The Sacred Honor of our Founders Sacrificed to Partisanship

I want other people to be my friend. I just don't want to have to earn friendship by being a phoney. I also don't want to have pretend friendships by nodding the head in agreement to everything said. I realize I'm not going to agree with everyone, and everyone isn't going to agree with me. I accept that I can not be a friend to everyone, but I can still treat them with respect as long as the respect is mutual.

That mutual respect seems to be missing in today's atmosphere of hyper-partisanship. You have to pick a side. There is no middle ground. You either think like me, walk like me, look like me, say the same things as me, or you are the enemy. That is not a very good way for humans to interact. It only leads to conflict.

I will not knowingly be manipulated by a person and call them my friend. That is no friend because they are trying to forcefully extract something from me through the manipulation. No one bothers to attempt to manipulate someone already in compliance. If something is good there is no need for manipulation, only presentation. Present to me a good argument and I'll in good faith, using logic and reason so much as I'm able, consider it. Attempt to manipulate me into compliance and I'll resist it.

I think some people were blinded by the noble goal. They wanted what they wanted at any cost. The ends justified the means. In the process honor and respect where abandoned. People started doing the same thing, employing the same methods, as the people they felt oppressed by. Supporting one person over the other was no longer something done out of agreement with policy to them. The support of the opposing candidate was now a hostile act done to keep someone else down, they thought, or were manipulated into thinking. Policy was not the major factor in a choice, but rather superficial characteristics became the major deciding factor. For some people, if a person supported someone without the superficial characteristics of the person they supported it wasn't out of a respect for policy. It was because they hated the superficial characteristics.

That caused another partisanship. A partisanship not of political origin, but rather of gender and race. Respect for our Constitutional rights to choose were thrown by the wayside as unimportant. Only the goal mattered. If a person wasn't on the right side of partisanship, they became the scapegoat of a failed cause. Two sides could be in agreement on everything, but for some people if the superficial characteristics were absent every agreement between them became the least important thing.

I think this is a giant problem. It is not how an enlightened people should go about business. What ever happened to the disdain of having to "choose between two evils"? Ever since I was old enough to understand speech I have heard people elude to that in disgust. Nowadays you have to choose an evil or else you're looked as the enemy. If you don't choose the same evil as me, then it is all your fault when our evil doesn't win, they say. In reality, it is because of the evil that evil wins.

I'll never support someone because of superficial characteristics. I'll never support a position just to get cozy with someone or a group. I'll not be a part of a cult of personality. I'll never knowingly be manipulated into supporting someone or some thing that I feel is wrong, or not honorable. If I did, I would would lose respect for myself. I would have to jump through mental hoops trying to justify a support of something I really didn't support. How could I expect anyone to respect me if I were to do that? How could I expect anyone to respect me if I don't even respect myself?

I've went through this entire exercise without the mention of any names. I haven't pointed a finger at a single person. I did that on purpose. My goal with writing this is not to blame a person, but to blame an idea. The idea of supporting people because of superficial characteristics, and nothing else matters.

You readers can make of this what you will. For some people, as they read, names will come to mind. Some people will read this and still be offended because of being blinded by the goal.

I'll mention one name now as an example. This is not to say that this writing is about that one person. It just illustrates an extreme example of the partisan manipulation.

Once I was watching on TV a Trump rally. A lady said "If you don't support Trump, I'll punch you in the face." That had nothing to do with respecting the rights our Founders pledged their "Sacred Honor" to obtain. That is the most extreme type of example, but it was there on many levels and among all sides.

Don't End Funding of the International Space Station, Expand It

It is short sighted to end funding of the ISS and counter to the best interests of the people of Earth. It shows how the priorities of our nation's leaders is not in the best interests of the American people, or of the world in general.

Instead of abandoning this orbital station, it should be boosted into geosynchronous orbit and expanded on. It should be improved and additions made for the servicing and refueling of satellites and outbound spacecraft.

The article says that it costs NASA $3 to $4 billion each year, and so far represents a $87 billion investment by the taxpayers. Let us compare costs and benefits. It is costing the American people approximately $8 billion a year in subsidies to the oil industry. We could fund the ISS for 2 years for every 1 year we end oil industry subsidies. Along with that oil subsidies cost comes massive environmental degradation. With proper funding and utilization of the ISS our nation could end the oil industry stranglehold on our civilization. We could expand our jobs base with the expansion of the ISS and new missions opened up through the OWE.

What about tax breaks for billionaires? It has been said it will cost our nation's taxpayers $1.5 trillion to pay for these massive tax breaks. That is enough money to fund our share of the international cost for the next 187.5 years, or enough to expand our total share 17 times. In other words, to add to the ISS expansions 17 times over what we've already put into it.

Of course all of that will require many skilled hands on and off Earth. That directly translates into more jobs for our people. Better jobs that require the best educated population we can produce. We need to have national priority projects of such a magnitude and purpose. The problems solved for the human race are many and time is growing ever shorter. We can not kick this can down the road any longer.

Support the OWE! Tell all of your friends. Get them to understand the extreme importance of the OWE. Make them understand it is a life and death matter. Communicate with your congresspersons. Tell them you demand this paradigm shift in our entire civilization. We OWE it to ourselves, and to them who come after us. We can be looked upon by future people as the ones who saved humanity, or the ones who caused the fall. The choice is ours to make, but we better make it real soon.

Cryptocurrency is Less Than Vapor: Less than Fiat Money

If you're invested in cryptocurrency, you have more tolerance for risk than I. I'm super leery of cryptocurrency like bitcoin at this point. I'm leery of regular fiat currency already because it has no real value, except by decree. Now people are placing the fiat (worthless) currency into vapor.

Remember what I said about government control of the internet and phones to cause people to be unable to communicate during civil strife? What makes your digital currency any more safe than an internet communication platform? If the government can cause people to be unable to communicate electronically, they can most assuredly cause all the cryptocurrency in existence to vanish in a flash.

If that ever happened, there would be a lot of people singing the blues. I think a better investment would be precious metals like gold, platinum and silver. I would advise saving all 1981 and before cents for their copper content too. Each one is worth 2.1 cents as of this writing. The only way anyone can take it, is if someone breaks and steals, or holds you up at gun point. Crypto can be stolen with a hack. It can become nonexistent by government policy. I could see the latter happen too!

There used to be an outfit that made silver coins called "Liberty Dollars". People were using them to buy and sell. They were introduced by private parties in response to the fiat currency. People have always trusted real wealth over promissory notes. Then the US government came along and shut them down. The feds didn't like the competition.

Maybe you should cut and run when it comes to cryptocurrency. Sell high, then invest in all precious metals. Not the kind where someone else is holding it for you either. Real actual wealth you have in your possession.

People need to forget a bit of trickery when it comes to precious metals. People think that the value of precious metals have gone up. That is not really the case. What has really happened is the value of the dollar has gone down. It will continue to go down too. The only value it holds is due to government decree, which is really nothing but a promise.

Edit: I found it. It had been so long since I thought of it I had forgotten the name. Liberty Dollars were the private currency that the feds shut down.

Something's Wrong With the World Today: Inequality

Something is very broken. Something's wrong with the world today. We're living on the edge! Imagine 10,000 years ago a small village of 100 people. One of those villagers get 82% of all the hunter/gatherer finds brought back to the village. The rest of the 99 people get to share 18%. The 1 privileged person also gets to dictate what that 18% consists of.

I doubt that the 99 people in that village of 10,000 years ago would even let that happen. So why is it happening now?

In a report published Monday, Oxfam called for action to tackle the growing gap between the super-rich and the rest of the world. Approximately 82 percent of the money generated last year went to the richest 1 percent of the global population, the report said, while the poorest half saw no increase at all.

Maybe one big difference helping to allow the disparity is the notion of "Out of sight. Out of mind." The 1% don't have to look at, explain, justify, look in the eye or anything to the 99%. That makes the 99% "out of mind" to them. They live in a protected, and organized, bubble. All of the 99%ers are disorganized. The 1%ers try real hard to keep it that way too!

That's why internet service and cell phones get disrupted during civil strife. You've got to keep them separated. There is only one problem with all this for the 1%. History has proven over and again that this kind of inequality can not and will not stand forever. Like in that 10,000 year old village, it would last for about 2 seconds. Then the 99% would just take what they need without regard for the 1%. The French did it with "The Terror". The English did it with the Magna Carta. The Americans did it with the "New Deal". Every time there has been a real inequality that has caused suffering among the people, the people have risen up to end it.

French Revolution - The Terror and Counter-revolution

All of that tells me the massive wealth if the 1% is only held by them because the 99% allow it. The people are allowing this inequality to be. Something is missing or has not yet happened to cause the 99% to finally have had enough of it. The trigger hasn't happened as of yet. There was a trigger that caused the people of the past to overcome their fear of the 1%, and self injury, and raise up to end the inequality because their own poverty and suffering had become unbearable. They could not endure their suffering any longer, so they rose up to end the inequality, even if at the cost of their own lives.

The poverty and suffering of the 1% must be bearable by them at this time in history. There is a future day of reckoning coming though. It is secretly marked on the calendar. Murmurings of its arrival is all around us as the inequality grows. That unmarked day will eventually come as the people disallow the inequality to be maintained. The granaries will be opened one way, or the other. One of those ways of opening is that the 1% wised up and open the granaries themselves. The other way of opening up is "The Terror" being unleashed upon the 1%.

French Revolution - The execution of Louis XVI

That notion of "The Terror" being unleashed onto the 1% is one of the worst things that could happen to humanity. The 1% has very powerful weapons now, and are willing to use them. I'm afraid that "The Terror" would leave civilization in ruins because of the use of these powerful weapons by the 1%. Then the process would start all over again, only to repeat itself. Humanity in whole, the 1% and the 99%, have got to become enlightened by the study of our human past, and heed its warnings. Otherwise humanity will swing from inequality to bloodbath over and over again. Never advancing beyond the animalistic gratification of self, regardless of all.

Presidential Meddling in Space Policy Must End

This is a big problem.

"In December 2017, President Donald Trump signed his first space policy directive that makes the astronauts' return to the moon an official goal of the United States."

The problem is allowing the President to drive space policy. It has caused a lot of wasted money and delays in progress. We need to have a Space Council that is independent of presidential meddling.

Look at some of the worst damage done. Nixon canceled the Apollo program wasting 2 missions worth of hardware. Obama canceled the Constellation Program wasting billions of dollars worth of time and equipment. We simply can not continue to progress at a proper pace with this presidential meddling.

Look at what happened with Kennedy. He made a policy decision that lead to the moon, but then right when we were really picking up steam Nixon canceled it. That was one of the biggest mistakes any president has ever made.

Space policy should be driven by goals that advance the human condition. Experts in the proper fields must be employed in the naming of those goals. Perhaps have a congressional vote on the goals. In the end once the goal is set, and the project funded, meddling should be forbidden by congress or the president. Funding must be permanent and sustained, also forbidding meddling with that funding least the goal is lost and work wasted.

I have contempt for Trump, but I must say I like the idea of a orbital lunar base. There would be advantages gained for the OWE. The OWE should be the ultimate goal, and all other sub-goals be subordinate to that. That's how I was taught to complete a project. One must break the project down into processes and sub-processes. You can even break the sub-processes down further. If you want to reach the goal of project completion, one must follow each process to the end without interruptions.

That's what we have now with presidential meddling, interruptions. Goal busting interruptions.