Armstrong, Cernan Testify Against Obama Space Plan 411
MarkWhittington submitted a story about the first man to walk on the moon testifying yesterday that President Barack Obama's plans to revamp the human space program would cede America's longtime leadership in space to other nations.
and? (Score:5, Insightful)
dont we have bigger issues than who has the biggest space penis??
Re:and? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:and? (Score:5, Insightful)
Indeed. People seem to be of this braindead mindset that governments must solve problems in a serial fashion. The most important one goes to the top and everything else must wait it's turn.
Newsflash - if the system worked like that as soon as "world hunger" or "world peace" floated it's way up there nothing else would EVER see the light of day.
The reality is that if you want to get anything done, you have to work on problems in tandem. Yes, we have a deficit, yes, there are starving children in the world, but those problems will actually get WORSE if you focus exclusively on them at the expense of everything else.
Re:and? (Score:5, Insightful)
Better yet, why spend money to send people when we can send machines and do science?
There is zero _urgency_ to send humans, we need robots on earth and in space much more than we need humans in space, and robots don't (unlike humans) impose a prohibitively costly burden. Let other countries eat the R&D, then do what China does to us and enjoy the fruits of other peoples research.
Re:and? (Score:5, Interesting)
You've got it backwards,
A NASA Space/Mars Colony if anything would help us live better with smaller carbon footprint here on Earth.
During the last 40 years NASA has spent lots of R&D money on high efficiency solar Panels, Fuel Cells, Water Recycling/Pufification, all technologies required to live lightly on the land, or in the very finite resources available to Astronauts in space or on the Moon/Mars.
On Earth you have people who choose not to recycle, choose to keep using gas powered vehicles, pollute the water, and spew emissions into the air.
In space these are not choices you can make, you need to keep and recycle everything, polluting your environment is not an option, even small imbalances will be noticed quickly, and probably kill you.
It is not within our current technology to build a rocket large enough to carry all the food necessary for astronauts on a trip to Mars, so they will need to grow their own food on the way there. If you can grow enough food in an aluminum tube the size of a small passenger liner to feed all of the crew, you can do intense fertilizer free or biochar fertilized farming in urban areas here on Earth. All with zero impact on the environment.
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I hate this argument. Firstly, while it sounds logical, it really isn't. There are always other things to spend money on. 59% of the US budget goes to social programs, 21.5% goes to defense, 8.5% goes to pay interest on the debt. NASA gets .58%, and of that manned space is a fraction. Do you really think that taking a fraction of .58% and putting it somewhere else, line the Doe wil materially help? Keep in mind that the DoE gets .82% of the budget.
it's not a dick measuring contest. It's about explori
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Buzz Aldrin (Score:2, Informative)
Buzz Aldrin disagrees.
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Mod AC parent up! The media is acting like all of the former astronauts are against Obama's plans to scuttle the back-to-the-moon plan. But others disagree with Armstrong. Aldrin, for example, thinks we should just go on to Mars.
As opposed to every other NASA proposal since 1970 (Score:5, Insightful)
...which has been overambitious and underfunded.
We haven't had a decent space plan since getting to the moon. We have had some lofty goals, but never proper commitment or funding. We've also had changing directions every administration or so.
Perhaps the worst thing about Obama's plan is that it is a little more in line with reality instead of wishes?
Re:As opposed to every other NASA proposal since 1 (Score:5, Insightful)
We haven't had a decent manned space plan. Galileo, Cassini, Spirit & Opportunity, and plenty others worked out very well.
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We haven't had a decent manned space plan. Galileo, Cassini, Spirit & Opportunity, and plenty others worked out very well.
This is really the crucial point. We have done some first rate science without having any meat on board, and in most cases, we couldn't have done it with meat on board because meat is just not tough enough to do the job, and launching the necessary equipment to keep meat alive in space for years at a time is prohibitively expensive, and meat wouldn't serve any actual practical purpose in most cases.
Mind you, I am an enthusiastic supporter of manned spaceflight, but let's be reasonable and make sure we're pu
ASTRONAUT FIGHT! (Score:5, Informative)
Buzz Aldrin disagrees
Neil Armstrong Vs. Buzz Aldrin Over Obama's Space Plans
CBSNews URL: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20002451-503544.html [cbsnews.com]
Who do you think would win in a fight, Buzz Ald(I won't even finish the question)
Re:ASTRONAUT FIGHT! (Score:4, Funny)
NASA needs to go (Score:5, Insightful)
Like any bureaucracy, NASA existed only as long as it pleased its political leaders. The result is a space agency that's known for stunts.
Put a man in orbit. First! {Grab genitalia and grunt here).
Put a man on the moon. First! (Grunt repeatedly here).
Seriously, if NASA's main missions now were spaced based power, Zero G industries, low-grav hospitals, a satellite based internet, a space based mirror climate control system, or any of *thousands* of practical, profitable, useful projects, would we even be having this discussion?
Instead, NASA is all about Texas and Florida political pork, controlled by politicians and shaped to *their* ends. Market based solutions, as bad as they are, would still be better than techno-military welfare that we can't afford.
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Put a man in orbit. First! {Grab genitalia and grunt here).
Not to disagree with your post in general, which is rather insightful IMHO, but NASA was not the first to put a man in orbit. The Soviet Union beat them to that.
Re:NASA needs to go (Score:4, Informative)
Good point. My apologies to Mr. Gagarin.
Obama is actually thinking logically (Score:2, Insightful)
One lone protester (Score:5, Interesting)
As I came back from lunch today, I saw a single retiree-looking gentleman standing on the corner of Saturn and NASA Rd. 1 with a sign protesting the Obama plan. That's here at JSC, home of the astronauts.
I dunno, maybe more people will join him once work lets out. As someone who works in this industry, I still remain on the record saying that the current plan is the best one NASA has had since the Shuttle was a dream given form*.
* Not quite the form it should have been, though.
it makes no sense to send people into space... (Score:4, Insightful)
it makes no sense to send people into space... until we know of someplace we can permanently stay.
robots are faster, more accurate, more durable, can stay out there virtually indefinitely, and are 3-20 orders of magnitude cheaper.
from a scientific perspective, low-earth-orbit (the only place we're sending people) just isn't that interesting. virtually all space-related scientific data comes from unmanned probes and robots.
until we're talking about settling another planet/moon, people in space are just tourists. so why is the government funding it?
Things cost money! (Score:2, Insightful)
The future?
$1 Trillion each year in the red. Nevermind the unfunded liabilities of medicare and medicaid.
That means:
You have to CUT! lots of spending has to be cut! If you want those programs to go ahead regardless, then send in a cheque and help them fund it! Just my opinion, Regards
Testify? As in under oath? (Score:5, Funny)
What do I get? (Score:3, Insightful)
Armstrong and the other astronauts got to walk on the moon. What do I get for billions of dollars thrown at more human spacetravel? Nothing.
I'll take the robots and the science instead, please.
And I think its gonna be a long long time (Score:3, Insightful)
Mars ain't the kind of place to raise a kid
Re:So... (Score:5, Insightful)
But we have to do it. How else will we have money in the budget to bail out bankers and pay for their billion dollar bonuses?
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I don't think you know what you're talking about.
Re:So... (Score:4, Informative)
Ronald Reagan - you mean that guy who raised the national debt from $700 billion to $3 trillion? [wikipedia.org]
Re:So... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:So... (Score:5, Insightful)
a media event!
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International prestige? Further scientific understanding of the effects of microgravity on the human organism? The foundation for eventual space colonization? The laundry list of scientific breakthroughs and advancements in consumer technology that have come from the space program? Jobs?
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replacing our archaic technology.
Step one would be replacing our current shuttle. Even if the plan to colonize Mars is scrapped for the next few decades, there is no reason to cancel the Constellation program.
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Sure there is, it is a total boondoggle to keep the shuttle contractors rolling in cash. A fresh design would have been something, not another shuttle derived POS.
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Really, unmanned missions bring the same amount of international prestige and goodwill as manned ones? I don't think so -- the United States gained more in this department from a handful of moon shots and space shuttle rides for friends/allies than it has from all the robotic missions combined.
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That is because they were huge firsts; a "leap for mankind". Another general maned mission to the moon or to earth orbit isn't.
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That is because they were huge firsts; a "leap for mankind". Another general maned mission to the moon or to earth orbit isn't.
And privatizing the whole thing is going to be worse. There's no short-term profit to be made in going into space or going to Mars/The Moon/Uranus, therefore why would any private organization risk the happiness of their shareholders by doing a project that has no payoff within the next year?
Colonizing Mars or the Moon probably wouldn't even be profitable for several decades. What company is going to take that ROI?
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What do we gain from manned space flight that we wouldn't gain, in a far cheaper way, from unmanned missions?
Colonization of other worlds is clearly impossible without manned flight.
Re:So... (Score:5, Insightful)
Colonization of other worlds is clearly impossible without manned flight.
Colonization of other worlds (which ones did you have in mind, by the way?) is clearly impossible without technologies that don't exist on Earth right now and won't exist for at least another few decades. Spending many billions of dollars on chemical rockets isn't going to get the job done.
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Colonization of other worlds is clearly impossible without manned flight.
Colonization of other worlds (which ones did you have in mind, by the way?) is clearly impossible without technologies that don't exist on Earth right now and won't exist for at least another few decades. Spending many billions of dollars on chemical rockets isn't going to get the job done.
Indeed, no question about that. But I could argue that putting a small, permanent, self-sustained human outpost on the Moon or Mars is possible with technologies currently available. Borderline possible, but still.
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Europa?
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yes it will.
If there isn't a continuous effort to put people on another planet, then we won't ever develop the technologies needed to do so.
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Wrong. Look up "The case for mars" by Zubrin.
Zubrin's Mars Direct program was estimated to cost $55B over 10 years [wikipedia.org], according to the Wikipedia article. Zubrin himself estimated at least $10B in The Case for Mars, if I recall correctly. I suspect both numbers are too low. In any case, it's well over a billion dollars per person using this approach.
Based on the other large-scale human migrations that have occurred in the past, a viable large-scale colonization effort to Mars will not occur until:
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Incorrect. Colonization of other worlds with an INSTANT human population is impossible without manned flight. Colonization via other longer term means can be done with several seeding launches.
Creating life forms that can thrive in the target environment is far easier than terraforming it. we just gotta wait for them to evolve and call home.
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Humans in space? Colonies on other worlds? Ending the cosmic equivalent of having all of our eggs in one basket? We're one natural disaster away from complete annhilation of our race. I'd kinda like to have at least a few people offworld just in case.
All this talk of "Unmanned missions are just as good!" is pretty unconvincing when reports come back that the latest rover mission may be failing because it's stuck on a 3 inch rock and can't wiggle it's way off . . .
Re:So... (Score:4, Insightful)
I wonder aloud if space exploration isn't an excuse not to fix the mess we've created here on good old planet Earth. I've read sci fi since I was a kid, and there's a lot of future scenarios where humans now live offwold because Earth died of this, or that or radiation in a post-nuclear holocaust, etc.
It's my personal belief that we have to fix the problems now, discuss them, and introduce population controls that cut down on resource damage until we can determine the nature of the problems we face (without glib one-liners).
What makes anyone think that subsequent out-migration to habitable planets will work, when we can't get this one right?
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They likely won't really work any better. Personally, I think shitty conditions are human nature. THAT's not what I'm worried about though. I'm moreso worried about the things out of our control. An asteroid/comet impact. A supervolcano. Things like that. Things that would wipe out a society regardless of how perfect it might be.
To put it into computer terms, no amount of debugging and coding guidelines are going to protect you from a disk crash (or a flood, fire, etc). You want your data to survive
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In that case, we as a race of beings is more like an infection for another world. Somehow, we'd survive.
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Assuming we do reach a stage where we can have a self sustaining environment here on Earth...suddenly all the horrid things that can happen to you here on Earth are no longer so important
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The idea is to spread humanity out to avoid extinction, not to have some sort of SimEarth-style mass exodus from this planet. Ideally, we should be focusing on space exploration AND trying to fix our problems here at home. Odds are good that the things we learn from one can be applied to the other at some point.
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Western civilization has basically reached a tipping point, an existential crisis, in which it finds itself unwilling to protect and preserve itself--much less advance--thanks to the adoption of a radical cultural and moral relativism which promotes protecting freedom from being offended and group rights over freedom of expression and individual rights.
haha. similar CRAP was said in the 20's, after WWII, after Disco.
It's meaningless blather of big words that makes you feel like you are saying something usef
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reports come back that the latest rover mission may be failing because it's stuck on a 3 inch rock and can't wiggle it's way off . . .
I think I read somewhere that the rovers accomplished in six years what an actual human geologists (or areologist in this case) could do in an afternoon. Robots are great, but they are very slow.
Re:So... (Score:5, Insightful)
That's funny, if we send humans to Mars that could be all the time they have to spend. Robots just need sunlight, we humans need much more logistical support. Robots also just need one way tickets.
Re:So... (Score:5, Interesting)
Give me a one-way ticket to Mars and I'd take it in a heartbeat. No joke.
I'm sure I'm not the only one who feels this way.
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Yes, but by the time honored catch-22, anyone who'd accept a one way ticket to Mars is not worth risking the price of a ticket on.
Re:So... (Score:4, Insightful)
All of *my* eggs will always be in one basket. It does me no damn good to have someone walking around on another planet. No, as cool as it is (and yes, it's very cool) it's a *massive* waste of money that could be redirected toward, oh, I don't know, science education, basic research grants, 10-times as many unmanned flights. Besides, the dangers inherent in manned flight hold us back from trying things. I mean, look at our early Mars record: we kept throwing things at Mars and only a few landed nicely. Eventually, we hit a couple jackpots with the current rovers. Prestige? Bullshit! Let's do some *real* science, damn it!!
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Just consider the logistics of getting humans to Mars and back again vs. the comparative ease of sending Spirit and Opportunity.
Now consider the expense of a manned mission to Mars, vs. more robots. For the cost of a human mission we could send thousands of disposable robots. Robots crawling all over Mars doing science and terraforming. Just imagine it! Think of the awesome amount of data we'd be streaming in.
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Natural disaster or man-made disaster? Because other than an asteroid hitting the planet, there isn't a natural disaster that would wipe out all life on this planet.
And FYI, we are nowhere near the cability to colonize another planet. Not now, nor within 100 years.
But hey tell the poor shrimper in New Orleans we need to spend Billions on NASA so that someday we can land a man on mars meanwhile we can't do a damn thing to stop BP's Oil spill from killing his shr
Re:So... (Score:5, Insightful)
Humans in space? Colonies on other worlds? Ending the cosmic equivalent of having all of our eggs in one basket? We're one natural disaster away from complete annhilation of our race. I'd kinda like to have at least a few people offworld just in case.
And we still would be if all we did was build a giant rocket that could, at best, send a handful of people to the moon or eventually Mars.
The technologies the new plan is set to develop much more directly tackle the issue of humans surviving -- not just visiting long enough to plant a flag, but actually surviving -- than Constellation does. Constellation does absolutely nothing but let us put more boot prints on the moon. Yay. When we finally decide to send astronauts to Mars, there should already be robotically assembled habitats and a factory processing ice for oxygen and fuel waiting for them. We should have everything in place so the astronauts can stay on Mars for a year, or even more. It should be the foundation for a permanent settlement on Mars.
If you're serious about this "eggs in one basket" problem, and are serious about humans permanently occupying other planets, then you should be all for the new NASA plan like Buzz Aldrin is. He wants a permanent base on Mars, not a boot-and-flag mission.
Manned missions for their own sake, or to try to recapture lost glory by repeating what we've already done, is just wankery.
All this talk of "Unmanned missions are just as good!" is pretty unconvincing when reports come back that the latest rover mission may be failing because it's stuck on a 3 inch rock and can't wiggle it's way off . . .
Yeah, only 6 years of nearly continuous operation on a budget that is comparable to a manned Low Earth Orbit mission, and vastly less than any manned mission to Mars would be, and where even the stuck rover can still perform useful science, surely shows how unconvincing the argument for robotic missions is.
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Experience to assist in the transition to humans living in space over the long term. Being stuck on this speck of dust called Earth is an evolutionary dead end.
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There has yet to be a rover created that can dupliate what a person can do.
You either get a lot of kit stuck onto an immovable lander or a little kit jimmyrigged into a tiny rover (that's barely mobile to begin with).
Re:So... (Score:4, Insightful)
dude, we are barely out of the stone age.
Just 100 years ago most homes did not have electricity or even indoor toilets. Hell we were barely out of the Renaissance era. WW-I did not start until 1914 and at the beginning it was incredibly low tech. Sword fighting was still taught to military personnel.
Honestly, Wait until 2110. WE will have full walking humanoid bots (which will be dumb, send a dog design, they are faster, more agile and capable of doing more.)
Cripes the technology changes over the past 10 years have been more than the past 100. Honestly launching delicate ugly bags of water into space is really dumb for real exploration.
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Just off the top of my head - medical advances based on the requirements for sending humans through space for a prolonged period of time. There are plenty of other spin-offs from the space program. I really shouldn't have to go into them to satisfy the willfully ignorant.
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Experience.
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Thank you!
Robot exploration, all the way. Think Spirit and Opportunity x 1000.
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Ahh yes, Spirit, the rover now stuck thanks to a half-inch of dust...
Re:So... (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm tired of this argument.
Part of what makes us human is our curiosity; the need to explore, to go and see what's on the other side of that mountain. We need a goal that's inspirational. Yeah, robots do great science, but they're not going to inspire a hell of a lot of people.
"Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, Or what's a heaven for?" -- Robert Browning
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Yeah, robots do great science, but they're not going to inspire a hell of a lot of people.
I've been far more inspired by what the Cassini probe has seen, or the Hubble Space Telescope has seen, or the Mars rovers has seen, than anything the manned space program has done in 40 years, or could do in the next 20. Nor would I be inspired at all by repeating what we did 40 years ago, just to prove we could.
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That's a ridiculous question, the article in which you are responding to suggests that Armstrong feels the same way.
Either way, no, it doesn't bother me that much. I'd much rather see the money pit that is our current space plan go into getting better schooling
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I'd much rather see the money pit that is our current space plan go into getting better schooling
Opposed to the money pit that is the IRS, National Defense budget, etc.?
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We already spend more per capita on education than any other country, so I don't think throwing more money at that "money pit" is going to do any good.
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I'd much rather see the money pit that is our current space plan go into getting better schooling
Why do you assume the problem with our educational system is a lack of money? Washington DC spends more per student than any other "state" but has one of the worst public school systems. Perhaps the problems with our schools have something to do with misplaced priorities (we spend more money on "special needs" kids than the gifted kids that will actually be running this country in a generation), an entrenched culture that's resistant to change and the intrusion of politics from all levels of government in
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Those gifted kids will not be running the country ever, that kind of power is inherited or gained through connections not being gifted. Gifted kids will do fine anyway, why spend even more on them? If anything get them out of highschool and on to real education as fast as possible.
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Perhaps if the teachers unions were willing to part with some of their plush benefits that no other industry receives (what other job can you work in and have a lifetime guarantee that nothing short of felony conviction can get you fired?) the public would be willing to pay them more money.
I would have no objection to teachers making six digits or more if they operated under the same reality as the rest of us. If I do a shitty job I can be fired. If a tenured teacher does a shitty job she gets to keep on
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Me personally, I give a flying fuck about space. (For now, and here's why)
We're fighting 2 wars we can't win due to the rules of engagement and the enemy's "tactics".
We're HUGELY in debt, each and every one of us.
The government's solution is to spend even more fucking money.
So yeah, Space can piss off right now, IMO. Let some other fucking country "take the lead" while we fix this broken fucking country.
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Yes, and unmanned drones are how we will maintain air superiority. We can lead just as effectively with unmanned space exploration.
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We can lead just as effectively with unmanned space exploration.
Until the rover gets stuck in a sand pit, or the 8 minute delay between the controllers and the rover causes them to drive into a ravine on accident.
Don't try to substitute human instinct with a machine.
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We can't win those wars without killing everything in those nations. Afghanistan is a joke to even try to conquer, not even the soviets who wanted to kill everyone could do it.
Re:So... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:So... (Score:4, Informative)
He's not killing NASA, he's increased their budget by quite a bit.
He's only killing NASA's next shuttle plan (and the plan to go to Mars), something they had been working on since their current one began falling apart and proving to be obsolete. FTFA:
Neil Armstrong has renewed his criticism of Barack Obama's space vision, insisting that the president's decision to scrap Constellation and head off to Mars was "poorly advised".
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"He's only killing NASA's next shuttle plan (and the plan to go to Mars), something they had been working on since their current one began falling apart and proving to be obsolete. "
you mean the one that doesn't work because non engineers keep fiddling with the goals?
yeah, scrap it. Start new. Sorry, sometimes that happens when engineering.
Re:So... (Score:5, Informative)
Obama didn't kill NASA, he killed Ares which from what I've seen, wasn't going very well. It's sad that 40 years after we got to the moon the first time, we haven't made much progress in developing a good vehicle to return. Not that the moon is really where we should be going at this point. The asteroids and Mars are better targets due to their long term potential to fuel space based industry and such. NASA needs to go a different direction than it was if we are to have any progress. NASA should be focusing on operations farther out from Earth like Mars, the asteroids etc not a taxi service to LEO.
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Of all the things that Obama is doing, am I the only one who feels that him killing NASA really struck a nerve? It's literally the only thing he's done that made my blood boil.
'Killing NASA'? You know what makes my blood boil over this is people who act like they know what they're talking about. Obama has not 'killed NASA' - he's increased their budget. One thing he HAS done is killed a ridiculous program started by Bush. While I'm not a big fan of Obama's support for NASA in general, Constellation was a ba
Re:So... (Score:5, Insightful)
Killing NASA by increasing its budget certainly counts as change though. Most of the earlier presidents focused on improving NASA by decreasing its budget.
Re:So... (Score:5, Informative)
Of all the things that Obama is doing, am I the only one who feels that him killing NASA really struck a nerve? It's literally the only thing he's done that made my blood boil.
He's not killing NASA. Far from it, in fact. From TFA:
Obama just wants to terminate one particular project that he feels is going nowhere and has become a money sink. You may disagree with his decision but it's still not "killing NASA."
Killing NASA? I think not. (Score:5, Informative)
The new plan is the best chance NASA has had in a long time to get back on its feet and stop languishing in LEO. Developing the higher technology needed to go beyond LEO and the moon is what NASA should be concentrating on. Let commercial companies deliver stuff to ISS and LEO.
(One a side note, it seems to me that almost everyone who hates Obama's plan forgets that there would have been just as long, if not longer, gap in US human spaceflight ability WITH constellation. We're not exactly losing a whole lot by giving commercial companies time to produce their human ferrying ability, as opposed to giving NASA time to work on Ares-1)
With NASA buying rides at a few tens of millions each vs. billion+ per launch [wikipedia.org] there will be a lot more money for accomplishing things besides putting stuff into orbit on a rocket with a NASA logo on it.
So I'm all for the new plan. My biggest worry is that congress will screw up the whole thing trying to protect their pork.
bzzzt ... try again (Score:3, Insightful)
him killing NASA really struck a nerve
Except that he isn't killing NASA. If you RTFA you'll see that his proposal is for NASA to go to Mars, and get out of the business of low-earth lifting.
In other words, he is supporting the outsourcing of some of what NASA currently does. Why his predecessor didn't propose the same is beyond me.
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I think you're too quick to judge based off of one comment. I have been unhappy with all of those things, but I saw them as business as usual. He's constantly been reinforcing the thought that I regret even thinking that he would be different than all the others.
I was proven wrong within his first few months of office. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
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To not be redundant, see http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1651226&cid=32196864 [slashdot.org].
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No, you are modded down because you are a Limbaugh listening nutcase.
You get your facts from a drug addict, who is also a nutcase. I know I listened to him before for laughs on a long drives.
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For those who are unaware, the Constitution gives very limited and specific rights to Congress.
Yes, Article 1, Section 8.
Of course, it also spells out very limited and specific things Congress can NOT do in Article 1, Section 9.
Plus there's that troublesome general welfare clause.
Course, I'm guessing you're a strict constitutionalist, so you would not be opposed to, say, abolishing the FDA?
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If someone landed on the moon and found no evidence, it would mean that either
a) they were looking in the wrong spot or
b) somebody beat them to it without anyone knowing and stole the evidence that has already been seen by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and other countries' observations, or
c) something even weirder happened to the landing sites, possibly involving aliens, wormholes, and time paradoxes.
Seriously. The idea that there is no direct evidence of the moon landings and we can't be sure they happ
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The GP was a troll, crafting a fake "liberal" outrage in order to evoke precisely your emotional response. Congratulations, you and the person who modded you insightful bought it hook, line and sinker. You need to stop watching Fox News because this administration has not once called anyone who disagrees with it a racist. Some people have actually said a lot of the criticism of the adminstration is racist in origin, but I can
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Call me a radical if you like, but I believe in sticking to principals, not parties. I didn't like the Patriot Act under Bush. I dislike it even more under Obama. And this concept of no fundamental right to privacy of location? Starting to sound like Nixon and J Edgar Hoover spying to me. And this modification of Miranda rights for US Citizens? ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! Where is the ACLU?