This opinion piece by Republican Doug McKinnon has every false trope and misplaced assumption in the debate on display. As is often the case with opinion pieces, opinions are put forth with the certainty that should be reserved for actual, you know…facts. It starts off wrong in the very opening sentence:
Because of the 2008 presidential election, our nation’s human spaceflight program is at a perilous crossroad.
The implicit assumption here is that our nation’s “human spaceflight program” would be just fine if we weren’t having a presidential election, but anyone who has been following it closely knows that it has many deep and fundamental problems that are entirely independent of who the next president will be, or even the fact that we will have a new president. NASA has bitten off an architecture that will not be financially sustainable, and may not even be developable, and for which it doesn’t have sufficient budget. That would be true if the president suspended elections this year (as some moonbats still probably expect him to do).
Beyond that, by framing it this way, there is an implicit assumption that “our nation’s human spaceflight program” is identically equal not only to NASA’s plans for human spaceflight in general, but for the specific disastrous course that they’ve chosen. This false consciousness comes through clearly in the very next sentence:
While Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John McCain all have made allusions to supporting the program, none has made it a priority.
Emphasis mine. I don’t expect any better from Democrats–they are, after all, the party of big government, but just once in a while, I wish that I could hear something from a Republican (other than Newt Gingrich) on this subject that isn’t brain dead.
Just once, I’d like to hear a Republican talk not about “the program,” but rather, about the nation’s human spaceflight industry, and how we implement new policies to make this nation into a true spacefaring one. The latter doesn’t mean building large rockets to send a couple crew of civil servants up a couple times a year, at horrific cost per mission. It means creating the means by which large numbers of people can visit space, and go to the moon, and beyond, with their own funds for their own purposes. It means building an in-space infrastructure that allows us to affordably work in, and inhabit, cis-lunar space. It should be (as it should have been when the president first announced the new policy a little over four years ago) about how America goes into space, not about how NASA goes into space. But Mr. McKinnon is clearly stuck in a sixties mind set, as evidenced by the next graf, admonishing Senator Obama’s apparent (at least to him, if not the rest of us) short sightedness.
Perhaps now would be a good time to remind Sen. Obama of the sage and relevant words spoken by a president with whom he has been compared on occasion. On Sept. 12, 1962, at Rice University, President John F. Kennedy addressed the importance of the United States having a vibrant and preeminent space program. “We mean to be part of it we mean to lead it. For the eyes of the world now look into space, to the moon and to the planets beyond. Our leadership in science and in industry, our hopes for peace and security, our obligations to ourselves as well as others, all require us to become the world’s leading spacefaring nation.”
Hey, I’m all in favor of us becoming (or remaining) the world’s leading spacefaring nation. But I don’t think that the word “spacefaring” means what he thinks it means. Clearly, he is stuck in the Apollo era (hardly surprising, when the NASA administrator himself describes his plans as “Apollo on steroids”). His myopia and Apollo nostagia is further displayed in the next paragraph.
No matter who is our next president, he or she is either going to have to buy in completely to the premise of that young president, or stand aside and watch as other nations lay claim to the promise of space. There is no middle ground. John F. Kennedy understood it then, and the People’s Republic of China, with its ambitious manned space program run by its military, understands it now. Preeminence in space translates to economic, scientific, educational and national security advantages.
Sigh…
“There is no middle ground.” What a perfect encapsulation of the sterile nature of space policy debate. Ignoring that sentence, and the nonsensical unsupported characterization of the Chinese “program” (there’s that word again) as “ambitious,” one can agree with every word in this paragraph and still think that the current plans are not going to result in, or maintain, “preeminence in space.” And particularly, the notion that ESAS/Constellation provides anything with regard to national security advantages is ludicrous. This is one of the two key areas on which it has been most harshly and appropriately criticized as completely ignoring the Aldridge Commission report.
Sorry, I don’t accept that “there is no middle ground.” There are many potential policy initiatives that could be implemented that would be vastly more effective in giving us “preeminence in space,” than the current one. It’s not ESAS or nothing, despite the next paragraph. This is called the fallacy of the excluded middle. This is stealing a rhetorical base.
And what to make of this next?
With regard to the space shuttle, the International Space Station, Orion and Ares, the new president must make three words part of his or her space policy: “Stay the course.” On Jan. 14, 2004, President George W. Bush announced a “new plan to explore space and extend a human presence across our solar system.” With Orion and Ares as the centerpiece of this new direction, it is essential that that there be no delays caused by partisan politics.
What does this even mean? Is Mr. McKinnon unaware that the Shuttle is due to be retired in two years? Does he know that there are no plans for ISS beyond a decade from now? What “course” is he proposing that we “stay”?
And again with the false assertion that only Ares and Orion can allow us to “explore space and extend a human presence across our solar system.” Not only is this not true, but there are many much better ways to do so, most of which were extensively analyzed by some of the best people in the space industry, but which were completely ignored when the new administrator came in to implement his own pet ideas. Those ideas remain out there, and will probably be reexamined under a new administration and a new administrator.
I do agree with this next statement, as far as it goes:
If a Democrat is our next president, he or she cannot look at the Orion and Ares programs as a “Bush” or “Republican” initiative to be scrapped.
Though not being a great fan of George Bush, I agree that to scrap a program simply because it is his would be stupid and partisan (not that this would keep it from happening, of course). But there are so many other, better reasons to scrap these plans, that the point is probably moot.
Should the next president decide to delay or cancel our next generation spacecraft and rockets for partisan reasons, he or she will be condemning the United States to second-class status in space for decades to come.
To this, I can only say “horse manure.”
Delays or cancellations will cause a massive loss of capability as the work force with the knowledge and expertise to take us back to the moon and beyond will retire or move on to other careers.
Again, he seems to ignore the fact that delays (and potential cancellation) are already cooked into the dough of “the program.” They will happen completely independently of who the next president is, because “the program” is fundamentally flawed.
And as for worrying about “the work force with the knowledge and expertise to take us back to the moon and beyond” retiring, this is sadly hilarious. That horse left the barn many years ago. There is almost no one remaining in industry who knows how to get us to the moon, let alone “beyond.” Everyone who was involved with Apollo (the last flight of which occurred over thirty-five years ago) is dead, or retired. This is, in fact, one of the reasons that the program is floundering. Rather than sit down and take a fresh, twenty-first century approach to space exploration, and (much more importantly) space utilization, the kids who grew up with Apollo are simply trying to replicate what the Great Space Fathers did. They imagine that by building their own big, new rockets, they can somehow recreate the glory of their childhood. But they weren’t involved–they were just observers. I’ve likened this attitude of redoing Apollo to cargo cult engineering. I think that remains a pretty accurate assessment.
The United States has committed itself to this new direction. The next president must ratify such a commitment.
Again, this false equating of ESAS with “this new direction,” is nonsensical. And we aren’t even committed as a nation to the Vision for Space Exploration itself. It would certainly be nice to see the next president continue the support of sending humans beyond earth orbit, but it would also be even nicer to see him (or, in the unlikely event, her) reexamine the specific implementation of such a plan, and to expand it far beyond NASA budgets, to encompass federal space policy in general, including military and commercial aspects, as the Aldridge Commission urged, and which NASA has utterly ignored, with the Bush administration’s apparent acquiescence.
The piece cluelessly ends up with one more attempt at scaremongering the rubes who are not familiar with the nature of the Chinese space program:
Should our space program flounder, Chinese astronauts will establish the first bases on the moon, and the American people will be the poorer for our lack of leadership.
Even accepting the nonsense that the Chinese are going to establish bases on the moon at all, let alone the first ones, there is no support at all for why this will make the American people poorer. It’s easily seen how it makes the Chinese people poorer, given that the Chinese, to the degree that they plan to go to the moon at all, are using a ridiculously high cost and very slow approach, but since NASA’s approach is similar, it seems that continuing on this flawed path is what will make the American people poorer. And keep them earthbound.
As I said, this is a perfect example of the false assumptions and false choices that permeate what accounts for the moribund state of the space policy debate in this country. Until we start to discuss space intelligently (including a bedrock discussion of the actual goals, which should not be to do Apollo again), it’s unlikely that we’ll ever get sensible federal policy.
[Update a few minutes later]
Shorter Doug McKinnon: The president’s space policy is not only wonderful, but it is our only chance to lead in space, and anyone who opposes it, for any reason, partisan or otherwise, is dooming Americans to toil in the Chinese rice paddies. So get with the program.
Is that succinct enough? It doesn’t matter that it’s complete nonsense. And completely unsupported by anything resembling actual policy analysis, and displays no evidence that he even understands the policy. Doug wrote it, and he’s a Republican, so it must be so.
While I don’t agree with their posts necessarily, (and the chances that I will be voting for a Democrat for president, regardless of what lies they tell me about their space policy, are nil), at least Bill White and Ferris Valyn have applied a little thought to the situation, unlike Doug. But then, they have the advantage of actually being interested in seeing us become a spacefaring nation. It’s not at all clear what Doug’s motivations are. Perhaps (as noted in comments) his being an aerospace industry lobbyist has something to do with it. I wouldn’t normally indulge in such an ad hominem attack, but I can’t find anything else in the piece that might explain his strange positions. That one makes the most sense, by Occam’s Razor.
[Late evening update]
Mark Whittington (who loves the piece–more solid evidence, if not courtroom proof, of its cluelessness) once again demonstrates his inability to comprehend simple written English:
Apparently there isn’t a single syllable of MacKinnon’s piece that doesn’t make Rand Simberg spitting mad.
In other words, in his hilariously stupid hyperbole, he didn’t understand the meaning of this sentence, from above:
Though not being a great fan of George Bush, I agree that to scrap a program simply because it is his would be stupid and partisan (not that this would keep it from happening, of course).
While most of my readers don’t need the clue, Mark clearly does. That’s what’s called “agreeing with a part of the piece.” Which means that there were at least a few syllables that didn’t make me “spitting mad” (not to imply, of course, that there were any syllables that made me that way, let alone every one).
And of course, as also usual, he can’t spell, being unable to distinguish “complimentary” from “complementary.” Not to mention “unweildy.” But I guess he doesn’t mind beclowning himself, as usual. Mark, get Firefox. It has spell check built in. It won’t help with the homophones, but it would have caught the other one.
And that’s the Mark that we all know and (OK, not so much…) love.
Yah, he seems upset that they haven’t made it a priority.
I wonder if it’s crossed anyone’s mind that if the president (whoever it is) did make it a priority they might come to vastly different answers about what to do than Mike Griffin has?
The implicit assumption here is that our nation’s “human spaceflight program” would be just fine if we weren’t having a presidential election,
More fundamentally, he thinks our nation only has one human spaceflight program.
Why do you assume MacKinnon is a Republican?
He is a “K-street lobbyist for a firm that represents (among others) Raytheon” and a “former White House and Pentagon official” but that says nothing about what Administration he served in, let alone which party he belongs to.
I suppose it’s possible that he’s a closet Democrat, but seems unlikely:
Looks like another Kennedy Republican.
Given Obama’s need to appeal to the Hispanic demographic and given Bill Richardson’s recent endorsement of Obama (Carville called him “Judas” which is telling) a Vice President Richardson may now be a possibility.
Perhaps Obama gives Richardson “control” over NASA.
= = =
Bigger picture? Space businesses need revenue streams that do not first pass through Uncle Sam Sugar’s digestive track.
Given Obama’s need to appeal to the Hispanic demographic and given Bill Richardson’s recent endorsement of Obama (Carville called him “Judas” which is telling) a Vice President Richardson may now be a possibility.
While I do think that’s not an unlikely pick, Bill, and not to harsh your buzz, but what kind of pharmaceuticals have you been ingesting that causes this delusion that Obama has a chance in hell of winning the general election?
Barring him dropping dead between now and January of next year, John McCain, for better or worse, is going to be the next president.
Barring him dropping dead between now and January of next year, John McCain, for better or worse, is going to be the next president.
Which brings up the question of what McCain’s space policy would be like.
Sean O’Keefe is one of McCain’s campaign advisors, so I expect we’ll hear some cheerleading between now and the election. However, I doubt O’Keefe wants to be NASA Administrator again, so the real policy will be made by someone else.
Regarding Richardson, the Obama thing is an interesting development. The Washington insiders who were backing Richardson kept telling me he was going to be Hillary’s veep. That seems to be an impossibility now.
Not surprisingly, Mark Whittington has mistated MacKinnon’s article as a partisan slap against Obama.
Also not surprisingly, the counter on Mark’s website still shows he has raised zero dollars and recruited zero supporters for John McCain. You’d think Mark would at least donate ten bucks to McCain himself, just to avoid the embarrassment. 🙂
As usual, Edward Wright mistates that I have somehow made a mistatement. The bulk of the piece is a slap against Obama.
Laugh.
I suppose you think it’s a slap at John Kennedy (who MacKinnon compares to Obama), too?
Read the article title, Mark, then go look up the word “nonpartisan.”
Can someone point me to an intelligent, relatively unbiased discussion of the NASA manned flight architechure and it’s possible flaws? Since they went to the Apollo redux, I gave up following it and it’s probably time I caught up.
Shittington is an uninformed, illiterate idiot who can’t even count into the low single digits. Only two paragraphs in McKinnon’s piece, out of 14, deal with Obama. Clinton and McCain also get mentioned. That would never constitute “a bulk of the piece” to anyone in their right mind.
Oh yeah, Shittington doesn’t have a right mind…
Sure would be nice if this idiot whose only credentials are a bachelor’s degree in history and sub-par writing skills would leave space commentary to individuals with an actual background or experience in the subject.
“Also not surprisingly, the counter on Mark’s website still shows he has raised zero dollars and recruited zero supporters for John McCain. You’d think Mark would at least donate ten bucks to McCain himself, just to avoid the embarrassment. :-)”
It would also be nice if Shittington would stop damaging the McCain campaign with his (literally) worthless commentary and fundraising efforts.
You also have to love how practically every single one of Shittington’s “editorials” has earned three or less stars from readers. What a joke of a loser.
Whether you agree with the VSE or not (Now the USSEP – United States Space Exploration Policy) or agree with the ESAS architecture, if you are a proponent of manned space flight, then by now you should be painfully aware that Obama has stated over and over his intent to cut NASAs budget. Most recently in Wyoming. He has criticized our space program everywhere he goes, including Houston, which is probably why he is trying so hard to prevent a re-vote in Florida. This man would do nothing good for our space program.
As for private industry, until one of those countries successfully launches anything, let alone something with a human in it, then we only have one manned space program.
As for all the people who keep saying Sean O’Keefe endorsing McCain could be good for the space program, obviously never paid attention to Administrator O’Keefe. He was the worst administrator ever, with no background in and no understanding of space. He was brought in to hack the budget and then left after the Columbia accident. He had no love for the space program and made it no secret that he did not see any point to goin beyond LEO. So, please keep him far away from NASA. Of course, he never said anything as bad as Obama’s repeated comments about how the Shuttle program never inspired anybody and how useless manned space flight is.
The one thing I do agree with in the original article is that our manned space program is at a crossroads. For the first time since Apollo ended, we are ending a program. If we do not have a president who supports the space program, I truly fear it will destroy our manned program. We do not have the luxury of falling back onto the Shuttle as we figure out what to do because the shuttle has 9 flights left (11 if they approve the contingencies). Then it is over. We can not extend the shuttle program. Constellation may not be perfect, but it is the best vision NASA has had in awhile. The ISS cost so much money because every few years, somebody came along who wanted to redesign it. If we have somebody redesigning Constellation or the VSE every few years, what do you suppose that will do to the overall cost???
I’ll take Hillary or McCain’s pro-space talk at this point, without a lot of detail, over Obama’s slash and burn talk any day of the week.
As for private industry, until one of those countries successfully launches anything, let alone something with a human in it, then we only have one manned space program.
Private industry has successfully launched something with a human in it — and please don’t tell me SpaceShip One doesn’t count because it didn’t go all the way to Alpha Centauri.
That’s the same logic that led critics to declare that the microcomputer was useless (and the airplane). Progress always begins at the low end.
As for all the people who keep saying Sean O’Keefe endorsing McCain could be good for the space program, obviously never paid attention to Administrator O’Keefe.
I didn’t say he would be good for the space program. Please don’t misquote me, that’s Mark Whittington’s job. 🙂
I said he would be a cheerleader for the status quo. Some people might consider that good but I don’t.
> He was brought in to hack the budget and then left after the Columbia accident.
No, he actually increased the budget. He also sold the Administration on the “Vision for Space Exploration” after getting the idea from Elon Musk.
We can debate whether that was a good thing, but what you say is factually incorrect.
> Of course, he never said anything as bad as Obama’s repeated comments about how the Shuttle program never inspired
> anybody and how useless manned space flight is.
No, and Obama didn’t say that, either. What he said was that NASA should look at whether human spaceflight was the best way to accomplish certain missions.
I’m no fan of Obama, either, but let’s get our facts straight.
Do you think manned space flight is useful? What about womanned space flight? (NASA hasn’t used the term “manned” since they ended their boys club in the 1980’s.)
If you think human spaceflight is useful, why do you say the “best vision” is a program that will send fewer humans into space?
> For the first time since Apollo ended, we are ending a program.
No, NASA ended the NASP program, along with Shuttle II, 2GRLV, X-33, X-34, Orbital Space Plane, and quite a few others. If Ares and Orion join the list, it won’t even be notable.
> If we have somebody redesigning Constellation or the VSE every few years, what do you suppose that will do to the overall cost???
Good question. We design new airplanes not “every few years” but every year. What do you suppose that does to the overall cost?
Do you think we would be better off designing one National Aircraft, and then never developing a new aircraft for the next 25 years?
Or declaring that only the government is capable of developing human-rated aircraft and government employees can only travel on government aircraft, not commercial airlines? And only the Army can carry air mail?
Not to mention designing the national aircraft so it disintegrates after every flight, requiring a completely new aircraft to be built for the next flight? And each flight is a dangerous test flight?
Do you think that would be advantageous?
Rand, great article. But you could have stopped after this.
.
NASA has bitten off an architecture that will not be financially sustainable, and may not even be developable, and for which it doesn’t have sufficient budget…
Doesn’t that statement define 99.9999999% of gub’ment programs? The fact that it’s NASA doesn’t change the fact that in the end it’s just a gub’ment program, just as bloated, just as dead end, or just as non-sensical as Midnight Basketball, in NOLA, being paid for with funds from the levy repair budget. Yes NASA has it’s on budget, but that same amount of funding in private hands, from private sources would go far further.
If the federal govrment was good at anything “businesswise”, we’d all be eating Uncle Sam Burgers, driving Americamobiles and watching a good variety of shows on PBS1, PBS2, etc.
VSE has been a dead man walking since its inception. To believe otherwise has been to believe some combination of:
1) the spirit of 1961 would return, sustaining public & Congressional support (for twice as long this time)
2) the broader US fiscal picture would remain fair to good for 15 years — despite big tax cuts + big new entitlements + Iraq costs + Medicare/Medicaid/SS avalanches coming
3) the transition from STS+ISS to Constellation would go more smoothly than than any comparable goring of vested interests’ oxen in political history
But do go on arguing as if the NASA administrator, the party of the next Administration, or the Constellation vs. DIRECT architecture really, really matters. One more chorus of ‘Nearer My God to Thee’ and those deck chairs should be arranged just about perfectly.
VSE has been a dead man walking since its inception.
I think that that depends on what “VSE” is. If you accept that part of it is the programmatics that stipulated how the goal was to be accomplished (e.g., NASA will develop a new “crew exploration vehicle” and be in charge of the overall effort), then I agree. But if you have a higher-level view of it (the goal of US space policy will be to expand humanity beyond low earth orbit), then it could have (and could still) survive, but it would require a radical rethinking of overall US space policy–the biggest one since NASA was founded (and NACA essentially wiped out, or at least subsumed, though it’s almost completely dead now). But in a sense, the administration had a failure of vision in not doing so.
But do go on arguing as if the NASA administrator, the party of the next Administration, or the Constellation vs. DIRECT architecture really, really matters.
Well, actually, I think that the NASA administrator could, in theory, matter, though one that really tried to straighten things out would probably get canned by the porkmeisters in Congress.
…then by now you should be painfully aware that Obama has stated over and over his intent to cut NASAs budget.
You know, I’m not a fan of Obama either, but considering the bloated existence of the NASA budget that produces nothing worthwhile other than bad ideas and no dreams…perhaps some budget cutting would be a good idea?
One other thing:
despite big tax cuts + big new entitlements + Iraq costs + Medicare/Medicaid/SS avalanches coming
There were no “big tax cuts.” There were no tax cuts at all, as far as we can know with any certainty. In fact, given that the federal revenue was rising pretty healthily throughout, it could be argued there were actually tax increases. All we know for sure was that there were tax rate cuts. Which I’m all in favor of, and opposed to tax rate increases. While the spending has been a disaster, it’s hard to argue that the administration’s tax policy has been.
“1) the spirit of 1961 would return, sustaining public & Congressional support (for twice as long this time)”
One thing we don’t have going for NASA or the space science community this time is a convergence of three very outstanding individuals who each made a significant impact on the development of human spaceflight in the 1960’s:
1) John F. Kennedy – ’nuff said about him
2) Werner von Braun – In addition to his outstanding engineering and engineering management skills, he was a promoter and self-promoter second to none. How else do you think a former SS/Nazi party member was given a budget of billions of U.S. dollars from an American congress?
3) Walt Disney – Yes, I am invoking the man and the legend. And no, this isn’t a mistake. Disney together with the above two people was nearly single-handedly responsible for the public opinion and support of manned spaceflight throughout the 1960s, including explicit references to manned spaceflight at his themeparks, movies, and even propaganda pieces he did jointly with both von Braun and even JFK. I’m not kidding here either.
If anything, JFK was the least important part of this triumvirate of U.S. space policy, other than JFK both gave considerable support and then had the good fortune to die while in office… at least good for von Braun and Disney.
I dare anybody to note any other similar kinds of personalities that can even be remotely compared to these individuals in their attempt to reshape public opinion regarding spaceflight. Steven Spielberg or George Lucas might possibly have the Hollywood/entertainment connections of Disney, but nobody can possibly match von Braun. There are a few trying like Elon Musk, John Carmack, Robert Bigelow, Jeff Bezos and others, but they don’t have the singluar talents displayed by von Braun with decades of rocket research under their belts and the ability to deftly milk the political machines of not just one but two major governments (the other being Hitler’s German government). And none of these stellar personalities are really taking the initiative to push for something like the Apollo program with single mindedness.
Now if you put Spielberg, Musk, and Obama in the same room and have them conspire to send people to Mars…. well, that could be something interesting.
Rand: OK, there are alternative ways to parse “VSE” vs. the implementation. But in the post-Columbia rethink, two elements dominated: (1) we’ve got to stop flying the Shuttle ASAP, and (2) if we’re risking people at all, it has to be in the service of something “grander” than ISS. Your (and my) preference — a very different NASA, no longer centered on its architectures, its missions and its astronauts — never got much of a hearing.
I guess one could find glimmerings by reading the Aldridge Commission report with a very partial and indulgent eye, but the day I listened to the VSE announcement I heard “new mission for NASA” much louder than anything else.
Robert: The personalities did matter, but all three together mattered less than the Cold War — which from 1952-1953 on turned on the budgetary spigot for development of multiple big rocket designs (along with exotic materials, advanced avionics, global tracking, re-entry technologies, etc.)… and from 1957 on powered the space race. Without that context, and its impulses first of anxiety and then of competition for national prestige, I don’t think even that combination of engineer/manager/advocate, creative ‘imagineer,’ and president would have gotten very far.
and please don’t tell me SpaceShip One doesn’t count because it didn’t go all the way to Alpha Centauri.
It doesn’t count and not because it didn’t go to Alpha Centauri.
Happy?
Specifically, as people have pointed out before, it would be nice to see somebody who isn’t a government funded organisation put something into orbit and bring it back, then maybe something with people inside.
Of course, it would also be nice if there was an evolutionary route from SS1 to an orbital vehicle.
Of course, it would also be nice if there was an evolutionary route from SS1 to an orbital vehicle.
There is an evolutionary route from SS1 to an orbital vehicle.
Of course, it would also be nice if Apollo worshippers looked at the facts rather than relying on religious faith.
There is an evolutionary route from SS1 to an orbital vehicle.
Jolly good. Glad you’ve settled that then.
Of course, it would also be nice if Apollo worshippers looked at the facts rather than relying on religious faith.
Who me?
I’m not a great fan of Apollo worship, although they say that he has passed comment on the Olympic Games today.
The most GLARING example MacKinnon makes of false and downright ignorant logic is when he cites Kennedy as the reason we should be doing a
You say things that assume you know what people are thinking. Things you obviously don’t know you bitch about as if that proves they do not exist. You’d make an excellent politician. They know more than there is to know.
You say things that assume you know what people are thinking. Things you obviously don’t know you bitch about as if that proves they do not exist. You’d make an excellent politician. They know more than there is to know.
You say things that assume you know things within people’s thoughts. Things you obviously don’t know you bitch about as if that proves they do not exist. You’d make an excellent politician. They know more than there is to know, while proving they know almost nothing.