Oh, manned "exploration", yeah, that ended December 19, 1972 when Apollo 17 (Challenger LEM) left the moon...here we are 41 years later...
Yeah, that's what I was driving at. What are we known for in the world today? We are known for making movies. We are also known for developing state of the art military hardware and for having the world's best special forces. We used to be known as having the world's best medical system. But we don't do big impressive stuff anymore. Apparently that was a one off.
But getting back to the real topic of this thread (since that was an aside)...
It is becoming more and more clear as time goes on that the Reagan years were an aberration and that Nixon, Ford, GHWB and GWB (not to mention Dole and Romney) have been the real faces of the GOP.
I'm old enough now and I've seen enough that I know these things to be true. And I have decided to stop playing that game. Will the country go into the toilet because I'm not going to fight anymore? It's going into the toilet if our guys win so what's the point? It just goes into the toilet faster if the Democrats win. After watching our side virtually surrender on immigration and healthcare there is just no denying it. So I'm gonna go sort of a modified Galt. I'm not physically going somewhere to hide out but I am beginning to live my life as if the country is going to fail in a way similar to Detroit. I'm allocating my resources accordingly.
The guy who wrote that article is right. It's been this way for many, many decades and it isn't going to change. There will have to be a collapse. There will be darkness and it will be bad. I say "bad" because you just can't have a major world power collapse and not have far reaching consequences. Plus, something will fill the vacuum that our collapse represents and it will not be better or the same. It will be worse. That's just human behavior and human history.
The United States was a terrific experiment but it has failed and it failed because there were not enough good people willing to stand and fight. I don't blame the Democrats anymore than I blame a tiger for being a tiger. There was never any doubt about who they were and where they wanted to take the country...not since FDR, anyway. I do blame the GOP for pretending to be that which it is not and for lulling its followers into a false sense of security, for giving them hope, for taking their donations and using them against them. I blame the Bob Doles and the John McCains of the party for where we are and for where we are now ultimately and inevitably heading. They lied to us and they sold us out. They remind me of (the largely fictional account of) the Scottish clan chiefs who sold out William Wallace in "Braveheart." We could have won but we didn't even try to fight and now it is largely too late to do anything.
Best case scenario: The country comes to its senses and throws all Democrats out of office and replaces them with actual conservatives who immediately restore all individual freedoms and something approaching fiscal sanity. We still lose because the debt is now so enormous that we are crushed under its weight. The country still dies but it dies slower and with a good conscience.
Of course, that will never happen. We will still be stuck with the best minds the Democrat party has to offer and there will be enough GOPers willing to cooperate with them that the country is finished. So basically a choice of driving at 100 mph directly over the cliff to certain death or braking a bit and turning the wheel slightly and plunging over the edge at only 95 mph again, to certain death.
Depressing? Yes. Yes, it is. But I'm accepting it, now. I am sorry for my children and grandchildren (yet to come) for I have failed them in that I didn't see the fraud. I was fooled for years and now it's too late.