7 June 2002
campaign rhetoric… I exhort the crowd.
Responsible people will prepare themselves for dangers and accidents. Some carry guns, others study jiu jitsu, many pack first aid kits and jugs of water in their cars. Communities organize locally to protect themselves from predators and rough weather — murderers, rapists, blizzards, and floods. Likewise, on a Federal level, we establish a standing military to protect America from Nazis, Imperialists, and other aggressors. The world is ever perilous, and we must never neglect the unknown. Too many of the dangers we have faced as a nation have come upon us by surprise — whether the malign efforts of villains, or indifferent acts of nature. Though we can’t know for certain where they will next appear, whether from a Peoples’ Republic of Atlantis, or a rogue asteroid on a collision course with the Earth, we must prepare for all possible threats.
The Libertarian foreign policy is simplicity itself: “Do what you will with your own and be at peace with the United States. Trifle with us at your peril.” This is a policy of strict self-defense and non-interference. It is not isolationism, and it does not mean that we individual American citizens may not express our moral outrage at the atrocities committed by religious, racist, and misogynist zealots worldwide. It does not mean that individual Americans would be barred from supporting the partisans of their choosing, or even taking up arms on their behalf. It means that the American Government will spend American Dollars and spill American Blood only when it is our vital national interest. Otherwise, we should pursue a policy of peaceful trade with all nations, entangling alliances with none.
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, for example, may well have served a legitimate purpose in containing the very real threat of Soviet hegemony, but in 1990, when the constituent republics of the former USSR renounced its aims of global consolidation and dissolved the beast, NATO lost all reason for being. However, like all government bureaucracies, it took on a life of its own and commenced seeking new missions. The NATO sponsored and United Nations endorsed assault on Serbia may very well portend a new internationalist order of conquest and domination to dwarf the aims of the Soviet Union. A free people and a peaceful republic have no place in nor any use for any such interventionist order.
Consistent with national defense, the Federal Government has a responsibility to explore and to secure the frontier. President Jefferson did right by sending Lewis and Clark to Oregon, and President Kennedy did right by sending Apollo to the Moon. We don’t know what dangers lurk in the heavens — solar storms to disrupt our weather, stray comets to vaporize our oceans, or massive meteor strikes to rain ruin onto our cities. We can’t know if we don’t look, and to dismiss the possibility and refuse to prepare for danger is suicidal recklessness. Wishes won’t make us safe, and hope is no refuge from the storm.
Human intelligence and our sense of wonder are gifts too rare and magnificent for us to follow the dinosaurs into oblivion.
But of course, the frontier isn’t all danger — neither Oregon nor Hawaii have ever threatened America, but both have enriched the Union. Likewise, there is enormous wealth in the New Frontier. The New Millennium Dawns with the promise of Life, Liberty, Prosperity, and Peace. A full belly for every hungry child. A good job for every able body. An ennobling challenge for every nimble mind. The Earth can be more fruitful, the seas richer, the air cleaner and sweeter. The future of industry is in the sky, where limitless energy awaits in the form of unfiltered sunshine, and limitless resources revolve serenely around the Sun in wide elliptical orbits between Jupiter and Mars. Let the Earth bloom as a garden, as a park, as a pasture, and as our own inviting back yard. There are fabulous riches and adventures in the outer realm, and they wait there for the people with the courage and the vision to reach out and seize them.
Toward that end, I propose that America re-establish a permanent orbital presence — a presence unstained by internationalist sentiments, unrestricted by internationalist intervention, and unimpeded by internationalist involvement.
Furthermore, I propose the establishment of a permanent settlement on the Moon, a manned mission to Mars, and that we send unmanned vessels to begin investigating the Asteroids. Do I overreach? Perhaps, but I believe that a vigorous society must overreach. To do less is to betray our posterity, and to condemn our heirs to lives of tyranny and poverty.