That’s hilarious, Ferris. Did you post this from Bizarro World? It’s certainly not the view of the mainstream media.

Furthermore, I do know how far left I am. Rather, its you who don’t realize how much you are in right winger land, and how far left the American populace is.

You must not watch much. Good for you if the case.

Keith “911 was a government conspiracy” Olbermann

You wanna cite that please?

The current view of bi-partisan right now is that the left must totally surrender to the right, on any issue. I can cite countless examples of this. Its not my side that has to change.

And, as I said before, I do hate it. Your right, the bickering, the fighting – all that means wasted time, wasted money, and wasted lives. It means I have to wait one day longer before full colonization to happen. But I won’t surrender anything and everything to the whims of the right and the Republican party. My self-estim won’t allow, my pride in my country won’t allow it, and my commitment to humanity won’t allow it. To quote Keith Olbermann again,

We as citizens must, at some point, ignore a president’s partisanship. Not that we may “prosper” as a nation, not that we may “achieve”, not that we may “lead the world” — but merely that we may “function.” But just as essential to the seventeen words of John Wayne is an implicit trust — a sacred trust:That the president for whom so many did not vote, can in turn suspend his political self long enough, and for matters imperative enough, to conduct himself solely for the benefit of the entire Republic.

When the right/conservatives and the Republican party are ready to actually dealmake, and cross the isle, we will be already. But deal makign isn’t total surrender. And that is what the right and the Republician party (and espcially the right wing media) want.

If you want an example of actual deal making, and moving beyond politics, it has happened – look at some of my postings at Dailykos – In at least 2 articles, I’ve cited my agreement with Rand Simberg with regards to launch costs, and Ares I. (I’ll bet Rand never expected to get cited at Dailykos).

With regards to how to move it beyond politics permantly, I think you, I, and anthonares have all pointed the way to move space beyond politics (or more so than it currently is) – It needs to be more than a simple national program. Politicains need to realize that space policy doesn’t begin and end with Nasa. Individual people must take ownership of the issue of spaceflight.

And the best way for that to happened is the continued push for its development in the private sector. Thats why I am so supportive of private companies pursuing manned flight, like Orbital Outfitters, Armadillo Aerospace, SpaceX, Xcor, just to name a few. Thats why I am trying to raise awareness about it over at dailykos, as well as other places – when you tell people what is happening, and what could happen, their perceptions of space change. It would be like the Internet, all over again – an explosion of everyone wanting to be involved.

When that happens, as I’ve said, the game changes. Alternatively, we could see a return to sanity, and actually have a back and for dialoge on what is good for our country, and deal make. Frankly though, for a vairety of reasons, I’ll bet on the former rather than the latter.

Look — vote for Kerry, Gore, Clinton — whomever makes you sleep well at night. Have at each other with who’s got the losing party and your lists of people you think are bad and your various versions of history. But please, please, could you please wake up and realize that bickering like this doesn’t advance space exploration at all? Who cares which party is right or wrong — at least as far as space exploration goes? What can be the point of saying that we’d be better with your guy as president instead of the other guy? It all seems childish to me.

In my opinion, anthonares was exactly correct, with one change. Where he said “The way I see it, unless there is an unarguably vital national interest in manned space flight, it will always be subject to lack of political support.”

I would say instead that the issue is an unarguable vital POLITICAL interest. That’s what you get when you have a nationalized space program. Money goes where the political interest is. JFK could make hay from fear of the Rooskies. Reagan with the missile shield. GW’s effort seems a little different in that I think it’s just a lame attempt at finding a common vision for what NASA is supposed to be doing, anyway. (A vision which the two parties would never let us adopt, no matter who proposed it or what it was) So unless you’ve got some kind of plan for an unarguable political interest in either manned or unmanned space exploration, the whole game reduces to who-gets-the-pork.

My opinion, for what it’s worth. My decoder ring is broken, and nobody bothered to send me some sharks with freakin’ laser beams, so I’m probably out of the loop.