Perhaps the BEST B1G Forum anywhere, here at College Football Fan Site, CFB51!!!

Oh, so you view everything that our Congress deigns worth spending your tax dollars on, to be something you're voluntarily supporting by choice?

The point is the money was not stolen

It was provided through Constitutional means

(Note that the below is at least partly Devil's Advocate...)
First I'll stipulate that landing a man on the moon and bringing him home safely is one of the most technologically impressive feats that humanity has ever done. My hat is off to all of the scientists, engineers, technicians, assembly/mission personnel, astronauts themselves, etc etc etc that made it happen. It's astounding and they should ALL be proud of what they accomplished.

But...

I might ask why we went to the moon? Well, it was because we were in a space race. Why? Because we had to prove that capitalism was better than communism, so we couldn't let the Russians beat us, right?

And so we won. But I'd argue it proved nothing about capitalism vs communism, or about freedom vs totalitarian regimes.

How capitalist was it, exactly?

• There was no ROI. Nobody ever sold this as "look at how much money we'll make from the moon". Nobody sought investment. There was no businessperson who looked at the plan and said "oh, I'll invest in equity shares of THAT new company!"
• There was no choice in funding. The government forcibly extracted money--the equivalent of a quarter of a trillion 2020 dollars--to finance a project that clearly the taxpayers weren't choosing to spend their own money on voluntarily.
• There was no follow-up. It's not like we used the moon for strategic or military reasons. It's not like we used it as a jumping-off point to colonize the solar system. It's not like we went to Mars next. We win, we declared victory, and then... Got bored. It underscores that there was no ROI.
• If it's expensive, pointless, has no return, and is abandoned once politicians find something else shiny, it is what it is--a feather in nationalist caps. And nothing more.

So let's see. Government stole resources from its citizens. It used them on a project that had no economic return. Once it could declare a nationalist victory, it abandoned future emphasis on the project and nobody in the world has been back to that lifeless rock in over 50 years.

That doesn't sound like something a capitalist would do... In fact, it sounds exactly like something a communist nationalist would do!


We didn't beat the Russians with capitalism. We just played their own game better than they did.

THe ROI of the space race is almost incalculable.  The rapid advancements in materials, miniturization, computing power, etc. that wouldn't have happened as fast without the space race.  For those who didn't grow up in the era, you have no idea what it brought to the country in terms of unity, vision and yes nationalism.  It was something that the country could rally around that wasn't "war".  As far as I am concerned this is one of the few government programs that actually paidoff more than it cost. In both overall economics of the country as well as intangible ideals. 

A lot of good things came out of it.

Well Elton John had the hit Rocket Man and Bowie had Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. So the space race wasn't a complete waste.Perhaps Star Wars defense system is really up there

Yes, you're right. The government extracted the money from its citizens under duress, namely the threat of being locked in a cage if they don't comply.

But it was not stolen. It's legal when the government does it.

Just spit out a nice sip of Deep Eddy. Thanks.

You might be a redneck if.......

Well, I suggest you read the decision and the dissent. (I have only so far gotten through the dissent--now I need to do a workout, so it might be a while.)

The problem with non-lawyer opinions is not whether they are correct or not--it's more that they don't amount for a hill 'o' beans in court.

https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/23865266/biden-president-of-the-united-states-et-al-v-nebraska-et-al.pdf

At least reading the majority opinion and Kagan's dissent will give you both sides of the lawyerly opinions.

I've read most of the decision. The HEROES act was improperly invoked. I'm not going to argue in court about anything.

It's my opinion, which I'm entitled to. My opinion has not changed. I've held it ever since this was campaigned on.

Why should a plumber have to pay for some snot who got a crap degree from an expensive school?

This is called buying votes. Anyone who can't see through it is fooling themselves.

Seriously? You gotta get him out of your head. I certainly have.