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Newsgroups: alt.sci.planetary,sci.space.history,sci.space.shuttle
From: Henry Spencer <henry@zoo.toronto.edu>
Subject: Re: Apollo Dead-end  Not!  Rant against '60 Liberalism)
Date: Mon, 3 Feb 1997 17:29:49 GMT

(Some irrelevant newsgroups trimmed out of header.)

In article <5d2jhi$809@nnrp1.news.primenet.com>,
Alan Gore <agore@primenet.com> wrote:
>Apollo was, except for the last short stretches of Interstate Highways
>still being built here and there, perhaps the last federal program
>that resulted in actual realization of a tangible result...
>Once, federal spending gave us Hoover Dam. Now the federal role is to
>STOP dams - or anything else tangible - from being built.

In fairness, one can't entirely blame the liberals for this.  The primary
motive of mature bureaucracies is self-preservation, not results.  They do
not like being handed marching orders which specify particular objectives
and firm deadlines; they much prefer to spend their time and money taking
very small steps toward ill-defined goals, so they will never be placed in
the awkward position of either failing or succeeding -- which are almost
equally severe disasters from their viewpoint, because either one results
in budget cuts.

(Mind you, the liberals get *some* of the blame for this, because a good
bit of the bureaucracy is their fault.  It's largely a liberal notion that
the way you solve a problem is to create a government agency to take charge
of it.  And taking charge of the problem is just what the agencies usually
do, since actually *solving* it would end their rationale for existing...)
--
"We don't care.  We don't have to.  You'll buy     |       Henry Spencer
whatever we ship, so why bother?  We're Microsoft."|   henry@zoo.toronto.edu

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