Democrats & Liberals: Archives

I don’t see a point in spending billions on Nasa when we have 44 million americans with no access to heath care. We have record underfunding of public education and people still go hungry. AIDS is still here and there is no cure for cancer. I don’t see how we can justify putting more people in orbit or going to mars when we have serious problems facing our society here on earth.

You’re right, we have plenty of social ills here on Earth that we need to take care of but I’d like to see our Defense budgets cut - think about how much money we could devote to education, curing cancer, and helping out those without healthcare, if we devoted even just a fraction of the $87 billion for Iraq to these causes and the rest to NASA. Say, $30 billion for NASA and $57 billion for the other social issues.

Until we get back to raising our children in a safe home enviornment nothing will get better. We are a sick country with leaders whose priorities are based on money and power for the elite. We need jobs in this country that pay enough to allow one parent to stay in the home which they can afford to buy. The job also needs to provide healthcare and enough money to permit the purchase of a car, a college education for their 2 children and the keeping of a savings account. Also our elderly should have healthcare and a fair pension. Until we decide to support the people in this country who do the fighting and dieing for it we have nothing but a false democracy. Why is it the working stiffs in this country are constantly under pressure to earn less, own less, demand nothing, compete with 3rd world workers and are constantly threated with the loss of their pensions, healthcare and social security while the rich get richer exponentially.

If you ever go to the Smithsonian museum of natural history and visit the geology exhibit, you will find they have a set of meteorites on display. Some of these meteorites are composed of Iron, Nickel, and other metals, so much so that their cross sections look like metal plates.

There is much more of these where they came from. In one good sized asteroid, there is more of iron and other metals than has ever been mined in our entire history. Heavy metals that are rare in the Earth’s crust are far more accessible in these planetoids.

Sooner or later, somebody is going to get up there and be able to use that material. Sooner or later, humanity will spread out from our cradle into the Solar System and perhaps beyond it. The Question is, do we want the United States to be a participant, or a spectator?

I would have those who have put up social objections to doing this kind of work answer one question: what becomes of a society that no longer has higher callings than just subsistence?

Are we merely cogs in a system designed for enriching the few lucky ones, or a meritocracy, where learning and skill take precedence. We talk so much about competition and being competitive, but we no longer address skills, intelligence and wisdom with that. We only devote attention to the raw competitiveness, fostering it even when it becomes a liability, a distraction from the skills, knowledge, and morality that also help to support achievement.

If you want the intellectual and altruistic life of America to be restored, you must first evoke that sense in Americans that they are called to higher things than simply their own selfish interests. America must have a dream again that does not center itself in material goods.

I think the space program can be such a dream once more. We made it to the moon once. What is stopping us from going back? Must we let a totalitarian regime claim that glory before we can reclaim it?

“Must we let a totalitarian regime claim that glory before we can reclaim it?”

“totalitarian regime” You are talking about the Bush Whitehouse right?

I just found out yesterday that my friend has cancer and she has no health insurance because she is out of work. She is going to die in debt and her husband will loose his retirement saving paying for her cancer.

Funding Star Trek dreams is nuts compared to the problems that are very real and right now making america a worst place that it was a generation ago.

Where would a lot of us be without those “Star Trek dreams” though? Are you saying that we should give up our dreams? Like I said, if we took the $87 billion that is no going to the rebuilding of Iraq and used some of it for curing social issues, there would still be plenty left to fund a VERY healthy space program and, as Steve points out, mining asteroids could turn out to be very lucrative for the country (or private consortium or, dare I say, individual?) who gets there first. Certain social ills and injustices are bound to remain, no matter how much money we throw their way. Putting money towards changing social issues doesn’t solve anything unless there is sufficient education to support and perpetuate the change. Right now, we (the United States) are quickly losing (if we haven’t already) our technology edge because American companies (Microsoft, IBM, etc.) are shipping technology jobs overseas by the hundreds of thousands. Children and students are turning away from the sciences because they don’t see any hope of ever living off of them. Boeing is losing money (and jobs) to Airbus while McDonnell-Douglas is shifting its focus away from the aerospace industry to branch out into (failing/failed) welfare-to-work programs.

One shouldn’t be chastised for wanting to dream - especially in these times when Americans are afraid of everything around them.

All—

The fact that we are even having this conversation speaks to the fact that America and Americans have lost their way; we lack vision beyond the next fiscal quarter. And without vision, there can be no dreams worth pursuing. Steve D. makes some very good points that at least should be acknowledged as such.

All of the social and economic problem facing the nations could be resolved if we regained our vision and moved forward as a nation and society with a common goal. And one of those goals should be unquestionably, the further exploration of space. As we continue to deplete our natural resources here, other planetary bodies may become our only recourse. Do we (Americans), too absorbed in ourselves want to concede the future of space exploration and all it entails to the Chinese? Would they share what they have found with us or use it to dominate?

If we want to remain the worlds premiere power, we MUST explore space, or risk becoming an also ran nation, surviving at the whim of others. China IS becoming a power (economically, and militarily) we will have to deal with in the future, she is not going away. How long will it be before China dethrones us as the world’s largest economy?

Yes, cancer is a bad thing, and so too is the lack of affordable health care for the working poor, however scraping NASA and our manned space program will not erase those problems, nor will simply throwing money at them. We need to rekindle Americas vision of herself as something better…once that is regained the rest will follow…

Actually funding a universal heath care plan will solve the problem of the 44 million with no access to heath care. It is not 1964 anymore and the commies are not going to beat us to the moon.

If a Universal Health Care Plan is not put together with vision, it will not work, no matter how much money you pour into it. And no, it is not 1964, its the year 2003 and the “commies” just might beat us to Mars, (their stated goal since the moon has already been done) and who knows what is there in terms of mineral wealth and other raw material just waiting to be extracted…

I don’t understand the push for socialized medicine. Or Universal Healthcare if you prefer. It has NEVER worked even close to well in another country. Not one. Look at our nearest neighbor, Canada. Everyone comes HERE because medical care takes months and months and the quality is atrocious.

When you give every single person with a medical problem access to free medical care, you create medical waiting lists that are 6 months, or more, long. Doctoring becomes a run-of-the-mill profession, so the requirements to be a doctor decrease so that more of the students enter the workforce. This means the quality of care that makes our CURRENT medical system, however exorbitantly epensive, desirable, goes away and the doctor’s seek either practices in other countries, or different occupations.

Gentleman, the answer to our Healthcare problems does NOT lie in socialized medicine, in my humble opinion… but in Tort reform #1, and a reasonable cap on settlements; say 2 million. Do this, and the insurance rates swinging on the cost pendulum will return from the GIGANTIC overswing they are stuck on now, back to rates that are congruent with inflation. Doctors won’t have to pull down their pants and RAPE our wallets to cover their costs, and people making $18/hr in the eighth year of their job won’t get settlements for $40 Million dollars, which RAISES our rates dramatically.