America In Space - A Commentary

This past week was marked by the shuttle Enterprise making her final flight, piggy backed on a modified 747 aircraft and heading to her final home at the Intrepid Museum in New York

This coming week will mark the fifty-first anniversary of the day Alan Shepard became the first American in space, becoming a ballistic missile on board Freedom 7.

The bookends of these two historical events saw the American space program land a man on the moon, begin the first serious study of our solar system and begin the inevitable march to the vast realm of space beyond our planet and our solar system.

Collectively as a nation, we shared the exhilaration as Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin fulfilled the dreams of millennia by landing on the moon on the Apollo 11 mission, while Michael Collins flew the command craft solo  around the dark side of the moon, being as alone as any human in history.

Collectively, we shared the heartbreak of the fire in Apollo 1 that killed astronauts Grissom, White & Chaffee. We grieved as one at the Challenger and Columbia disasters.

Together we marveled at the most successful disaster that was Apollo 13, the mission that gave legend to Gene Kranz’s’ almost anthemic statement that ‘failure is not an option’. Close examination of Mission Control photos and film during those several heart-stopping days shows not aged space veterans, but our young best and brightest drawing upon their education and training as they created solutions for situations none had ever contemplated.

In many ways, the space program gave America more ‘bang for the buck’ than any other government program. This blog is being written on a computer that has more computing power than Apollo 11. The technological advances that came out of our space program are too numerous to list here.

For all the positives that NASA as an entity has given to America, its detractors seem to have a single response, used almost as an epithet: “the money spent in space could be better spent here at home solving problems for the average American.”

The level of ignorance of such a position demands some manner of a response.

This nation spends more education dollars per student than any other industrialized nation on the planet, yet not only are the results lacking, the critical math and science scores needed for the future are woefully lacking with competing nations.

The war on poverty started almost fifty years ago has done little to help Americans, save for creating a welfare class that remains mired in poverty.

We are in need of scientific solutions for our future energy needs. Consider that the Apollo missions carried no conventional fuel to provide power for the voyages, but rather used fuel cell technology. A thriving space program would need to address long term power needs for the exploration of Mars, for example. That technology, when developed, would be able to be modified for use back here at home. The collateral advantages of the space program were unknown when it was created over fifty years ago, but the advantages are now taken as commonplace and not given their proper due as being a result of our quest to explore the heavens.

In an era when money is squandered in so many ways, there must be a national demand to fund a REAL space program, and not one dependent upon hitching rides from nations who do not have our national interest at heart.

To quote President John F. Kennedy – “we do these things not because they are easy, but because they are hard”.

Failure to reignite our space program is not, must not, and cannot be an option.

The Week That Was - 4-22-2012

There were three stories that garnered much of the media’s focus this week, yet the coverage of all three seemed to miss the more critical, central points in favor of demonstrating broadcast ignorance and pointless sensationalism.

To wit:

There was much coverage about the Secret Service agents and their conduct in advance of President Obama’s visit to Colombia. Their conduct, if as presented is true, will be dealt with under our laws and disciplined accordingly under those laws. There seemed to be no mention of two major points: these agents were not assigned to directly protect the president, and while their conduct, if true, was both reprehensible and beyond stupid, they did not directly put the life of the president at risk. There are indeed corollary possibilities to their conduct that held potential for the president’s safety, but the president’s safety is always at risk. There also seemed to be a historical lack of mention any anecdotal negative conduct exposure for the Secret Service, for which they should be applauded and not grouped with a few stupid agents in their ranks. The Secret Service agents assigned directly to the president are those who will jump in front of bullets to save the life of our president. The footage of President Reagan’s’ shooting is testament to that fact, and as a  people we should be grateful there is not more such footage and we should respect the work of the Secret Service and not make them the butt of Colombian prostitute jokes.

The highlight of the political theater of the absurd this week was watching the indignation of our elected officials during the hearings on the GSA squandering the taxpayers hard earned cash in order that they might have elaborate self-congratulatory parties. The feigned ignorance by those who have the fiduciary responsibilities under the United States Constitution would have been comical if not for the seriousness of the matter. The media went borderline apoplectic over the official from the GSA invoking his Fifth Amendment right against self-incriminations. The howls began almost immediately that by choosing to employ his constitutional protection he was crating a de facto confession.

It is of great concern that many of those entrusted with protecting and defending the Constitution apparently have no idea what it actually says:

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation

What apparently was not understood by many in Congress and ignorantly overlooked by the mass media was that you may not selectively invoke your fifth amendment protection. It is, in summary, a one size fits all, use it or lose it proposition. There is nothing nefarious in protecting yourself; it is dangerous to presume otherwise. Ignorance of the law is never considered a viable defense in court and should not be tolerated in the court of national discourse.

The third newsworthy event should be perhaps of the greatest concern to the American people. There was much fanfare over the Shuttle Discovery making its final flight piggy backed upon a 747. It was heralded as a major event as the craft circled around Washington D.C., en route to its final home at the Smithsonian Museum. There was a dearth of commentary, however, that there is not currently a manned United States Space Program. This nation needs to hitch rides with other nations when a return to space is required. In an era when there is much blather about investing in education, it is troubling that while the United States spends more per student than any other nation on the planet, our math and science scores are not competitive with other leading nations.

Should not we as a nation re-invest in teaching our children the subjects they will need to lead us to the next frontier; such is the nature of securing the future for ourselves and our posterity.

Presidential Political Politeness (more or less)

Rick Santorum has suspended his campaign for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination.

This has allowed the self professed prognosticators, oracles of political wisdom, soothsayers, tea leaf readers and pundits in general to declare that Mitt Romney will be the Republican standard bearer in the presidential campaign against President Barack Obama.

Remove for a moment from this discussion the irrefutable fact that there is absolutely nothing contained in the Constitution that provides for a two party monopoly  on presidential candidacies, and that there are also no guidelines provided with our foundational document for dictating how said campaigns should be presented to the American electorate.

The people, however, have already been inundated with such nonsense as the election being a referendum on a mythological ‘war on women’, a ‘war on working mothers’, and that the respective candidates have a myriad of silliness attached to their records in public office.

The major media outlets have also begun their sycophantic alignments to their respective ideological dogma in an attempt to provide the greatest amount of imbecilic coverage and obfuscations so that their chosen candidate can deflect any attempt at an honest campaign dialogue with the American electorate.

As ridiculous as all of the political theater of the absurd seems to Americans this year, it is critical to consider two possible alternatives to this ritual of idiocy.

The first is to remember that the transfer of power does indeed take place at the ballot box. There are no tanks in the street, no protests where citizens are murdered at the whim of those in power. We may cringe at how our political election process is perceived by the world, but it is important to keep in perspective  that it is indeed able to be seen by the world, and not cloaked in dictatorial or tyrannical secrecy.

The other situation to ponder is that the character assaults between the two major camps could actually escalate to charges so outlandish as to be so wholly unbelievable by the electorate and such an embarrassment to the stature of this beacon of liberty.

Consider the potential charges that could be made between the two political candidates.

They could, and these are not being assigned to either party specifically but rather attributable to the campaign process at large, level the following charges:

That one candidate’s wife was a bigamist.

One candidate executed members of the army.

One candidate was a murderer.

One candidate procured American women to serve as prostitutes for a foreign monarch.

One candidate used taxpayer funds for gambling devices in the White House.

One candidate had used political prowess to steal a presidential election from the true winner.

If the potential for such charges seems far-fetched, these were but a few of the charges flying back and forth during the Andrew Jackson/John Quincy Adams election of 1828.

So if the current political debate climate seems to be amongst the ‘worst in history’, remember it has a way to go to rival some previous presidential contests, and that fact should reassure America that however outlandish our electoral process may appear to the rest of the world, the ridiculous has helped us endure and prosper for more than two hundred and twenty years, and that is something to be both envied and to be proud to present to ourselves and to our posterity.

April 8th, 2012 - The Week That Was

“And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.”

The above quote is the last sentence of the Declaration of Independence. Though not a document that speaks to the operation of democratic self rule government in the manner of the United States Constitution, the Declaration does clearly demonstrate the belief of the seriousness concerning the undertaking the framers and founders were about to undertake in the battle for and creation of their fledgling new nation.

Two news events this week speaks to how far askew the body politic has gone in abandoning the serious understanding the framers and founders had about the nature of government and the governmental structure clearly embedded within the Constitution.

Consider this from the theater of the absurd.

The recent GSA party scandal has been blamed by the current administration as being the fault of the previous administration, one that left power over three years ago. The responsibility for assuming the reins pf power apparently extends only as far as potential good news; the straight faced pronouncements of laying blame elsewhere, anywhere, seems to be taken by the White House press corps as fact. Consider the implications of assigning responsibility to a previous administration without any trace of culpability by the current residents of power: our current strained relations with China could be blamed upon the initial overtures made by the Nixon presidency back in the 1970’s. The nonsensical possibilities for political mischief stagger the mind. The American people will allow for a short term shift of responsibility; history shows that there is a roughly six month grace period as the new administration settles in, but to assign fault after three years must be viewed as the imbecilic political stance that it is, and thus be held up for ridicule.

From the ridiculous to the serious takes us to comments made by the President this week. President Obama, in discussing the Supreme Courts’ upcoming decision on the Affordable Care Act, a/k/a Obamacare, actually stated that it would be “unprecedented” for a “group of unelected individuals” to overturn a democratically passed  act of Congress.

(The tragic hypocrisy is that while at literally the same time the President was making this point his administration was presenting  its case to a federal appeals court to overturn the congressionally passed Defense of Marriage Act.)

The President taught constitutional law, and the scope of this statement is beyond troubling. It is no way ‘unprecedented’; the Supreme Court is constitutionally mandated to be comprised of appointed jurists, and the President recently appointed two members of the court.

His summation point was that the court should not overturn the law, because of the negative effect it would have upon those who are currently reaping benefits of the Affordable Care Act.

The statement is either ignorant or laying the foundation for an assault on the Constitution. The Supreme Court, or any court, is by definition required to adjudicate the matter before them solely on the facts; the Supreme Court is to decide issues solely upon their constitutionality. Attempting to inject emotional quotients into the deliberative process is nothing short of political grandstanding and at its heart shows contempt for the Constitution.

President Obama has already spoken on his belief that the Constitution is a series of ‘negative rights’; what the government cannot do; he believes it should state what the government CAN do under its governing document.

The Constitution was specifically written as it was to delineate the equal bodies of government, and limited the extent of their powers exactly to provide for a greater liberty and freedom for her people.

These two events speak to the threat upon our august document, and  to the beliefs of our framers and founders.

We must remain vigilant to the assaults upon them, or we shall indeed perish from the face of the earth.

Article III

The Affordable Care Act, a/k/a ObamaCare, had its hearing before the United States Supreme Court this week, the case against it having been brought by twenty six states of the union.

No sooner had the oral arguments closed before the court then the political and media hacks began their sadly tired, predictable presentation on the biases and political slant of the high court.

Before addressing the core of the actual issue that was presented to the court, and the subsequent ignorance demonstrated by mass media, an understanding of exactly what the Supreme Court is and its responsibility within the triumvirate of government that is American democracy and self rule is in order.

To wit:

The relevant excerpts from the United States Constitution are as follows:

Article. III.

Section. 1.

The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish.

Section. 2.

Clause 1: The judicial Power shall extend to all Cases, in Law and Equity, arising under this Constitution, the Laws of the United States, and Treaties made, or which shall be made, under their Authority;--…;--to Controversies to which the United States shall be a Party;--to Controversies between two or more States;--between a State and Citizens of another State;…--between Citizens of different States, --between Citizens of the same State claiming Lands under Grants of different States, and between a State, or the Citizens thereof, and foreign States, Citizens or Subjects.

The framers and founders left little to the interpretive sciences when delineating the role and nature of the Supreme Court.

What is troubling is that the Supreme Court must have the full support of the body politic and the electorate at large if it is to have any manner of credibility; such support seems to be lacking and in its place what remains is taken as sport. The nonsensical diatribes about the courts' political leanings may seem acceptable political theater to the proponents of the argument, but they are either ignorant or outright stupid to the damage such hyperbolic claims can do to the necessary integrity of any court, especially the American Supreme Court.

The reality is that if there were no disputes, no disagreements to fact, there would be no need for courts; the explicit and implicit social contract to their impartiality is a fundamental truth of democracy.

The American people should vigorously pursue their causes and beliefs, but once the court hasmade its final decision, it must be accepted. This is not a mere matter of good sportsmanship, but rather a point of how a free people settle their arguments in a nation of laws; to do otherwise denigrates the citizen, the nation, and the legacy we hold and entrust to our posterity.

To the actual issue that was the cause of action brought by the twenty six states, the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act and its mandate that each and every citizen purchase health insurance, in the opinion of the Madison Conservative, while in no manner a legal or constitutional expert, it seemed as though the basic case for the unconstitutionality of the mandate was not addressed.

To wit:

The mandate does, in essence and in actual practice, require every citizen to enter into a contract for services it may not request, require, or want. Basic contract law expressly forbids a contract to be made under any form of duress. If an American does not wish to purchase a health insurance policy but is forced to under threat of penalty, the contract is by definition unenforceable.

The attempted corollaries to such things as being required to purchase some level of automobile insurance is specious, at best. Driving is a privilege, and one can decide to opt into providing auto insurance as a prerequisite requirement to driving; the health care mandate requires no other required act save for being alive.

The Act is unconstitutional; if the Supreme Court decides otherwise, in a free and open democracy such as America, then it is the law of the land.

The equation is that simple, and must not be allowed to be obfuscated in any other way. To do so would be to challenge the fundamental basis upon which America was founded and constructed.