Where Do We Draw The Line?

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Originally Posted by thebigspendur

There are many many things that are important and we use in our daily lives that came out of the space program. If a private outfit had been doing everything all those inventions would either have been salted away and kept secret of sold off to the highest bidder and all the products would cost multiples of what they do now. That's how private industry works.

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Products such as?

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Originally Posted by honedright

Products such as?

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Space food sticks. Duh!

James.

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Originally Posted by Jimbo

Space food sticks. Duh!

James.

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Oh, right.

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Originally Posted by honedright

Products such as?

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Mobile Intensive Care Units.

Computers.

Integrated circuits.

Inertial Navigation.

Just to name a tiny fraction.

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Originally Posted by Crotalus

Mobile Intensive Care Units.

Computers.

Integrated circuits.

Inertial Navigation.

Just to name a tiny fraction.

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Aren't many, if not all, of those products being produced by private industry today? The cost for computers has dropped dramatically since I bought my first about 20 years ago. Televisions, which utilize integrated circuits, continue to increase in size and quality while decreasing in cost. I remember the first cellular telephones in the 90's, a Motorola flip phone cost over a thousand dollars then, today flip phones are the cheapies at a fraction of their former price.

Seems to me that private industry has, to the contrary of an earlier post, made products cheaper, (not more expensive), better, and more available to everyone.

Besides, the federal government has no legitimate reason to be involved in product research and development.

One of the keys to this thread is the issue of legitimacy. The federal government has several enumerated and legitimate responsibilities. There are many more roles that the federal government has taken on that are illegitimate pursuant to the constitution.

A good question to consider: does consensus equal legitimacy? In other words, if everyone agreed that it was OK to steal, would that make it alright? Everyone seems to think that social security is a legitimate function of the feds, when anyone who takes a close honest look at SS can see, regardless of it's original intent, that SS, as it functions today, is nothing more, or less, than a Ponzi scheme. The SS check you collect today came from the paycheck of someone else. Theft by consensus? Seems to be. Legitimate? Does the end justify the means? I doubt it.

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Originally Posted by honedright

A good question to consider: does consensus equal legitimacy? In other words, if everyone agreed that it was OK to steal, would that make it alright?

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You are mixing up morality with legality. Of course, if everyone (but you can do it with much fewer people too) agrees that it is OK to steal it could be made perfectly legal. In fact many forms of stealing are already legalized.
Perhaps you ought to hire better lobbyists, then you'd know it can be done and how good it is...

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Originally Posted by gugi

You are mixing up morality with legality. Of course, if everyone (but you can do it with much fewer people too) agrees that it is OK to steal it could be made perfectly legal. In fact many forms of stealing are already legalized.
Perhaps you ought to hire better lobbyists, then you'd know it can be done and how good it is...

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I'm not mixing up morality with legality, it is the corruption in our society that is driving the two farther apart.

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Originally Posted by honedright

Aren't many, if not all, of those products being produced by private industry today? The cost for computers has dropped dramatically since I bought my first about 20 years ago. Televisions, which utilize integrated circuits, continue to increase in size and quality while decreasing in cost. I remember the first cellular telephones in the 90's, a Motorola flip phone cost over a thousand dollars then, today flip phones are the cheapies at a fraction of their former price.

Seems to me that private industry has, to the contrary of an earlier post, made products cheaper, (not more expensive), better, and more available to everyone.

Besides, the federal government has no legitimate reason to be involved in product research and development.

One of the keys to this thread is the issue of legitimacy. The federal government has several enumerated and legitimate responsibilities. There are many more roles that the federal government has taken on that are illegitimate pursuant to the constitution.

A good question to consider: does consensus equal legitimacy? In other words, if everyone agreed that it was OK to steal, would that make it alright? Everyone seems to think that social security is a legitimate function of the feds, when anyone who takes a close honest look at SS can see, regardless of it's original intent, that SS, as it functions today, is nothing more, or less, than a Ponzi scheme. The SS check you collect today came from the paycheck of someone else. Theft by consensus? Seems to be. Legitimate? Does the end justify the means? I doubt it.

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Private industry invented all those products under contract to NASA. NASA put a man on the moon, not for research, but to demonstrate to the Russians that we were ahead of them in missile technology so they better not try to nuke us. That sounds like a legitimate government function.

Yes, SS is a Ponzi scheme. The same thing that other people go to prison for.

Martha Stewart was put in jail for the same thing our Congressmen do, insider trading.

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Originally Posted by honedright

And with the value of silver going up, based on your post, I'd bet you'll be first in line for your next 30 pieces.

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Well done.

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Originally Posted by Crotalus

NASA put a man on the moon, not for research, but to demonstrate to the Russians that we were ahead of them in missile technology so they better not try to nuke us. That sounds like a legitimate government function.

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Yeah, but all the Russians had to do was worry about delivering a payload to the U.S. not the moon. I'm not knocking the technological achievement of landing on the moon, but isn't that kinda like swatting a fly with an atom bomb? We could have used a cheaper way to intimidate them. And we're still funding NASA well beyond that purpose.

And, there's really nothing in Article 1 section 8 of the Constitution that provides congress the power to collect taxes for the purpose of intimidating the enemy, unless you really stretch it.