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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?

Read Debates, a new Web-only feature culled from Readers' Opinions, published every Thursday.

lunarchick - 05:38pm Jan 6, 2003 EST (# 7429 of 7452)

It's interesting to note how often the words WAR and HONOUR are linked .... rather than WAR with LEADERSHIP FAILURE

Generally speaking the mass of population want to 'thrive' in peace - not 'grieve' everafter through human war loss.

gisterme - 05:39pm Jan 6, 2003 EST (# 7430 of 7452)

lunarchick 1/6/03 7:45am

"...The UN must endorse Secularism for all nations..."

What difference would that make? Personally, I doubt that I'd care to live under a religious government; but, why shouldn't people have the right to any sort of government they want, so long as the people want it and it does not threaten others?

"...Then ... notions of a PAN-ARAB geographic sweep ... could not happen..."

What's not secular about the term "PAN-ARAB"?

"...Rather - all nations would be secular and supportive of their people..."

Would that necessarily be better than "religious and supportive of their people"? But, I understand what you're trying to say, lchick. The problem with religious govenments and sects is that not all people have faith in the same things; but, the "religious" government or sect thinks they must. So the government or sect winds up trying to calibrate the faith of those who have some, or demanding faith of those who have none. Calibrating faith is no easier than calibrating charity or mercy. Faith on demand is, by definition, impossible.

The US government is not by definiton secular. It is by design arranged such that the administration of government does not interfere with it's people's faith. Folks can have whatever faith they want, or no faith at all if they so choose.

That's just a practical applicaton of religious free will. Free will in the things of faith is no less than God grants in the Bible. After all, what can men possibly offer to God that he doesn't already have? Just faith. What does God give in return? Well, He counted Abraham's faith as righteousness.

Now if there were no free will involved in offering faith to God, then even that would be worthless. I believe that failure to understand that simple truth is where so many "religious" governments and sects go wrong. I also believe that because they were the first to choose to implement "freedom of religion" as a fundamental right within a government, the American founding fathers were divinely inspired. Our motto "In God we trust" is simply an acknowledgement of the faith and inspiration of those men...not an insult to those who have none.

"...derived from all and every other nation."

You mean as in "international welfare program"? Wealth has always been created, distributed and re-distributed due to the dynamics of free market economies. That can work at any scale. Not allowing natural selection within economies is no more workable than not allowing natural selection within species.

An economy is a vehicle for the production and distribution of wealth. If a powereful economy were likened to an automobile, then forcing redistribution of wealth would be like attaching one end of a strong chain to its chassis and wrapping the other end of the chain around the axle. It might look great sitting in the parking lot; but, things would get ugly fast if you tried to drive it anywhere.

gisterme - 06:01pm Jan 6, 2003 EST (# 7431 of 7452)

bbbuck 1/6/03 4:30pm

"...I believe I have some things in my closet that make me worry about my checking method, I better go check to see that they are still there..."

Will that require a staff and some (not really a lot of) money, bbb?

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