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If We Shoot for the Stars, Martyrs Will Be
Sacrificed |
Last week I pointed out that we are the first society
in history that expects children to be born safely and
mothers to suffer no harm.
By the same token we expect that people blasted into
space will come back safely.
We just had a space disaster. The real measure of our
space program is the fact that the death of those on
board was a shock.
The measure of the greatness of our society is not
that people die in childbirth or in space efforts.
That is all that liberals talk about.
Our greatness lies in the fact that we do not expect
such deaths. No liberal will ever mention that, so no
respectable conservative will ever mention that. |
The Space Program and Budget Reality
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Liberals don't like science. They want all our
problems to be solved by things like rationing that
mean giving more power to bureaucrats and social
science planners.
In 1977 the Carter Administration almost succeeded in
destroying the space program. By then the NASA budget
had been cut to the bone by Nixon and Ford in
compromises with liberals. Then came what Carter and
Company hoped would be the coup de grace. The 1977
appropriation budget bill that went to the floor of
the House cut out the Hubble space telescope and the
Jupiter Orbital Probe.
Yes, the Hubble Telescope, the one that is giving us
whole new insights into the nature of the universe
right now.
Liberals said they wanted the $300 million -- yes it
was just $300 million -- cut from the space telescope
and Jupiter probe to send to poor people programs. It
was to join the trillion dollars we had already spent
on the War on Poverty.
This cut was well planned and had the backing of the
White House. The relevant Appropriations Subcommittee
chairman, a Democrat, recommended it.
When it comes to the budget, the chairman of the
subcommittee usually has his way. But this proposal to
cut out the Hubble Telescope and the Jupiter Orbital
Probe had more support than that. The Ranking
Republican on the relevant budget subcommittee had
joined with the chairman in recommending
this cut.
The supporters of the space program were caught with
their pants down. A lot of them wanted to do the
General Lee bit and surrender nobly. Please see
WhitakerOnline World View for
February 1, 2003 --"General Lee's Fatal Mistake" and
"Please, Please, PLEASE Stop Sniveling!"
There were space program snivelers who sobbed that all
was lost. They kept reminding us that the combination
of chairman and ranking minority member on the
relevant subcommittee cannot be beaten on the Floor on
a minor issue like this one.
So we decided it wouldn't be a minor issue.
We delayed the bill while the space advocates who were
willing to fight back sent out telegrams.
I had no expertise on space but I had a hell of a lot
of expertise on fighting in a corner. That was when
the Democrats controlled both Houses of Congress and
the White House, and a few of our last-ditch House
members like my boss John Ashbrook were holding up a
major portion of the liberal agenda
by themselves.
The space program was already cut to the bone, and if
this had gone through the essential personnel of the
program would have been terminated. There was no
coming back if we lost this one.
So I decided we wouldn't lose this one.
We had to get time and delay the thing past the
weekend break so our forces could weigh in.
We got the time.
Over the weekend the pro-space movement poured in
hundreds of thousands of telegrams. Everybody from the
L-5 Space Settlement group to the Trekkies and young
people in general hit Washington politically for the
first time. All us nerds and kooks and romantics were
in on it.
If you haven't been in on the mechanics of Capitol
Hill legislation you cannot understand the sheer shock
of the victory we won.
It is true that normally if both the Chairman and the
Ranking Republican on the Appropriations subcommittee
call for a cut, it is a done deal.
Unless you're dealing with the kind of people who
would demand that Lee fight on after Appomattox.
We didn't just beat them. We beat them four to one!!
As I remember they got 83 for the cut and we got 348
against it.
Almost every House member was there for the vote on
what was no longer a minor issue.
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The Huge Benefits of the Space Program
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As a result of this victory on the House Floor the
space program survived and the space telescope went
into space and we orbited and sent back messages from
Jupiter.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is where Silicon
Valley came from. The technology breakthroughs and
personnel developed in the space program gave America
what other countries now complain is an unmatchable
advantage in the high tech future.
A lot was riding on what seemed to be a hopeless
fight.
Hopeless fights were the specialty of my boss, John
Ashbrook. In the House of Representatives with its 435
members nothing moves without unanimous consent.
I think he just put the bug in the Speaker's ear that,
once again, he and his tiny group of last-ditch
conservatives would keep a member on the Floor
and deny unanimous consent to everything if the space
program cut were not put off.
I don't know exactly what happened. I was busy. The
guy who hears the shrapnel sing is not the guy who has
a clear view of overall strategy. I do know that when
I tried to explain all the complications John just
asked me "Bob, is it good for America?" and I said
"Yes".
That's what senior staff is for. We both knew Ashbrook
meant would it be good for America in HIS eyes, not in
my pro-space romantic's eyes. I said "Yes" so he got
the time from somewhere.
>From 1977 to 1981, when liberal Democrats controlled
everything, Ashbrook's little group stopped one
leftist initiative after another. "Reasonable" and
"respectable" Republicans wanted to surrender and they
hated us for blocking their "compromises". But no one
will ever know how much was saved by this
handful of guerrilla fighters, a little band I
personally nicknamed "the Alamo squad".
I was once in a staff meeting in Congressman Bob
Dornan's office. Dornan said, "I'll check with our
leader." Someone said, "The Republican leadership
wants to compromise."
Dornan responded, "I mean our real leader, John
Ashbrook." It warmed my heart.
John Ashbrook's fight for principle in the space
program paid off politically. John Ashbrook, a
Midwestern conservative, was invited to be on a panel
at the American Association for the Advancement of
Science for this fight. In addition a lot more young
people in his district became his fans.
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A
Man With A Memory Looks at the Space Program |
Respectable conservatives earn that name "respectable"
from liberals. Liberals give them that "respectable"
label. Respectable conservatives are able to get on the
news media while conservatives that liberals label
"ultra-right" or "racist" are suppressed.
Nobody helps the liberals suppress "unrespectable"
conservatives more than respectable conservatives do.
One thing you never do if you want to be a respectable
conservative is to press any point that might shame
liberals. Since nothing liberals do results in anything
less than a disaster, it takes a lot of forgetting to make
liberals look sane.
In 1969 when the Moon shot was ready to take off, there
was a giant leftist demonstration against it. Black
"leaders" brought in a mule train and a line of marching
blacks all the way to Cape Kennedy to demonstrate against
throwing money into space that should go to minorities.
Today only an obvious fool would challenge the enormous
benefits the space program brought us (starting with the
heart pacer if you want to talk about helping people). Now
all the conservatives who grovel at the feet of leftist
minorities would never mention the giant and insane mule
train protest.
The mule train was big news in 1969. Everybody has agreed
to forget it now. It would make a great symbol of leftism
if the right were serious.
Since then those mule-train leftist minorities have won.
In the name of compassionate conservatism the space
program gets little backing from Bush. Once again
Bush is throwing away support he could get from backing
the space program to appeal to the mule-train minorities.
Guess how many mule-train minority votes Bush will get. |
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