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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

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.
 

 The Huge Benefits of the Space Program

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.
 

 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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Issue: Feb. 8, 2003
Editor: Rick Rowland
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