought I had another copy with my adoption papers, but I didn’t.
the difficulty finding a country that would want to take them.
What’s the problem? Put them on a ‘liberty’ ship (sail and concrete hull) in international waters with a solar still to turn sea water to fresh. Give them fishing equipment and 30 days of protein bars and some multivitamins.
Include a world map and GPS to be generous. It should cost a lot less than prison and we don’t have to worry about another country taking them (that’s their own problem.) They can live any way they choose including killing themselves off.