I’m not sure what she’s saying here:
We didn’t put a man on the moon because some company thought they might be able to make a profit doing it. It takes vision to involve the common good of the American people without regard for profit. If you’re charting a course for this country and your big idea is “NO WE CAN’T”, then I don’t want you leading this country.
No, Rachel, we put a man on the moon because we wanted to show that a democratic socialist space program was superior to a totalitarian socialist space program. If we’d done it for profit, it would have taken a lot longer, but we’d still be doing it.
Outer space exists to glorify the State.
“We didn’t put a man on the moon because some company thought they might be able to make a profit doing it.”
Not yet Rachel, but stay tuned. The next people landing on it (or at least flying around it) might well be doing it for exactly that reason…
“We didn’t put a man on the moon because some company thought they might be able to make a profit doing it.”
Which is why we haven’t gone back yet. The moment the political needs of the act were met, the program was over and done with. Now we can’t even get a ride into low Earth orbit without kindly asking the Russians (who actually understand the profit motive in space pretty well) for a lift. A state sponsored “vision” is not sustainable.
Rand,
[[[No, Rachel, we put a man on the moon because we wanted to show that a democratic socialist space program was superior to a totalitarian socialist space program.]]]
Which I trust was for the “Common Good” as she stated? Or would the “Common Good” have been served by the Soviets reaching the Moon first and claiming large sections of it while private industry was seeking its business model?
Rachel is a very likable loon. Watching her mind work can only be described in Spocks words as ‘fascinating.’
It takes vision to involve the common good of the American people
Doesn’t this just sound so good. I’m a big fan of vision as you know. The problem is that common good thing. It sounds, well… good, and how could you be against good?
I’m against it because of the details. They don’t mean good the way I mean good. To me it’s good for people to have liberty and the wealth to exercise that liberty. To her good is she having the liberty to tell other people what is and isn’t good.
So, let me understand this. Paying a bunch of private companies to build space ships to reach the Moon is “socialistic.” But paying a bunch of private companies for a space tax service that benefits the government is not. Glad to know the distinction,
But if no company thought they could make a profit doing it, no companies would’ve bid on any part of the project, and the entire Apollo program would’ve amounted to nothing more than some doodles on a napkin.
Which I trust was for the “Common Good” as she stated? Or would the “Common Good” have been served by the Soviets reaching the Moon first and claiming large sections of it while private industry was seeking its business model?
How would the Soviets claiming large sections of the moon have hurt us, or helped them? Was the difference in the Cold War really a couple bags of moon rocks?
Mark, I’ll explain it, even though you won’t understand it, because at least the non-idiots will.
Paying a bunch of private companies to build a vehicle to government specifications, for the exclusive use of the government, on a sole-source cost-plus contract in which they get paid regardless of results, is socialist. Paying for taxis services from competitive launch companies is no more socialist than when a congressman takes a cab from his home to Capitol Hill.
Rob, if the Soviets controlled large sections of the moon they could’ve built labor camps, mining vast areas for moon rocks while making prisoners scrounge on the surface for scraps of cheese. It would’ve been far better than Siberia because no escapee could possibly walk home from the moon.
You have to understand that in the cocoon Maddow inhabits, the word “profit” pretty much conjures up images of evil, while “the Common Good” justifies all manner of coercion. And these people are coercion junkies.
“Or would the “Common Good” have been served by the Soviets reaching the Moon first and claiming large sections of it while private industry was seeking its business model?”
The common good was served by a great propaganda victory for a democratic socialist State, at a time when it was competing with a totalitarian socialist State. That propaganda victory was a glorification of the State, no matter who won. It has left us with 40 years of speeches propounding the next piece of socialism, by asking,…”If we can put a Man on the Moon, then why can’t we,XXXXX…… These have further strengthened the State, to the detriment of our individual freedoms. It is not as bad as a totalitarian socialist State winning that propaganda battle, but make no mistake that it was *not* a victory for the levels of individual freedom I and many others desire.
That cost, for that needed propaganda victory, was quite high. Of course, if we had been willing to actually militarily compete with the USSR openly, then we would have been pursuing a military Space capability that would have left no doubt that the socialist economy of the USSR could not support the military means to equal a US Space-based BMD component. But a democratic socialist State was not willing to do that, since it could not admit since 1946 that we were in World War 3 with “the socialist camp”, declared by Stalin in January of 1946 in his secret speech to the Politburo.
So, the cost of our democratic socialist obsessions since 1933 included much more than the cost of those programs deemed socialist in and of themselves. It also included the stretch-out of WW3 for at least 25 years longer than it should have lasted. Since we were not willing to militarily compete directly with the USSR, even in preparations such as building a Space-Based BMD component, we tried propaganda competition. We now know better the multiple costs of the memory of that propaganda victory for the State, called Apollo.
The horror of our own portions of “the socialist camp”, for using the military to defend a nation with a capitalist economy, was the real problem all along.
As to whether it is equally as socialist as Apollo to open a market (ISS) to help build a commercial industry freed of the intensive government regulation that NASA uses with its traditional contractors, I would say it is not. That is why I view the current attempts of NASA to regulate the Commercial Crew Developments with such disfavor. It should be left to the FAA, who have no institutional axes to grind.
Rob,
Aside the propaganda value of showing Communist governments being able to accomplish things Capitalist nations are not able to do, it would really put a barrier up to all the private firms that wished to go to the Moon.
Rand,
[[[Paying a bunch of private companies to build a vehicle to government specifications, for the exclusive use of the government, on a sole-source cost-plus contract in which they get paid regardless of results, is socialist. ]]]
Really? Most dictionaries define the word Socialism much differently.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/socialism
Last I looked the Federal government didn’t have any ownership interest in Boeing, Lockheed, North American or the many other firms that supplied Project Apollo with goods and services and private firms selling their services to the government is considered to be Capitalism.
And the government specifying its needs and being willing to pay on a cost plus basis for them after they past inspection is just another form of contracting, nothing more, and not limited to government. You will find many private examples of it if you hire firms to do custom work. Its not socialist by ANY definition of the word.
So tell me Rand, why do you like to misuse words like Socialism? It is for the “shock” value or because you simply never bother to learn their proper definition?
Tom,
So I take it by your rather post that rather then Project Apollo you would have preferred to have just nuked the Soviets and so end the Cold War?
What she’s saying is simple – there are things that are beneficial to accomplish that can’t be done by private industry. The risk-to-reward ratio is too great, the investment timeline too long, or there’s simply not enough capital available to private actors to start work. Therefore, without government funding, the project won’t happen.
The first transcontinental railroad got built because Congress created a company and gave it boatloads (or rather trainloads) of money. Hoover dam (where she’s been filming these spots) was built because the Federal government paid for it. Both these entities eventually made a profit, but in no way was private financing going to step in.
Going to the moon was, given the technology of the time, simply not profitable. Nobody knew if it could be done, let alone at what cost. And much of the modern alt-space development stands on and leverages technology given to them freely by Government – technology from Apollo.
The long-term solution to space exploitation is private industry. But much of the exploration and basic technology will have to be developed by government.
Rachel’s comment will be discussed on The Space Show tomorrow evening from 7-9pm oft. Join in the discussion.
Mr. Matula, quite a lot of people have said exactly that. And the reason is a little different from yours.
A global nuclear war in the late 40s or early 50s would have settled the matter, partly by making the people actually responsible for the decisions glow in the dark. But the main effect would have been a lot simpler. Nuclear war then would have hurt – a lot – but human civilisation would have survived with a nuclear WWIII as a horrible example.
Now, with tens of thousands of nuclear weapons in play – some of which are in the control of incredibly irresponsible people – it’s still possible to pretend that a spasm war is survivable. It isn’t. To use Sagan’s memorable description; “World War II once a second for the length of a lazy afternoon.”
there are things that are beneficial to accomplish that can’t be done by private industry
I have to agree with you Chris that this is what you, Rachel and many others believe… wrongly. Not fighting economic reality is a good thing. Not every project needs doing. If in fact, it really can’t be done privately… that’s a real good argument that it should not in fact be done.
Thomas, the problem with your strict definition of socialism is ah… well, it’s wrong. It’s wrong because you think ownership is the same as title. But taxation is a form of ownership as well. As long as you fail to acknowledge that you will be wrong.
Let me raise my nose in the air and say, let me be perfectly clear… Do you Thomas, agree that taxation is a loss of ownership for the taxpayer?
Aside the propaganda value of showing Communist governments being able to accomplish things Capitalist nations are not able to do, it would really put a barrier up to all the private firms that wished to go to the Moon.
So, the difference in the Cold War was the great propaganda victory of landing a couple people on the moon and planting the flag. Not seeing it.
And how would the USSR (which no longer exists) claiming vast tracts of land on the moon have prevented anybody else from going there, especially considering that they weren’t able to maintain a presence there? Just walking across a piece of property doesn’t confer title. The US certainly couldn’t prevent any public or private entity from going to the moon, and we actually did land there.
Ken, who will step-up, invest in the community and build the not-for-profit gulags if not the State?
Ken,
I know this is hard for someone in the Tea Party to understand so I will go slow. No taxation is not ownership. Taxation in the United States is something the American voter decided through their elected representatives to contribute via mandate to paid for the common goods and services provided by government. That how the U.S. is different from England and the basis of the Revolutionary War. In England as in other European Kingdom property rights were by the will of the Crown and in exchange for owning land you paid a tax to the Crown. In the U.S. property rights exit by due process of the law and the public, via the due process of law via it elected officials determine the taxes.
Rob,
You may not remember the Soviet Union but they had a pretty long record of shooting down aircraft that trespassed on the airspace. Just look at KAL007. I am sure they would no qualms about shooting down a lunar lander or bomb an “illegal” facility on THEIR Moon. The U.S. and other nations would no doubt file protests, but they would have as effective as the ones filed when aircraft where shot down.
Fletcher,
It boggles the mind that anyone would think a nuclear war was a good thing. Yes, some kooks are close to getting them, but the number of devices are few and they will likely get a rude shock if they use them. And it will likely come from a nation other then the U.S.
Thomas,
I’m not in the tea party. That would be a bad ass-sumptin. They are no where near radical enough for me.
So Thomas I have a hundred dollars in my pocket and live on an island with two other guys. We have a vote and they decide to take $20 from me and in fact do take it. You may assume I didn’t vote for it.
Do I still own a hundred dollars?
No taxation is not ownership
Otherwise known as a distinction without a difference.
You Thomas are an excellent example of those that hide truth with an abundance of words. I’m a simple guy. If I don’t have it, I don’t own it. You would slowly explain to me that I am somehow wrong. Your explanation, no matter how erudite would still not result in me having my property.
Obama is a great speaker they tell me. I see similarities.
The power to tax is the power to destroy.
Ken Anthony – this assumes you get nothing for your $20, like, help living on the island.
The leftist moonbat trolls are very active today. I thought the full moon was Saturday?
Chris, you are wrong. If you steal from somebody, then buy them a birthday cake you haven’t suddenly not stolen from them.
I see Gerrib is unfamiliar with the concept of consent, let alone a Rawlsian imputation thereof. Shocking!
Well, it’s implied consent because… well, because they say so. Without Google I’d never be able to keep up with you Titus.
Ken, you do have consent because you get to vote for the people who decide the taxes.
No man is an island entire of itself; every man
is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; (John Donne, 1572-1631)
Meaningless because Ken’s vote, in and of itself, determines nothing. And the verb you were looking for was “give”, not “have.” Yeesh!
But setting aside Gerrib’s philosophical illiteracy, I’ll go back to Rawls. Briefly, Ken, the bottom-line on implied consent is this: if you had the option and the wherewithal, would the society you choose to live in be the one you’re in now? It’s not an easy question because it requires honest answers about yourself and the nature of that society; it’s also very hypothetical. In reality, you will clearly not consent to many things (and there the revocation is explicit (the principle of estoppel notwithstanding)), but agree to others — the methodology we have for sorting the rest (legislation) is a blunt instrument, like an earthmover.
Ken,
What you are skipping is the agreement to take a vote and abide by the outcome. That was what the Constitution Convention was about and the the state by state ratification election afterward. It’s what the rule of law versus the rule might is about.
Libertarianism sounds like nice philosophy, but it would probably only work in a self-sufficient agricultural society, one isolated from the world economy. Come to think of it that is true for most utopian philosophies.
Ken,
Speaking of Libertarian Utopias, this may interest you.
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/silicon-valley-billionaire-funding-creation-artificial-libertarian-islands-140840896.html
Silicon Valley billionaire funding creation of artificial libertarian islands
By Liz Goodman The Lookout
It might be good practice, in terms of the physical isolation, for living on Mars.
Here’s the link to the organization he is funding.
http://seasteading.org/
Some day, Patri is going to be an old man on a prison ship, having been chased to the ends of the Earth by some government with technology to match his and the sanction of hundreds of millions of screaming cannibals who were never challenged on their moral principles.
his hiding places exhausted, never once having stood his ground.
Ken, you do have consent because you get to vote for the people…
Yes, this is the FICTION our country is based upon. Read further…
What you are skipping is the agreement to take a vote and abide by the outcome.
A much better argument, Thomas, but you are making a false assumption as well.
The thing is, consent is a stubborn little concept. You may try to change it’s meaning, but it resists. I’m a simple guy. I know, as does everybody else because consent is so stubborn in its meaning, that it means to agree to go along and abandon that nugget of resistance where you may have reservations. Anything less is not consent.
the agreement to take a vote and abide
This is it exactly Thomas. So if I, because I have the god given freedom of my personal convictions, do not agree to abide or even participate in a vote I have not given consent. Randy Barnett goes on to point out that future generations have also not given consent.
Do not confuse the fiction of consent with the reality. The fiction of consent is actually a force of government to accept an outcome. This is not consent.
Now you could ask, how could it work otherwise? That’s a good question (for another time, meditate on it first.)
Ken, I have to believe the framers anticipated such things, thus leaving as many “outs” as they could. Excise taxes are a good example – don’t like the whiskey tax, don’t buy the whiskey. Federalism was another –don’t like it in MA, move to VA. It’s to be expected that as these safety valves get plugged, discontent will soar and the system will destabilize.
Ken,
You probably need to read up on the concept of implied contracts in common law.
Basically since you still choose to live in the United States, and the State of Arizona, you have chosen by your actions to abide by their respective Constitutions and laws. If you don’t like them you have the right to oppose them within the legal and political system, as was done with many of the Civil Rights laws or you may vote with your feet by moving to a nation that is more favorable to you.
But what you don’t have is the right to benefit from the state, using its roads, its courts system, its military protection, without contributing to the state.
Yes, the Libertarian Sea Islands are a good idea as they give folks with your political philosophy another choice. It will be interesting to see how they fair, economically and politically.
Contract is the legal instrument of consent.
implied contracts
I am soooo glad you brought this up. This is exactly what happens when juvenile thinking mashes up contradictory ideas to create a new illusion that seems to be solid.
Implied contract just means you didn’t have enough fight in you to overcome this application of force. This is not consent. This is the textbook definition of not consent.
A real contract freely entered is consent, legally and morally. It can be enforced even if someone later changes their minds.
The problem with an implied contract is it is an assumption and like any assumption will often be false. But no matter… we have a contract. One that is guaranteed to require enforcement.
“It’s what you want. We just have to MAKE you see that.”
Obamacare is a good example of implied contract which has just been judged unconstitutional.
Consent is a very simple concept. Only someone trying to change its meaning has to create a manifesto to do it.
From another angle, an implied contract is one where actions rather than words create the contract.
Action demonstrates consent. Inaction does not. You are assuming consent from inaction which is the comfort of tyrants everywhere.
Ken,
[[[Obamacare is a good example of implied contract which has just been judged unconstitutional.]]]
No, its an example of how the process works itself out. The Supreme Court will decide and then its up to the Executive and Legislative Branches to find another solution if its unconstitutional.
[[[You are assuming consent from inaction which is the comfort of tyrants everywhere.]]]
Only in the case of the USA the tyrants are your neighbors who don’t buy into your philosophy when voting, or who don’t even choose to vote.
And non-voting is an issue. Check out this link to see just how few voted in the last (2010) election in different states.
http://elections.gmu.edu/Turnout_2010G.html
Its interesting to see that only 41.6% of the population actually voted nationally.
41.6% of the population actually voted
…and pundits will tell us what this means regardless of having any clue.
Consent of the governed is a fiction. The only argument for the force against citizens is people don’t think anything else is workable. When dealing with children pretending to be adults, they may be right.
90+Megavotes gives you 99%/±0.01%. Understatement of the year: that’s a pretty good sample size. You won’t really get more accuracy by adding more votes. Sure, that would only be for the Prez, but that’s a very good starting point. I’m sure it falls off to maybe 5 peeps voting for dog catcher, but at that point the only thing at stake is who catches the dogs. Even a small state like AK, it only falls off to ±0.2%.
Titus,
I see you don’t work with statistics much. That formula only works if you have random sampling. That is YOU randomly select the sample.
Voting, since its a self selection process, is not a random sample. Statistically that means you are not able to say anything about the wishes of those not voting based on those that voted. Zero.
LOL, Thomas, I see you’re still making unfounded assumptions. The people not voting clearly do not have stronger preferences than those that do — if they did, they would have voted.
Titus,
You miss my point. That assumption is NOT supported by the statistics you used.
Its merely an opinion. You would need to sample the non-voters to determine why they didn’t vote. And if they have any preferences, strong or otherwise.
Titus,
And as an example to prove my point, its clear Rand had a very strong preference in the last election, as well as in 2010, yet he cheerfully admitted he didn’t vote in 2008, and I expect probably didn’t vote in 2010.
Then it was not strong enough to register on a convenient and anonymous ballot. What you’re missing is that the preferences of non-voters are already sampled.
Perhaps you’d prefer mandatory brain-scans?
Titus,
You really don’t under the foundations of sampling, do you? Or the concept of a random sample? Maybe you need to take some courses in statistics before trying to use them.
More pointless ad hom, Thomas? How very typical of you…