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Missile Defense

Technology has always found its greatest consumer in a nation's war and defense efforts. Since the last attempts at a "Star Wars" defense system, has technology changed considerably enough to make the latest Missile Defense initiatives more successful? Can such an application of science be successful? Is a militarized space inevitable, necessary or impossible?

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rshow55 - 06:44pm Sep 4, 2002 EST (# 4179 of 4187)
Can we do a better job of finding truth? YES. Click "rshow55" for some things Lchic and I have done and worked for on this thread.

Big change:

No Action on Iraq Until Congress Approves, Bush Says By ALISON MITCHELL and DAVID E. SANGER http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/04/international/04CND-IRAQ.html

From discussion - if there is enough care to get facts and ideas sorted to something decently resembling closure - we'll get to better outcomes.

I've wondered whether the work on this thread has in any way contributed to the discourse involved in the decisions that led up to this change. Can't know, of course. But I do think that there are things that can be applied from this thread, and things that are coming into focus - that will permit better closure, and better outcomes - if people are willing to use them.

Too often, we give up on even the pretense of a common culture - - we give up on the idea that we may agree about facts -- we give up on the idea that we can share basic ideas about right and wrong (in the linked objective and moral senses of "right and wrong.) Sometimes, when it matters, we can do better than that. Getting clearer on the mechanics and logic of "connecting the dots" can further that.

Working through some key facts about missile defense would be a fine way to work out many problems that republicans, like the rest of us, need solved. 1075-76 rshow55 4/4/02 1:20pm . . . . keeping me under effective house arrest, by keeping me in an intolerable security situation - - isn't in the national interest - and if anybody is watching, isn't even good politics.

There's room for improvement, people are stumped, problems are real, and the President obviously has sense enough to know that he doesn't have all the answers exactly right.

A Silence That Coolidge Would Envy By DAVID E. SANGER http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/03/national/03BUSH.html

rshow55 - 06:50pm Sep 4, 2002 EST (# 4180 of 4187)
Can we do a better job of finding truth? YES. Click "rshow55" for some things Lchic and I have done and worked for on this thread.

4135 rshow55 9/2/02 7:23pm . sets out Piaget's developmental stages 4136 rshow55 9/2/02 7:28pm contains a good poem, and asks

"When information flows are degraded, and other patterns are manipulated, can we be reduced to thinking and acting like children? http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?224@@.ee74d94/5493

I asked these questions after Friedman and Dowd filed the following pieces - but I'm glad that they were thinking along similar lines. Their articles were the two most e-mailed stories today.

9/11 Lesson Plan by Thomas Friedman http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/04/opinion/04FRIE.html

"The Times just ran an article about the trouble teachers were having in deciding what to tell students on Sept. 11. That's a serious question. This is a moment for moral clarity, and here are the three lessons I would teach:

" While evil people hate us for who we are, many good people dislike us for what we do. (summary)

Superb instruction! Friedman sets out key ideas that everyone needs to know - needs to understand - and can't reasonably be expected to figure out for themselves.

With a little more indirection, but packing a whallop, Dowd is right on target:

Who's Your Daddy? by Maureen Dowd http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/04/opinion/04DOWD.html

In the Bush family, the gravest insult is to be called a wimp.

Dowd makes the argument that the Bushes are acting childish - in plain language Piaget would admire.

I wonder if Dowd has read Piaget's The Moral Judgement of the Child ?

Seems to me that a lot of political operatives might profit from reading that book, and some others by and about Piaget.

Have Karl Rove and his operatives evolved a system that reduces the American people to children with all the flaws Piaget describes? Both Republicans and Democrats might have fun thinking about the question. It is the sort of question that might, with a little wordsmithing, be understood by nearly all voters.

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