Good thing socialism doesn't work, especially its more totalitarian variations. I mean, it sucks that the United States is going ever further down that hole, don't get me wrong. But we still have a lot of honest to goodness capitalism here, a free society unless you're black or prefer narcotics to booze, and the fruits of over two centuries of the only come-as-you-are economic and political system ever devised. The market has been battered by scoundrels public and private, but it's still more or less a market.
When I say it's good that socialism doesn't work, I know I'll anger my many socialist friends. No kidding, some of my best friends are pinkos, but I understand them. I sometimes feel like a Christian thrust into a cargo cult. I understand the idea, If we do what we did in 1944, the airplane gods favor us again, but I know it's not true.
I wish missile defense hadn't gotten skewered so badly back in Reagan's day. If we'd really pursued SDI, I think the North Korean missile test last night would have ended the same way even if they'd managed to come up with a Delta II launch vehicle. Because we could have shot it down. But Regan had to pretend, I guess, that this was about the Soviets, who were not really a threat in terms of launching ICBMs. Now, the wreckage of the Soviet satellites, that's another story. They're not going to launch that stuff at us, but they just might sell it to someone who would.
And maybe we can shoot such things down, and maybe we did, who knows? I know we can now hit satellites in orbit. I truly hope black ops have perfected technologies we pretend are theoretical because if the 'Dear Leader' or, for that matter, the idiots running Iran, get nuclear weapons and ICBMs it is all over if we can't shoot that shit down.
As it is, I think the thing that has kept us safest is that command economies just don't work. And the commandier they get, the less they can accomplish. That old saw about how 'it's not rocket science,' well, when you're developing ICBMs it actually is.
It doesn't matter if you are dumb enough to believe North Korea's peaceable intentions. The exact same technology that allows you to put satellites in orbit allows you to lob warheads at anyone in the world. Manned space flights have been made on rockets originally designed to make Moscow glow in the dark. Which is to say, all the satellite-launching countries of the world are potential ICBM threats to everyone else in the world.
But who is afraid of Japan? They have launched satellites and they are no strangers either to nuclear power or nuclear weapons. In fact, a certain logic would say if anyone should want to develop ICBMs and nukes to stick on top of them, it's the one country that has been attacked with nuclear weapons.
But nobody is afraid of Japan because they just want to do business with everyone.
Other potential nuclear threats you don't see the U.S. State Department getting its panties in a wad over include France and India. In fact, those countries have both warheads (unlike Japan) and satellite launch success on their resumes.
I know nuclear missiles come in pink and red. China's and Russia's particularly, and France if you want to get right down to it. They are run by totalitarian communists, gangsters, and unions, respectively. That's three nuclear powers (and China had considerable help from the Soviets before the Sino-Soviet Split) among the cargo cult governments of the world.
Trust me, if socialism worked there'd either be 100+ nuclear powers on earth, or more likely, there'd just be this formerly life-supporting planet glowing green under a forrest of mushroom clouds.
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