Derek Webber writes that settlement has to be an objective of our space policy.
The Augustine panel noted that if the goal isn’t space settlement, there’s no point in having a human spaceflight program at all. The private people (such as Elon Musk) get this, but Congress continues to fail to do so.
“Maybe Lincoln didn’t understand what was going on as well as Paul Finkelman now does, but I regard that as unlikely.”
So do I. The notion that the nation could have been founded as one without slavery is profoundly historically ignorant. The Founders did the best they could do under the circumstances, and even with such an atrocious flaw it was still the best design of a government in human history up to that time.
Or since, despite the fact that about half the nation seems willing to abandon it.
[Update a few minutes later]
This seems related.
You’d think with all of the money they spend on it, they’d get better results, but it’s almost impossible to prove discrimination, even though it’s obvious to everyone that it is occurring.
Is it an opportunity to take back the culture from the Left? If so, it’s one we shouldn’t miss.
What’s not to like in a book like that
Campuses have it on the run.
Well, what do you expect from something that costs so little?
Oh, wait.
No, there is no entitlement to not be offended.
I am shocked, of course.
Clark Lindsey, who got an early draft (and the most recent one), has a review of the book. There are only five days, left, and we’re still short over a thousand dollars. And the more I can exceed the goal, the more I’ll be able to promote this.
[Update early evening]
I just realized that I’ve left out a crucial quote in the book, from an eighties teeshirt. Not sure where to put it, though, but I definitely have to include it.
“The Meek Shall Inherit The Earth. The Rest Of Us Will Go To The Stars.”
Might even be on the cover…
Jeffrey Goldberg at The Atlantic comes to recognize the benefits of an armed citizenry, though he still think that there is a “gun-show loophole.” But some of the emotionalism and non-thinking on the part of his interview subjects is breathtaking:
Mauser expresses disbelief that the number of gun deaths fails to shock. He blames the American attachment to guns on ignorance, and on immaturity. “We’re a pretty new nation,” he told me. “We’re still at the stage of rebellious teenager, and we don’t like it when the government tells us what to do. People don’t trust government to do what’s right. They are very attracted to the idea of a nation of individuals, so they don’t think about what’s good for the collective.”
Mauser said that if the United States were as mature as the countries of Europe, where strict gun control is the norm, the federal government would have a much easier time curtailing the average citizen’s access to weapons. “The people themselves would understand that having guns around puts them in more danger.”
I’m sorry your son was killed, but if you want to live in Europe, move to Europe, and be a collectivist. My ancestors came to this country to get away from all that.
Gallup demonstrates the continuing decline into meaninglessness of political labels:
My suspicion here, conveniently enough, is that this is primarily a problem with our political language. It certainly doesn’t help that the two main descriptors — “conservative” and “liberal” — no longer accurately describe the broad political positions of the two parties (“radical classical liberal” and “statist” would do better, I think), or that the president spent the campaign season cynically messing with terms (consider that the architect of Obamacare repeatedly accused Republicans of wanting “get between you and your doctor”). Orwell noted that “it is clear that the decline of a language must ultimately have political and economic cause.”
And, as he notes, consequences.