(Note: While science and sci-fi writing motivated this post, some readers might find the following material offensive. Tough.)

The U.S. president wanted a Space Force. The U.S. military capitulated. And the U.S. Congress gave it to him on December 20. Sounds neat. Does it make sense?

Traditionally the USAF took care of most things happening above the Earth’s surface, including spy satellites and whatever secret weapons are up there (yep, and they’re just as dangerous as the U.N.’s black helicopters that will invade the U.S.). Astronauts have generally been a mix of USAF and Navy pilots, discounting civilian scientists, so there was already a lot of overlap with other services. And the U.S. NASA wasn’t above getting into the militaristic aspects either. So forget tradition. Maybe we should call a spade a spade? The military is in space, so maybe we should admit it and wrap it up in one tidy package?

Is there some savings to be had? Even if the answer were yes, that’s probably not an argument most reasonable persons would make…or believe. The current administration will have created a trillion dollar U.S. debt very soon, so what’s a few more dollars here and there? A precedent might be the moving of the Coast Guard into Homeland Security, but the creation of Homeland Security also increased federal bureaucracy and incompetence (not to mention murderous enforcement on the southern border where thousand of illegals are invading). Maybe they should have put anything to do with protecting the U.S., including what’s now in Space Force, into Homeland Security? Isn’t Space Force about protecting the homeland and not invading ETs or killer asteroids? U.S. of A., uber alles!

Bigger isn’t necessarily better. Smaller isn’t either. (Seems like the Goldilocks Principle needs to be applied here, but the Pentagon’s good ole boys would never listen to a girl.) And where does the Earth’s atmosphere become space? Where does it end and space start? I can’t wait for scramjet technology, where intercontinental flights hop and skip across the atmosphere, going from the USAF’s domain to the USSF’s and back. Who will have authority over those flights? Or might that be the FSA (not to be confused with the Russian equivalent of the FBI) instead of the FAA?

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I’m expecting a bloodbath in the EPA, NASA, NOAA and possibly other agencies as Mr. Trump wages war on the environment. Many employees there are civil service, but that might not stop Il Duce AKA Narcissus le Grand—he’ll just close down the agencies if he wants to get rid of them. The EPA, NASA, and NOAA are where many of those “bad scientists” can be found who disagree with the GOP claim that climate control and taking care of the environment have low priority. Narcissus le Grand even believes global warming is a hoax.

What’s driving all this is Trump’s desire to end all environmental regulations so that companies, his included, can pollute and destroy the environment as much as they want, a particularly virulent and dangerous example of capitalism without controls. Even now, they ship high-tech toxic waste and other crap to places like Bangladesh. Il Duce and his minions probably think it would be cheaper just to dump it somewhere in the U.S. How ‘bout not doing it at all?!

Disasters like that BP oil well in the Gulf, destruction of the Great Barrier Reef, poisoning wells and water supplies—those kinds of things are just part of doing business, according to Trump and his cronies. He names Pruitt to head the EPA and one of the gnome’s first public acts is to deny the role of CO2 in global warming. C’mon!

Many scientists are worried. A week before Il Duce’s inauguration, more than 250 volunteers met at UPenn for a two-day binge of downloading climate data and storing it on independent servers. “If you don’t want to do anything about climate change,” said Texas A&M atmospheric scientist Andrew Dessler, “you are in a stronger position if you get rid of the data.” Gretchen Goldman, research director for the Center of Science and Democracy at the Union of Concerned Scientists said, “With a president who doesn’t respect scientific information, one abuse could be data mysteriously disappearing from websites, or government scientific websites may suddenly have misinformation.” Most of the data that was saved was from NOAA, EPA, DoE, and NASA.

One of those infamous executive orders from Narcissus le Grand could restrict data access from outside the U.S. Trump’s evil minions are already talking about clamping down on the internet and allowing service providers to have multi-tier systems—that’s been on the GOP hit list for some time. And shortly after the inauguration, Trump ordered the EPA to delete climate change pages from the EPA’s website, but he then backtracked on that order when the roars of protest became deafening. The order for EPA scientists and other agencies’ scientists not to post on social media or communicate with reporters still stands, though. Inside the agencies that do climate-related research, Goldman says “morale is low. People are scared.” Scared for their jobs, because Il Duce likes to fire people who disagree with him!

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There’s a lot of non-productive whining and misdirected finger pointing by defeated Dems still going on, considering that an arrogant HRC campaign simply dropped the ball, as well as non-justified chest thumping by certain knuckle-dragging GOP members, considering Trump had almost 3 million fewer votes than HRC. Both sides were ready to use the Electoral College to their advantage. Now one side abhors it and the other lauds the wisdom of the Founding Fathers for creating it. Those old colonists weren’t stupid, but many fixtures of U.S. representative democracy, like representative democracy everywhere, are flawed or out-of-date or just plain wrong.

That said, I thought I’d have fun reminding readers of this blog about a famous sci-fi master’s take on “democratic institutions.” Unlike John Galt’s overbearing and over-verbose multipage oration in Atlas Shrugged (parodied in The Midas Bomb), the old revolutionary Bernardo de la Paz’s speech in Heinlein’s The Moon is a Harsh Mistress mixes a lot of keen observation about human nature and plain common sense to express in a few pages some interesting ideas. Heinlein, like a few sci-fi writers (but not yours truly), has been considered a Libertarian (Hogan, Niven, and Pournelle are others). The ideas expressed in these pages would never be in that third party’s platform, though.

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Does anyone else see the hypocrisy in Mr. Obama’s trip to Hiroshima? Or, at least the irony? OK, as a guy who wordsmiths full-time now, what the president said is both ironic and hypocritical. His basic message was that everyone has to work toward a nuke-free world. No apology for dropping the bomb (more on this later), but that message was clear. It was hypocritical because the U.S. isn’t doing that, and it’s ironic if Mr. Obama really knows he’s being hypocritical.

The nuclear powers of the world—and they include Israel—don’t want others to join that exclusive club. Their nukes allow them to strut and posture instead of walking softly, and to wave a very big stick to the rest of the world. If you assume that their arrogance is accompanied by restraint, that’s OK, but that’s quite an assumption. The Cold War avoided nuclear Armageddon only because the sticks of the two parties guaranteed a no-win situation—both the U.S. and U.S.S.R. would have been destroyed.

That was a precarious situation, as the Cuban Missile Crisis showed. While that balancing act still continues with a shriveled Russia taking the place of the U.S.S.R., there are other states who can shake the stick—Israel, in spite of denials, has nukes, and that psychotic despot in North Korea is starving his people so he can shake that stick too. Iran was going down that road. It’s not clear that a détente between two theocracies in the Middle East, Iran and Israel, would be a good thing—Israel has shown some restraint, but Iran is unpredictable.

The Iran/Israel case also reflects U.S. hypocrisy. Jump on Iran for the good of peace in the Middle East? What about jumping on Israel? They’re both theocracies, and the current leaders of Israel often seem just as conservative as the Ayatollahs. There’s probably a guilt trip lurking in the background here. The predominantly Christian West, sitting between Judaism and Islam historically for the most part, would just toss a coin—again from the religious point of view—if it weren’t for guilt about the Holocaust.

Of course, I’m even wrong treating the Jewish Holocaust as unique. The Armenian Holocaust occurred earlier (World War One era, not World War Two–Germany just incurred the wrath of the Turks by calling it a holocaust) and others have occurred too—Cambodia and Yugoslavia, to name a few. Even the U.S. interned presumed enemies, Japanese-Americans during World War Two. All this was terrible; none of it is unique because human beings do terrible things to other human beings en masse on a regular basis.

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It seems every GOP presidential candidate now has a tax reform plan.  Guess who it favors?  Their reforms are all various schemes for shell games designed to redistribute wealth from the middle class to the wealthy, of course.  No one wants to tax the poor because even the GOP knows you can’t squeeze blood from a stone (of course, they still won’t raise the minimum wage either).  But at least the GOP is up front about enriching the elites and robbing the middle class.  The Dems just might be worse because they blather double-speak about helping the middle class out but are beholding to the rich and their special interest groups and lobbyists.  Only Bernie Sanders has eschewed the largesse of the rich elites.  I wonder how long he’ll last.

Wealth redistribution via taxes is insidious.  First, there’s the infamous payroll tax.  If you’re receiving wages from a company or the government, you’re taxed.  But many members of the rich elites pay less tax than you do because of loopholes and other ways accessible to them because they are NOT on a payroll.  Even a poor fast food worker receives a paycheck that has state and local and often city taxes deducted.  S/he might get it all back at the end of the year, but meanwhile s/he’s giving a zero-interest loan to the U.S. government.  And none of this discussion considers percentages.  They’re completely skewed to favor those payroll workers making lots of money, like in high tech.  And don’t forget FICA.  There’s a cutoff for that.  Eliminate it, and Social Security and Medicare would never have any problems keeping up with retirees!

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I guess the Donald believes the adage “Any PR is good PR” (“the Donald” is the New Yorkers’ nickname for real estate mogul Donald Trump, who has his eye set on owning the White House—and turning it into a casino?)  As of today (7/21), he’s leading the other GOP presidential hopefuls in a poll taken after the anti-Mexican immigrant spiel but before the attack on John McCain.  Maybe that will change.  But the GOP has to be careful.  If Trump the Chump leaves the GOP to form a third party, they’re setting themselves up as victims for the third party jinx.  It’s probably more beneficial for them to leave him alone because he makes the other fifteen clowns almost look sane.

Of course, Trump is appealing to the dark side of the GOP with his anti-Mexican immigrant comments.  It’s clear a lot of frustrated, angry people blame immigrants, legal or otherwise, for all their financial woes.  “What the hell?” they say.  “I join a union that’s supposed to protect me, and if the company doesn’t ship my job overseas, they give it to some damn immigrant who’s not even American.”  Never mind that the immigrant works harder for less and is often exploited.  Never mind that the immigrant actually knows how his government functions when s/he becomes a citizen.  Never mind that the immigrants’ sons and daughters go overseas to fight for this country when Trump took five deferments.  Never mind that the disgruntled worker’s family tree contains members who were also immigrants at one time (the only native American is a Native American!)  Every political hack knows how to hide her/his failings by creating a scapegoat and pointing the finger.  And Trump is a political hack.

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At the time I’m beginning to write this post, a carrier battle group is headed for Yemen’s coast to enforce a blockade against Irani ships attempting to help Yemen’s rebels.  Why?  They’re supporting Saudi Arabia’s bombing of said rebels.  The Saudis announced they were going to stop but the bombing continues.  One problem?  Saudi Arabia is NOT our friend, and Iran is NOT our friend.  Second problem?  This is an internecine dust-up between Sunnis and Shi’ites, so what the hell do we think we’re doing taking sides in a religious war?  Third problem?  Al Qaeda in Yemen has been a severe thorn in our sides for a long time, so who cares if the Shi’ites wipe those particular Sunnis out?

The details: (1) Saudi Arabian royalty, in order to save their well-padded asses, have been walking a tightrope for decades, pretending to be our friends while supporting the Saudi religious schools that instill hatred and produced Sunni jihadists like bin Laden and the 9/11 terrorists.  Why do you think members of the royal family fled the U.S. after 9/11?  Washington knew and still knows, at least in intelligence circles, that Saudis are duplicitous scoundrels.  They don’t want Shi’ites nipping at their backsides in Yemen and probably are rooting for ISIS in their war against Iran-supported regimes like Hassad’s because the ISIS monsters are, after all, Sunnis.  They might be supporting ISIS too; they’ve certainly supported al Qaeda, that terrorist group that now seems tame in comparison to the crazy ISIS wild boars.  For the Saudis, the only good Shi’ite is a dead Shi’ite.

Point (2): How ironic is it that Iran wants to end economic sanctions while at the same time striking out against Sunnis in Yemen?  They and their brethren are the flip side of the Saudis: for them the only good Sunni is a dead Sunni.  Makes me wonder if this internecine battle between rival Muslim sects isn’t all about greed and power and exterminating anyone who disagrees with their warped versions of Islam.  No, not wonder.  Call it bringing out this Hatfields v. McCoy’s battle into the open.  The Palestinian problem, that justifiable desire for a Palestinian state, has receded to the point where it’s become irrelevant to everyone in the region except Israelis and Palestinians, notwithstanding Netanyahu’s stupid ploys to guarantee his survival by painting it as something else.  Instead of sending our sailors into harm’s way, we should just tell the Supreme Leader of Iran’s floundering theocracy to cease and desist, or all talks about lifting economic sanctions are off.

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[I apologize to my friends on Facebook, where I usually share these posts.  Facebook has made it impossible to share.  You can follow me on Google+.  I recommend cancelling your Facebook accounts and creating Google+ accounts, if you haven’t already.]

While drone surveillance and attacks and Special Ops are a better military solution than “boots on the ground,” there’s no doubt that ISIS, al Qaeda, the Taliban, and other terrorist groups will only be defeated if the countries affected wage effective war against these militant Islamic groups.  The key word is “effective.”  Remember that ISIS received a big boost when poorly trained Iraqi forces ran for their lives, often in their underwear—equipment left behind, much of it American, is now in ISIS’ hands.  That has to stop.  Western presence is justified there for equipping and training local forces so that these fiascos aren’t repeated.

That said, the West isn’t doing nearly enough to hurt these groups where it’s most effective—financially and personnel-wise.  I’m reminded of World War Two where indifference, peaceniks, and anti-Semitic sentiments conspired to give Hitler a free hand in Europe.  We don’t need another Vietnam, Iraq, or Afghanistan, but we shouldn’t bury our heads in the sand either and hope Islamic nations will destroy the extremists in their midst without our help.  The recent Twitter action, for example, while a good start, is a drop in the bucket.  The West needs a concerted effort to stop all finances flowing into the illegal insurgent groups.  Funds must be frozen and their propaganda machine must be dismantled.  We can be good at that, and it’s the least we can do.

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I was recently encouraged by NASA’s decision to use Space-X and Boeing to send astronauts to the International Space Station.  You might say, “Well, you’re a sci-fi writer, so I’m not surprised!”  Yes indeed, I have written a few sci-fi stories.  I also write suspenseful thrillers and mysteries.  Only one of my stories takes place on ISS (The Secret Lab), so I don’t have any particular agenda.  In fact, I’ve conjectured that the Chinese will make it to Mars first (see Survivors of the Chaos).  Cancelling the Shuttle Program only convinced me more.

I’m encouraged for two reasons.  The first is that it’s high time capitalism goes into space.  I’m talking good capitalism here, the kind that improves products and services and increases the inventive spirit through healthy competition.  Changing the slogan “We have to beat the Russians to the moon!” to “We Space-X engineers and scientists have to beat Boeing’s” is a positive development.  The more competitors, the merrier, I say, as long as there are enough oversight and control to keep things like o-ring mishaps to a minimum (does that company still exist?).

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The mess on our southern borders with the unaccompanied illegal immigrant children illustrates the Keystone Cops attitude of many bills coming out of Congress and/or proposed by the Executive Branch.  You’d think that most of these people who, after all, are usually lawyers (albeit failed ones, for the most part), could word the legalese and implement it in such a way that these things don’t happen.

The problem of child pornography and child prostitution in this country led to a “feel good” bipartisan bill back in the latter Bush era (i.e. not Papa Bush but Dubya) that promised to take care of unaccompanied minors until their cases were settled, all in order to protect them.  The law didn’t become effective until Obama became president.  Not knowing the details of that law, I presume “settled” means that immigration workers, judges, and their assistants would treat each case on a one-by-one basis to prevent abuse to these kids, or even sending them back to war-savaged homelands.

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