Gingrich vows to make the Moon 51st State by 2020 if Elected

Besides, if we are going to break international treaties and make a colony in an inhospitable land, we've got a perfectly good continent at the bottom of the world ripe for the taking! I'm pretty sure it would be easier and cheaper to colonize Antarctica and make it a state than it would be the Moon.

edited 25th Jan '12 11:08:09 PM by GameGuruGG

I don't think building a colony is against the treaty, I just don't think the moon can be claimed for America and her astromen.

Building a base would require claiming land, namely the land it is built atop.

Assuming that most of the naysayers are of European descent, I have to ask, what has happened to you guys? Where did the attitude that took Europe from being literally the most backward and primitive region on the globe to a powerhouse go? Has all of the fire gone out in your heart? Do you not yearn to aspire to glory and fortune once again?

How long must we feel guilty over colonialism anyways? Forever? And must we demonize all colonialism, even the clearly beneficial side? Colonizing space needn't be a complete repeat of the past. There might be conflict, sure, but instead of genocide and ecological damage we'd be seeding whole new worlds with life. To me that isn't something to shirk away from, but a duty that intelligent species are obligated to perform. And if an American politician is willing to go on public record promoting such ideals, so much the better.

I'm American, and I think this is idiotic grandstanding. Gingrich is just blowing stuff out his ass here, in a cynical attempt to grab votes. And given the state of the world these days, I'm betting most people are aspiring to a stable economy where they can live without fear of getting kicked out of their homes.

Besides, becoming a moon colonist is likely going to be for only the insanely smart at first, due to the skills needed to set that shit up. In any case, while a worthy goal, what Gingrich is saying here is shit for a bunch of reasons. People don't think in terms of "glory and fortune" these days, and it's not like the moon is filled with gold and priceless gems.

Basically, most of us are considering this in the wider, current political picture, and not with pie in the sky aspirations you are. It's not that we don't want to go into space, we're just looking at Gingrich's motives and our actual technological level and the realistic chances of this happening any time soon.

White man's burden?

I'm American, I think colonialism is awful, and I think you're in a dire need of a history class.

I yearn to raise my children in a society that favors humanism and benevolence over retarded pissing matches, myself.

edited 25th Jan '12 11:26:14 PM by Gwirion

@OP: Firstly, you are WAY too interested in science, I don't say that science is bad, I mean that you are going to science fiction level of science :P You could as well create religion of science stating that science is best thing ever which will magically fix everything with technology. Secondly, what. How is USA claiming moon for themselves a good thing even if it could be done?

Also, colonialism didn't have any beneficial elements, demolishing it DID have side effects though as people hadn't planned ahead how radical that change would be.

edited 25th Jan '12 11:27:17 PM by SpookyMask

MGIFoS, why do you assume that I don't want my nation to have glory? Of course I do, everyone wants to live in a glorious nation. The problem is, I want us to be glorious in the smart, beautiful, and fair sense; not glorious in the "MEET MY MIGHTY, MASSIVE, METAPHORICAL MANHOOD" sense. (And yes I will keep using that metaphor because it is the most apt one.) Don't get me wrong, there is a time and a place for waving your junk around, but the moon is not it. Let's put the billions of dollars that this dead-end project would essentially burn, and spend it on our schools; that we may colonize the true final frontier: that of knowledge.

edited 25th Jan '12 11:34:00 PM by setnakhte

Ever enjoy milk chocolate? Never would have happened without colonization. How about peanut sauce in thai food? Colonization. The great global trade network that colonization created drastically improved the nutritional quality of food around the world, as goods like potatoes made their way to Europe, and Europeans in turn spread their own dishes to the colonies.

Even today we depend on global trade, and it has enriched the lives of everyone. That global trade network never would have happened if not for colonization. And that isn't even touching on the spread of the ideal of Enlightenment throughout the world.

Or would you prefer if slavery and human sacrifice were still common? British were basically the first nation in history to ban slavery, and they made damn sure that it stopped in the colonies that they maintained control of. Spanish did a lot of people in Mexico a favor by overthrowing their Aztec overlords and stopping the annual human sacrifices. And then there's the practice of burning the widow of a deceased man by tossing her on top of his funeral pyre in India that the British found barbaric and put an end to. So you can say that colonialism was bad, and indeed it had its ugly side, but don't drop a blanket judgment on it unless you are willing to accept a world in which all the stuff I just mentioned still exists.

edited 25th Jan '12 11:36:08 PM by Gwirion

There's so much wrong here that I don't know where to start. But I have time and nothing better to do, so let's get down to explaining why you're wrong!

Why should any one country have control over space? All that would do is inhibit scientific advances, create international conflict and probably start a fucking war. Colonialism is horrible and has only really created problems in the long run. Sure, this time there are no brown folks to be genociding or forcing to live in shit conditions, but that doesn't mean that there aren't going to be problems. Instead of getting up in every other countries' business, wouldn't it be better to put more funding into joint space programs also having the effect of bolstering international relationships?

I dunno, I am neither you not Newt Gingrich, so maybe I have completely the wrong idea about this. Maybe Newty and you have all the facts and I am just some backwards sod who is talking nonsense. But, I'll be honest, trying to claim the moon as being 'Murican strikes me as being Nationalistic, hoo-rah, America Fuck Yeah bullshit that holds no real merit as a course of action beyond international cockwaving.

Unfortunately, you can't just buy human affection. It isn't like the billions we have tossed into Pakistan has endeared that country to the USA. I do believe that we can end poverty and ought to, but a lend-lease program of some kind is a better method.

Gosh darnit, now I've gone and derailed things, haven't I?

I'm sure moon rocks are quite tasty and of course I believe that the Moon People's barbaric ways should be brought to an end. But can't we fix our own problems first?

edited 25th Jan '12 11:38:30 PM by setnakhte

Because NASA and the need for exploration helps fix those problems through technological development? Because problems aren't things that can be fixed permanently and thus a certain level of acceptance is needed.

You can't buy human affection by spending billions putting soldiers into their country in order to fight a non-existent War on Terror, fucking the place up in the process. I am sure I am over-simplifying the situation here, but I imagine that most countries don't like other countries to have an active military presence in their nation.

Also, your whole lend-lease idea is awful too. Think about it, you give a country a chance to bring itself out of the shithole that colonies and mandates put them in, and then you break them over your knee with debt that will take several generations to pay off, probably creating hyperinflation along the way. It is just selfish.

While I support space colonisation, trying to claim the moon as part of your nation is not only against international policy, the ideal that it belongs to humanity as a whole and the fact that it would claim against other nations setting their own bases on the Moon, Gingrich would also find that the first colony that is to appear on the Moon will not be American: Russia are intrested in seeing a moon base come to existance.

edited 26th Jan '12 1:00:06 AM by Ailedhoo

I was referring to problems like crumbling infrastructure, poor education, and wealth disparity. I fail to see how drawing money away from programs to fix those things would help them. Technological growth is not the answer to these problems.

edited 25th Jan '12 11:56:15 PM by setnakhte

Unless you think technological growth doesn't require decent infrastructure and education. Having a specific achievable goal helps with those ends. Technology is always the answer to problems.

Technological growth would be the reward for fixing those two things. Let me be more narrow: how would inventing the technology for this, most of which would be highly specialized and ill-suited for anything else, help with the roads and bridges falling apart.

Why can't we dedicate some resources to improving the lives of people in the third world, and others to advancing space travel? Both are important and worthy of pursuit.

Stars, I am absolutely sure we could have all those things if colonialism had never happened. Why? Because people developing ships to travel across the world and see what was out there was pretty much inevitable. Europeans could have gone out and played nice with the natives and gotten all those wonderful things through trade. And that is not what happened. Also, the British were very heavily involved in slavery before stopping it. Keep that in mind.

And in any case, again, this was a cynical grab for votes. Nothing more, and not something he intended to follow through on. It's not really anything special, considering the source.

Please take the hostility in here down a notch. You can debate with other tropers without insulting them. Thank you.

edited 26th Jan '12 12:30:53 AM by shimaspawn

@OP: ...Those are benefit to the countries that practiced colonialism, not the countries who suffer effect of them

I'm actually American. I just mock the feasibility of colonizing space currently. It's cool to want to go colonize space, but we have to figure out some way to break the light barrier to really get cooking, unless we want to spend the time terraforming Mars. I would also want to colonize space as one species rather than as various nations.

edited 26th Jan '12 1:09:28 AM by GameGuruGG