Yesterday was the 44th anniversary of Soviet Yury Gagarin's trip to space, becoming the first person ever to do so, beating the Americans in that stage of the space race. In response, of course, America landed a person on the moon.
As I was mulling this over, I realized how the space race was driven by Cold War ideological competition, and how many new technologies this competition ultimately gave the world. Hardly a day goes by that "Designed by NASA" is not seen in some advertisement somewhere. From rocket engineering to Velcro to bedding, our competition with the "Russkies" (as Slim Pickens would say) paid us dividends. How many scientists today were led into their field by Sputnik? We sank a ton of money into science and education as a result of the Soviet threat.
Which led me to thinking...
The NeoCons believe that the U.S. should use its power to insure that it has no rival in the world, i.e., no competition. The NeoCons strategy for world domination contradicts their belief in free markets.
This contradiction also applies to Karl Rove specifically, who apparently wants not to just win elections but to kill the Democratic party outright, to destroy his competition. He want a monopoly of power, like the NeoCons want a monopoly for the U.S.
What we are seeing today in the Republican Party is a result of this lack of forceful opposition, of competition. The result is a textbook demonstration of the adage that "absolute power corrupts absolutely." The founders of this country knew this, and is why they designed a government of three independent parts (thank you very much, Mr. Delay). Competition is a kind of check against one entity getting too much power, the biggest danger to any democracy.
The Republicans control the three branches of government and are (inevitably?) driving us right into a brick wall because of it.
Without the Soviets, the U.S. would never have gone to the moon, and "done those other things," as JFK put it. They pushed us to improve, not only in aerospace but in social programs (to prove Capitalism was better for people than Communism).
Likewise, the NeoCons need the Democrats. They just can't admit it because they are blinded by ideology. Their scorched-earth approach to politics will ironically lead to their demise. Trying to control the world by removing opposition will end in their control of nothing. No person or party or ideology is infallible. If given enough rope, any person or party will hang itself. Competition means that rope is scarce, which is a good thing.
Apparently the far-right thinks that competition is only a good thing if it allows them to make a pile of dough. But the commerical market is not the only place that rivalry can yield good things.