“Explore or Expire”

“Explore or Expire”
The Lunacy of no Luna Base!
A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet

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The Russians are going to the moon. The Chinese are going to the moon. The Japanese are going to the moon. The Indians are going to the moon. The US is not going to the moon.

Historian Stephen J. Pyne said the following: "Exploration is a specific invention of specific civilizations conducted at specific historical times. It is not ... a universal property of all human societies. Not all cultures have explored or even traveled widely. Some have been content to exist in xenophobic isolation."

When future historians look back at America’s decision to curtail its exploration of space, they will surely shake their heads in disbelief. Will they compare the US to the ancient Chinese who sailed unknown seas (seven decades before Columbus’ trek to the New World) to discover and explore the eastern coast of Africa -- then went home and walled themselves off from the rest of the world? I suspect they will. I just did.

Back in 1979 James Michener, in testimony before a U.S. Senate subcommittee, said: "We should be most careful about retreating from the specific challenge of our age. We should be reluctant to turn our back upon the frontier of this epoch... We cannot be indifferent to space, because the grand slow march of our intelligence has brought us, in our generation, to a point from which we can explore and understand and utilize it. To turn back now would be to deny our history, our capabilities."

In an article in Redbook, as far back as 1969, Anthropologist Margaret Mead said: "Many people are shrinking from the future and from participation in the movement toward a new, expanded reality. And, like homesick travelers abroad, they are focusing their anxieties on home. The reasons are not far to seek. We are at a turning point in human history... We could turn our attention to the problems that going to the moon certainly will not solve ... But I think this would be fatal to our future... A society that no longer moves forward does not merely stagnate; it begins to die."

I must ask: What has happened to America’s “vision?” What has happened to our spirit of discovery? Where are America’s leaders with vision?

Look at how our horizons have shrunk. We are turning in on ourselves. We cannot survive as a people. The Bible tells us bluntly: “… without vision, the people perish.”

It concerns me to think that future generations will look back on America’s decision to curtail, even withdraw from, the exploration of space as a national failure. There is no other way to look at it. We are blowing the opportunity we have here, at the opening of the 21st century, to move out into space.

I remain convinced today, as I was as a young man, that man’s destiny lies in the stars, in distant universes and galaxies.

There is a yearning, deep within the human animal, to “discover.” Our little planet is floating in a huge sea of “undiscovered countries.” Given the opportunity, I would happily sign on as a “hand” on a ship of discovery to distant worlds. Why? Just to see what is there, to learn, to explore, and to experience any unspoiled regions of man’s reach.

"The urge to explore has propelled evolution since the first water creatures reconnoitered the land. Like all living systems, cultures cannot remain static; they evolve or decline. They explore or expire... Beyond all rationales, space flight is a spiritual quest in the broadest sense, one promising a revitalization of humanity and a rebirth of hope no less profound than the great opening out of mind and spirit at the dawn of our modern age." -- Astronaut Buzz Aldrin, "From the Moon to the Millennium,” Albuquerque Tribune, 1999

America cannot remain static in the exploration of space. Doing so will only induce a national “shriveling-up” of the most splendid society ever to grace this tiny planet. We dare not take our eyes off the stars.

"There is no way back into the past; the choice, as (H.G.) Wells once said, is the universe--or nothing. Though men and civilizations may yearn for rest, for the dream of the lotus-eaters, that is a desire that merges imperceptibly into death. The challenge of the great spaces between the worlds is a stupendous one; but if we fail to meet it, the story of our race will be drawing to its close." -- Arthur C. Clarke, Interplanetary Flight, 1950

Earth is America’s footstool. We have only to reach out from here, to grasp and secure within our arms, the future of all mankind, which lies out there.

The moon? The moon is only a “way station.”

There is no doubt in my mind that man will move out and open the frontier we call space. I have no doubt that mankind will eventually colonize planets other than earth. I have no doubt that movement has already begun. The vanguard is already probing “near-space.” What troubles me, and raises my ire, is the fact that my America is not at the spear point of that vanguard! I must ask why? The only conclusion I can reasonably formulate is this: America’s lack of leadership. There is a void at the top. America is in desperate need of leaders with vision. Without it, we will surely perish.

J. D. Longstreet

The New Phoenix Rises ... by J. D. Longstreet

The New Phoenix Rises
A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet
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There was a time in America, not so long ago, when we had white people, black people, brown people, yellow people, etc. We had men and women. We had healthy people and we had sick people and we had handicapped people.

We had smart people and we had dumb people. We had retarded people and we had normal people.

We had queers and homosexuals and but we had no gay and lesbian people.

We had truth and we had the lie.

We had people who loved America and people who hated America. There was no “in-between”.

We had Republicans and Democrats and no Independents. We had conservatives and liberals. We did not have moderates.

Well, what happened? Answer: World War Two!

“What’s World War Two got to do with it,” you may ask? Glad you asked. It has everything to do with the mess we find ourselves in here in America today.

Our US troops who fought in Europe, and were stationed there after the war, brought something back from Europe that was, up ‘til that time, alien to America. In those days it was called “Moral Relativism.” Simply defined it says there are no absolutes. There is no absolutely black and there is no absolutely white. There is no absolute truth and there is no absolute lie.

Now, this was like a bombshell going off in America. Those of religious faith saw it instantly for what it was. The GREAT LIE!

The pointy-head elites, in the northeastern states, and the university academia, saw instantly a way to cover all the things they wanted to do and say with cloak of moral relativism. And they took it up and reveled in it. They began to teach it to our kids. Then those kids became elementary and high schoolteachers themselves… and they, too, taught it to our kids and their kids.

It is not accidental that those on the left side of the political spectrum in America came so quickly to adopt Moral Relativism. You see… they WERE the university elite. Someone has said recently, it is now a part of the DNA of the political left and the Democrat Party.

Nowadays, Moral Relativism is known as Political Correctness. No matter what it is called it is still the most effective way to live a lie and sell that life style to others.

When I was a boy, America was referred to as a great Melting Pot. People from all over the world would come to America and melt right into the unique American society and culture. Sometimes it took one, or even two, generations to make the cycle complete but they worked at it. And it made America strong.

Then, the left came up with something called “Multiculturalism”. Basically, that is to say that any and all cultures are as good as ours. (When we had a unique American Culture. And for those of you too young to remember… we did have our own culture!) The breakdown of American society, and culture, began at that moment. The political left began to foist their plan to no longer have a single American culture but a vast array of cultures from all the peoples who had come here to ostensively become Americans.

It was kind of cute at first, the gay colors of the Hispanic peoples and their holidays… and the October fest of the Germans, and the Irish holidays, and the various other cultural celebrations of the host of other peoples in America. Then it became sinister. That unique American culture began to be absorbed into the multitude of other cultures. Now, for all intents and purposes, the American culture is gone. And with it went the identity of the American people.

And then came the icing on the cake: Diversity.

Ever since there has been marriage, a man and a woman deciding to live together and create a family… man has needed, from time to time, to get away from the little woman.

You have to understand, men are barbarians. We can’t help it, that’s the way Nature made us and we will never be house broken. Even in the pre-Columbian days of the Native Americans, on this continent, the tribes had their “Man’s House”. Even then, the men needed to get away. It’s not that the man loved or respected the woman any the less; he just needed to let the beast out for a while. He could not, and cannot, do that in a domesticated setting.

For a very long time, the work place served as the man’s retreat. Then the feminist movement came along and women decided they could have it all… including the heart attacks, ulcers, nervous breakdowns, alcoholism and everything that goes with the workplace, and they chose that over their families. The invasion on the man’s retreat was on and it was overwhelming.

The office known as “Personnel” was suddenly changed to “Human Resources” and diversity in the workplace was near complete.

But… not quite so in American society. The Military was next. Man’s last retreat from curtains and all forms of domesticity was invaded and defeated. Again In the name of diversity.

Now, diversity and multiculturalism feed off each other and they both feed off Political Correctness. How is that, you may ask?

Well, if we clear the fog of political correctness away for a brief moment, we can see that multiculturalism is bad for the country. It has robbed us of our identity. Diversity has robbed us of our homes and families… and robbed us of our places in society. Male and female have morphed into one sex now. And again, we have lost our identity. Even the forced injection of different races into each other’s cultures, in the name of diversity, has robbed all races of their distinct identity. So we come up with hyphenated names to try to identify who we are. But… it doesn’t work.

Why can’t we see this? Because Political Correctness has laid the cloak of the Big Lie over everything and we dare not question any of it because that would be… you guessed it… Politically Incorrect.

And so… we are lost. We don’t know who we are anymore, we don’t know where we are anymore, and we don’t even know how we got here.

So how can we change it? We can’t. You can’t unring a bell. You cannot re-institute virginity. We’re stuck!

The US has succumbed to that fatal disease which strikes all great nations and brings them their knees. Guilt.

I mean, heck, we can’t even fight a successful war anymore for fear that we will hurt the enemy. And we feel guilty for, well, something or other. The left will certainly fill in the blank for us.

Certainly we can take a tip from our founders, those 102 frightened, but determined, souls who left their country in search of a new beginning.

Like the Pilgrims we are going to have to leave and begin anew. Where, you may ask? Antarctica? Hardly. I would point in one direction. Straight up. Our destiny lies out there … among the stars.

Since government can’t afford to fund a colonization program, it will have to be private enterprise, which comes up with the money, the will, and the way. And do not kid yourselves; they are hard at work on plans for such a venture right now.

In the past 2 decades or so, I have become increasingly dissatisfied with the nearness of our horizons. We have become fat, lazy, and satisfied. The wanderlust is gone. The curiosity to learn what lies over the next hill has diminished. And THAT, Dear Reader, is a death sentence to any society. To paraphrase the scriptures “Without a vision, the people perish.” Our vision is gone.

Well that’s not ENTIRELY true. Some, among us, cling to the vision of spreading our collective wings and soaring into the universe. Some of us believe it is our destiny. And, as we look around us, some of us believe it is our salvation as well.

Rising from its own ashes like the mythological Phoenix bird, man will eventually have no choice left him. As our freedoms erode almost daily, it seems, the urge to break the bonds of an overpowering government fuel the desire to escape, to move on, and to seek a new home in the vastness of the last frontier where man can once again flourish in the restoration of the freedom he is being denied by overpowering governments such as the socialist government America is burdened with at the beginning of this 21st century. No matter what, Man will be free even if it requires leaving the only home he has known in search of distant lands, on distant worlds, in the immeasurable vastness of what we call Space.

J. D. Longstreet