Will I live long enough to see the moon landing?

A recent issue of the FT caught my eye. It discussed long delays in NASA’s moon landing program, and doubt about the feasibility of supersonic airline service:

Fifty years ago, the future seemed bright. We had supersonic jetliners and had been to the moon 6 times. Now we spend 12 years on a single rocket program:

After 12 years of development and significant cost overruns, the first launch of the moon mission is a significant test for Boeing, the rocket’s main contractor. Nasa sought to paint the delay as part of the usual teething problems for a new rocket.

Between 1958 and 1969 NASA went from our first satellite in space to the Mercury program to the Gemini program to the Saturn program. Now they are merely trying to recreate the Saturn program, and can’t even get a single rocket into space after 12 years.

I may not live long enough to see the US return to the moon, but perhaps I’ll see China achieve that lofty goal:

Speaking at an event the day before the launch, Gold said the US had “failed time and time again to sustain a programme” in space beyond low-earth orbit, leaving an opening for Beijing to take a lead and making it essential for the US to respond.

China, which has landed three robotic craft on the moon, has said it is planning to build a lunar base with Russia, and has invited other countries to join the project.

LOL, I’m almost old enough to recall hysteria over the “missile gap” with the Soviet Union. I suppose the US is too proud to participate in a moon program where China takes the lead.

Our future AI overlords must be laughing at our foolishness. While they plot a takeover of planet Earth, we engage in childish nationalistic competitions to recreate technological milestones that had already been achieved more than a half century ago. Projects that either make no sense at all (supersonic airliners), or should be done with robots instead of humans (space flight.)

Let’s hope the AIs do a better job of managing this planet than we have.


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49 Responses to “Will I live long enough to see the moon landing?”

  1. Gravatar of Michael Sandifer Michael Sandifer
    31. August 2022 at 16:50

    SpaceX is still working on Starship, which could be used for any kind of moon mission NASA wants. NASA should scrap Artemis and leave rocket development to the competent. I won’t be surprised if Starship is the rocket that next takes us back to the moon.

    I just hope that bad politics doesn’t get in the way. Democrats seem to have an allergy for Musk, and successful business people in general. SpaceX is rather nice for national security.

    Yes, Musk says lots of ridiculous things, not because he’s stupid, but because he expresses himself so frequently. Most of our thoughts are wrong, and most of us don’t express so many of our thoughts publicly.

    That said,

  2. Gravatar of Michael Sandifer Michael Sandifer
    31. August 2022 at 16:51

    That said, Musk does seem to have let his ego get the best of him.

  3. Gravatar of Matthias Matthias
    31. August 2022 at 18:20

    We shouldn’t bemoan that the government can’t put a clown on the moon. We should bemoan that they are even trying.

    Manned spaceflight is a giant waste taxpayer money.

    For a good laugh have a look at https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/news/iss-20-years-20-breakthroughs/ ’20 Breakthroughs from 20 Years of Science aboard the International Space Station’

    That is a best-of album of what they achieved on the International Space Station in 20 years. It includes highlights like ‘Stimulating the low-Earth orbit economy’, ie burning money for burning money’s sake.

    Also:

    > Responding to natural disasters: With crew handheld camera imagery as a core component, the station has become an active participant in orbital data collection to support disaster response activities both within the U.S. and abroad.

    Handheld cameras!

    All but one ‘achievement’ could have been done better and cheaper either one earth or with unmanned probes. And that one effort is looking at (long-term) effects of microgravity on humans. But that one could probably have been done far cheaper one disposable vessels that only stay up for the duration of the mission.

    Overall, an almost nonexistent bang for a huge number of bucks.

    To give another example: the Space Shuttle program had a cost overrun of about 1000x per kg to orbit. Not 1,000%, you right that right: 1000 times, ie 100,000%.

    It’s great that private companies are really starting to take over spaceflight, both manned and unmanned. But even if they didn’t it would be better for governments to exit the manned sector.

    (Unmanned spaceflight has some military and scientific justification. So that should be judged on those merits, not on general grounds.

    Most people agree that national defense is something the government should do. Basic science is also popularly defended by government apologists, but I have some reservations.)

  4. Gravatar of Kgaard Kgaard
    31. August 2022 at 18:48

    It’s worth watching the 2017 movie “American Moon” which attempted to falsify the claim that the US went to the moon in the first place. Also worth watching “Capricorn One” about a faked mission to Mars.

  5. Gravatar of ssumner ssumner
    31. August 2022 at 18:52

    Matthias, Good comment.

  6. Gravatar of MSS1914 MSS1914
    1. September 2022 at 06:32

    In 1900, many people doubted man would ever fly. Just 70 years later, people are walking on the moon. Over that same time period, antibiotics, plastics, radio, television, transistors, refrigeration, computers, artificial fertilizers, etc are invented. I would say something like “what a time to be alive”, but then again that same time period witnessed two world wars and and a cold war, so maybe not.

    It’s interesting that the Renaissance came out of Italy during a time it was plagued by war and political upheaval. Also, ancient Athens produced Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle in the years after its disastrous war with Sparta.

    Maybe it takes a crisis to drive innovation in all spheres of human activity. I sometimes wonder if the present, perceived stagnation of society is just the price we in the West pay for our relatively rich and comfortable lives.

    As an aside, I hope that when China lands on the moon, they take some pictures of the objects we left behind so we don’t have to hear from those conspiracy theorists that think we never went. Although even that probably won’t change their mind.

  7. Gravatar of Sara Sara
    1. September 2022 at 07:10

    NASA’s budget is tiny, and there have been significant spinoff technologies to emerge from NASA such as artificial limbs, 3-d food printing, scratch resistant lenses, light emitting diodes in medical therapy, etc, etc.

    Of course, all of these breakthroughs could have been achieved in the private sector, nevertheless, if you are going to redistribute my money, then please give it to NASA instead of the thugs at the IRS, to the Ukraine, a one world NATO, or to millions of Chinese pouring into the country, because Sumner wrongly believes that there collectivist culture will merge happily, and in harmony, with American individualism. The very existence of “China towns” suggest otherwise.

    And in regards to “pride”. Pride is a good thing. Sometimes I wonder if you are even a man. You sound like most women I speak too. Where is your competitive drive? Where is your sense of adventure? Of course, we want to be first. It’s a race. And you should want to win, unless your playing for the other team.

    Where are the rugged individualists? Where did the men of action go?
    Why so many apparatchiks and losers. I’d never marry a guy like you. You have no pride. No fire! I don’t like weakness.

  8. Gravatar of John S John S
    1. September 2022 at 07:28

    Some good news: ranked-choice voting allowed Mary Peltola (D) to defeat Trump-endorsed Sarah Palin in Alaska’s special election. In a closed primary, Palin likely would have cruised to the Rep. nomination and consolidated enough GOP support to win the general.

    It’s a huge uphill climb, but I really think nonpartisan open primaries and RCV are the only feasible path to restoring some level of civility to US elections and giving third-party candidates and policies a chance to gain traction.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Peltola#Electoral_history

  9. Gravatar of John S John S
    1. September 2022 at 07:40

    The Top Four open primary also allowed Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R, who voted to impeach and convict Trump) to survive against Trump-backed Kelly Tshibaka in the first round; she might well have lost in a closed primary. RCV should give her a good chance to win the general in Nov (against two other Rs and one D).

    https://news.yahoo.com/murkowskis-primary-win-boosts-interest-in-election-reforms-as-well-as-criticism-220243977.html

  10. Gravatar of w d w w d w
    1. September 2022 at 08:11

    i do wonder, we seem to hate government, since it keeps us safe, and hopefully doesnt attack us (though some have their doubts about that. not sure that SpaceX has that long a track record of flying humans in space? maybe i missed them flying humans into low or high orbit? and Boeng’s biggest problem, is that they lost their reason for existence, that was making safe transportation for humans in the air and space. course that seems to be as much as a result of their ….bad choice to buy/merge with McDonald Douglass, which seems to have been more of a takeover by McDonald Douglass than Boeing taking them over. but either way, Government would be paying for space exploration, which today (and for the foreseeable future) will not be a money venture, so it will pay a vendor (Boeng or SpaceX) to actually build the hardware and software and infrastructure to actually do space exploration

  11. Gravatar of George George
    1. September 2022 at 09:04

    https://ago.mo.gov/home/news/2022/09/01/missouri-and-louisiana-attorneys-general-ask-court-to-compel-department-of-justice-to-produce-communications-between-top-officials-and-social-media-companies

    Scores of federal officials colluded with social media companies to censor free speech.

    “The discovery provided so far demonstrates that this Censorship Enterprise is extremely broad, including officials in the White House, HHS, DHS, CISA, the CDC, NIAID, and the Office of the Surgeon General; and evidently other agencies as well, such as the Census Bureau, the FDA, the FBI, the State Department, the Treasury Department, and the U.S. Election Assistance Commission. And it rises to the highest levels of the U.S. Government, including numerous White House officials.”

    The whole rotten temple is cracking.

  12. Gravatar of ssumner ssumner
    1. September 2022 at 09:30

    MSS1914, I enjoy hearing from the conspiracy theorists. My comment sections are full of them.

    Sara, You said:

    “Pride is a good thing. Sometimes I wonder if you are even a man. You sound like most women I speak too.”

    Sara, please don’t tell me that you women all lack pride!

    John, You said:

    “Palin likely would have cruised to the Rep. nomination and consolidated enough GOP support to win the general.”

    Maybe, but Palin lost 51.5% to 48.5% when other votes were allocated between the top two. So that’s not at all obvious.

    I agree with your comments on the senate race—I like RCV.

  13. Gravatar of John S John S
    1. September 2022 at 10:57

    “Maybe, but Palin lost 51.5% to 48.5% when other votes were allocated between the top two. So that’s not at all obvious.”

    Sure, it’s not obvious, which is why I wrote “likely” rather than “definitely.” We can only speculate what would have happened in a normal closed primary >> head-to-head general matchup.

    In that hypothetical case, I do think Palin almost certainly would have won a closed primary vs Begich, considering that she crushed him in the nonpartisan open primary in June (27% vs 19%, with Peltola getting 10%).

    https://www.npr.org/2022/06/15/1105429864/palin-begich-gross-advance-alaska-us-house-race

    In the actual RCV 1st round runoff, Peltola had more 1st place votes than Palin (75,761 to 58,945; margin of 16,816). Let’s assume these voters would vote the same in a hypothetical head-to-head.

    Palin got 27,042 2nd place votes among Begich voters. If two-thirds of them would have voted for Palin w/o any other R on the ballot, that would give her 17,848 additional votes, putting her slightly ahead of Peltola.

    Peltola got 15,445 2nd place votes from Begich voters, and 11,222 Begich voters didn’t make any backup selections. Surely, some portion (perhaps 25-30%?) of those 11,222 Begich-only voters would have voted for Palin in a Palin vs. Peltola H2H general election.

    The real question is how many Begich-Peltola voters would have outright selected Peltola first w/o any other R option. Who knows, but with a one-shot vote, I think it’s reasonable to think that party loyalty to a generic R would outweigh complete defection to the D candidate.

  14. Gravatar of John S John S
    1. September 2022 at 11:00

    Here’s a detailed breakdown of the ranked-choice votes and reallocations:

    https://www.elections.alaska.gov/results/22SSPG/RcvDetailedReport.pdf

  15. Gravatar of John S John S
    1. September 2022 at 11:17

    The beauty of the open primary >> Final Four system is that it actually forced the two R finalists to attack each other in the weeks leading up to the general. I think this certainly helped Peltola in this instance, and it would really improve the chances of ind. and minor party candidates in other elections (Peltola actually finished 4th in the open primary).

    From the link:

    “Sarah Palin IS a quitter,” says the voiceover on one Begich ad. “She’s a quitter. She quit on us. She left us. She abandoned us. We picked her to do a job, and she didn’t bother to finish it. Because she wanted to go out there and get rich and famous.”

    In an interview, Begich sounded even less generous, saying Palin isn’t the right personality to represent Alaska.

    “Self-aggrandizing. Uninformed. Intellectually deleterious, and empty rhetoric would be some of those qualities,” Begich said.

    https://alaskapublic.org/2022/08/11/why-republicans-in-alaskas-first-ranked-choice-election-reserve-their-venom-for-each-other/

    So while RCV alone is good, it’s the combination of open primaries >> Final 4/5 >> RCV that holds the most promise, in my view.

    Game theory FTW.

  16. Gravatar of Carl Lumma Carl Lumma
    1. September 2022 at 13:10

    > Saturn program

    Apollo program

  17. Gravatar of George George
    1. September 2022 at 17:56

    https://i.imgur.com/nlSBM8p.jpeg

    V For Vendetta.

    Fascism.

    Plain Sight.

  18. Gravatar of Theodore Mavroidis Theodore Mavroidis
    2. September 2022 at 00:13

    When the effort in the west for the last thirty years has been over regulation and saving the planet building things that can fly to the moon seems like an arcane art. The recent energy crisis is another symptom of a general process of shutting down. Covid-19 was just a trial of how quickly advanced western economies could be switched off; it was a very successful trial. Of course all these things seem disconnected (a mission to the moon, Covid-19, global energy markets) but there is a common thread: not “green energy” but low energy, reducing the footprint of western economies. None of these policies is the result of a mass movement, it’s a coup d’ etat by western elites in government agencies and the business world.

  19. Gravatar of ricardo ricardo
    2. September 2022 at 01:31

    “Let’s hope the AIs do a better job of managing this planet than we have.”

    Stop trying to manage it, you totalitarian sicko. You micromanaging, order clamoring, big government loving, corrupt, buffoon.

    We don’t need your “management”. Nor do we need the AI’s “management”.

    Please stop thinking about “management”.
    Because we’re tired of your “management”.
    Thank you very much.

  20. Gravatar of AD AD
    2. September 2022 at 02:59

    Scott, did you ever think about moving to substack or at least having the ability to get email updates? (If there isn’t a way to do that already). I used to use RSS feeds, but blogs have mostly disappeared.

  21. Gravatar of George George
    2. September 2022 at 04:33

    https://truthsocial.com/@DarkKhight/posts/108813134703389859

    Digital forensic examination of EMS in AZ.

    And, investigators found the NM voter database INSTRUMENTED, markings favoring one party over another (big)!

    Republican Senate in Michigan = CORRUPT. (perhaps they benefitted from the same fraudulent system too?)

    5 hour presentation

  22. Gravatar of Chris Chris
    2. September 2022 at 04:41

    John S:
    > Surely, some portion (perhaps 25-30%?) of those 11,222 Begich-only voters would have voted for Palin in a Palin vs. Peltola H2H general election.

    I see this mistake made a lot. There is no reason to assume that those 11K plus voters would show up at all. Not wanting to vote for Peltola nor Palin is a valid preference and some portion of those voters would likely have made that choice if forced to choose.

    And if we are really going to play counterfactual, you have to think through how the campaigns would have evolved differently under different rules. It’s simply impossible to have any level of certainty about how an election would have played out under different rules.

  23. Gravatar of George George
    2. September 2022 at 05:23

    https://dcenquirer.com/republicans-zuckerberg-facebook/

    More and more liberals are ‘waking up’ to the clear evidence that Facebook and Twitter censored the Hunter Biden laptop story for political purposes.

    Rob Reiner’s dialectic word games manipulating the words ‘know’ and ‘truth’ display a massive cognitive dissonance that reminds me of the site owner’s.

    Maher made a good point when he replied to Reiner’s feigned outrage question using dialectic deception:

    Reiner: “dO wE kNoW FoR a fAcT tHaT’s wHaT tHeY DiD? I dOn’T kNoW wHaT tHeY DiD!”:

    Maher: “I know that because you only watch MSNBC”.

    Sounds familiar! LOL

    Imagine if the shoe was on the other foot, imagine the FBI going after Facebook and Twitter and news media companies all over and intimidating them into CENSORING information that proves Trump Jr was selling access to Trump’s WH, not to mention smoking crack and having sexual relations with his 14 year old cousin (sick!).

    What would Reiner’s and the site owner’s reaction be?

    Dialectic word games of

    “How do we KNOW that’s the ‘truth’ of what really happened? As Rorty said about ‘truth’…blah blah blah”

    Or go straight to:

    “IMPEACH! PROSECUTE! PRISON!”

    I know exactly who would have said what, and that’s exactly how I know that if there is a truth that is not just belief, not just ‘what people can get away with’, but an objective truth of what actually happened, I am closer to it than I would be if I were to corrupt my mind with Hegelian dialectic logic and turning myself into a sniveling, waffling, ‘power is the only truth’ agency-less tool of a political party.

  24. Gravatar of John S John S
    2. September 2022 at 05:57

    Chris,

    “Not wanting to vote for Peltola nor Palin is a valid preference and some portion of those voters would likely have made that choice if forced to choose.”

    Isn’t that what I wrote? In fact, I projected that the majority (70-75%) of the 11,222 Begich-only voters would vote for neither Palin nor Peltola. (And I conservatively estimated that only 2/3 of the 27,000 Begich-Palin voters would vote for Palin in a Palin/Peltola H2H. If that % were higher, Palin would be comfortably ahead in the general.)

    Can we agree that under a closed primary system Palin almost certainly would have been the R nominee? (She crushed him 27% to 19% in the nonpartisan open primary, and closed primaries voters tend to skew toward the more ideologically-extreme end of the party.)

    In that case, Begich likely drops out. I doubt he would have endorsed Palin, but he wouldn’t have had the resources/organization to run a negative campaign against her as he actually did (thus indirectly supporting Peltola).

    “It’s simply impossible to have any level of certainty about how an election would have played out under different rules.”

    Sure, but isn’t it worthwhile to experiment with different voting arrangements so that we can gather more data and increase our level of certainty about which system is best? That’s what I’m trying to get at.

    In other words, do you believe that closed party primaries + first past the post (plurality voting) is better than Alaska’s nonpartisan open primary + Final Four general candidates + instant runoff with ranked-choice voting?

  25. Gravatar of Chris Chris
    2. September 2022 at 06:29

    > Isn’t that what I wrote? In fact, I projected that the majority (70-75%) of the 11,222 Begich-only voters would vote for neither Palin nor Peltola.

    Perhaps I misread it then.

    > In other words, do you believe that closed party primaries + first past the post (plurality voting) is better than Alaska’s nonpartisan open primary + Final Four general candidates + instant runoff with ranked-choice voting?

    I didn’t express an opinion about whether one system is better than another. Just pushing back against people (not necessarily you!) that are overly confident about how a counterfactual would play out.

  26. Gravatar of John S John S
    2. September 2022 at 07:52

    Chris,

    No worries.

    “Just pushing back against people (not necessarily you!) that are overly confident about how a counterfactual would play out.”

    I’m with you 100% — probability and expected value are my religion. That’s why I qualify my hypotheticals with “likely” or “probably,” and I try to make conservative estimates.

  27. Gravatar of ssumner ssumner
    2. September 2022 at 09:39

    John, Thanks for that info.

    AD, I’ll consider that in the future, but right now I’m focused on other things.

  28. Gravatar of Michael Rulle Michael Rulle
    3. September 2022 at 14:49

    We know it is risky to send humans into space. There is no need yet to do so. Landing on the moon? It’s not exactly unprecedented. We landed a spacecraft on Mars in 1976. We now fly helicopters off of other craft on Mars. We have built a residential tower off CP in NYC that’s about 1750 feet in 5 years. We have built an entire mini- city on a landfill in South West Manhattan. Manhattan has about 2.6 mil people and the only county smaller than Manhattan is some county in Hawaii.

    Not saying any of this is desirable or not. But technology has continuously improved. It’s our moral state of mind which seems to lag

  29. Gravatar of George George
    3. September 2022 at 17:34

    Hillary Clinton ILLEGALLY kept a DATABASE SERVER in her private residence (SAPs), ‘allowed’ it to be ‘hacked’ by foreign powers (e.g. CCP -> C_A agents outed/killed), USED AS PAY FOR PLAY, then when 33,000 emails were given the HIGHEST subpoena in the country, from Congress, Hillary Clinton ILLEGALLY DELETED / ACID WASHED those communications.

    James Comey, Director of FBI: “No reasonable prosecutor would bring charges”

    Trump had paper declassified docs in his home, kept behind FBI/DOJ lock and key. FBI implemented WHATABOUTISM by “raiding” (fake news echo/push) Trump’s home.

    Site owner REPEATS THE WHATABOUTISM logic, dialectically projects his own whataboutism, ‘labelling’ what it is he is whataboutism’ing about, as somehow itself whataboutism’ing.

  30. Gravatar of Negation of Ideology Negation of Ideology
    4. September 2022 at 08:17

    John S –

    “The beauty of the open primary >> Final Four system is that it actually forced the two R finalists to attack each other in the weeks leading up to the general.”

    That assumes the purpose of elections is to get Republicans to attack each other. I get that you don’t like Republicans, which is your right, but is that really a good reason to support a particular ballot system? I’d imagine in some states it might hurt Republicans, and in other it might hurt Democrats. The goal of it (more so the jungle primary than ranked choice) seems to be to destroy the major parties and encourage minor parties – who are not always moderate, by the way. Minor party candidates are usually extremist kooks who have never run anything more significant than a newsletter.

    I don’t think destroying the major parties is a net benefit to society, but more importantly, it shows a lack of understanding of what political parties are. They are simply voluntary organizations of people who use freedom of association to cooperate in electing candidates. There is nothing nefarious about that. And the jungle primary is a direct attack on that freedom. Political parties should be allowed to have their own primaries with their member to choose their candidates. And if you don’t like those candidates, you don’t have to vote for them. But I don’t see why you should be able to tell parties who they should pick if you’re not a member.

  31. Gravatar of msgkings msgkings
    4. September 2022 at 21:19

    If there were ‘like’ buttons here I would tag Negation of Ideology and Michael Rulle above.

  32. Gravatar of John S John S
    5. September 2022 at 07:01

    Negation of Ideology,

    The purpose of elections is to ensure that governments endeavor to retain the consent of the governed, without which governments have no legitimacy, as stated in the Declaration of Independence:

    “Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it.” (emphasis mine)

    In 2021, more Americans identified as “independents” (42%) than as Democrats (29%) or Republicans (27%). Why should the largest segment of the electorate be discouraged from participating in the process of selecting general election finalists? And by what right are the duopoly parties guaranteed one candidate each in the general?

    The current system of party-based primaries also gives radical factions in both parties the means to force congressional candidates to embrace extreme positions or else risk being “primaried” before the general (e.g. Liz Cheney in Wyoming; Murkowski in Alaska avoided the same fate in part due to AK’s nonpartisan open primary** and Final 4 system). Even Trump benefited greatly from the party-based primary nomination system; I highly doubt he could have won in a general election with multiple candidates and a ranked-choice instant runoff requiring > 50%.

    “I’d imagine in some states it might hurt Republicans, and in other it might hurt Democrats.”

    I’m totally fine with this. I support Final Five voting because it makes it much more difficult for extremist candidates to eliminate moderate competitors in the primary stage and squeak by in the general with a plurality rather than a majority of votes.

    “The goal of it (more so the jungle primary than ranked choice) seems to be to destroy the major parties and encourage minor parties”

    I believe you are putting the Titanic in front of a tugboat, my friend. The duopoly will almost certainly outlive us both. I’d be satisfied with an increase in intra-party competition btw the moderate and radical wings of both parties and a small amount of minor party influence on a few issues here and there.

    ** This system goes by several names: nonpartisan blanket primary, Louisiana primary, jungle primary. I’ll stick with the most descriptive and neutral term “nonpartisan open primary.”

  33. Gravatar of John S John S
    5. September 2022 at 07:44

    “Minor party candidates are usually extremist kooks who have never run anything more significant than a newsletter.”

    It should be abundantly clear that the current party primary system also allows “extremist kooks” to win elections at every level of govt in the US (see US Presidential Election, 2016).

    Though I don’t necessarily support their policies, Justin Amash and Ron Paul seem to have served ably in Congress while essentially being Libertarians. And there are plenty of successful multi-party democracies in the world (e.g. Canada, Australia, Germany). Why do you think that Americans are inherently incapable of electing responsible minor party candidates if election structures were changed to make it feasible?

    “They [parties] are simply voluntary organizations of people who use freedom of association to cooperate in electing candidates. There is nothing nefarious about that. And the jungle [i.e. nonpartisan open] primary is a direct attack on that freedom.”

    In 2008 the Supreme Court ruled 7-2 that WA state’s “modified blanket primary” Initiative 872 (i.e. a nonpartisan open primary >> Top 2 system) did not violate parties’ First Amendment right of free association.

    “Question: Does Washington’s “modified blanket primary” system violate the First and Fourteenth Amendment right to freedom of association by denying political parties control over which candidates to endorse?

    In a 7-2 opinion, the Court reversed the Ninth Circuit’s ruling and held the party affiliation provision constitutional.

    Writing for the majority, Justice Clarence Thomas explained that the state law never referred to the candidates as nominees of any particular party. Rather, the nominees were simply asserting which party they preferred to be associated with, and the Court found no convincing evidence that this association would lead voters to believe that the particular party actually endorsed the nominee.”

    https://www.oyez.org/cases/2007/06-713

  34. Gravatar of John S John S
    5. September 2022 at 07:52

    “Minor party candidates are usually extremist kooks who have never run anything more significant than a newsletter.”

    It should be abundantly clear that the current party primary system allows “extremist kooks” to win elections at every level of govt in the US (see US Presidential Election, 2016).

    Though I don’t necessarily support their policies, Justin Amash and Ron Paul seem to have served ably as members of Congress. And there are many examples of successful multi-party democracies around the world (e.g. Canada, Australia, Germany). Why do you think Americans are inherently incapable of electing responsible minor party candidates if electoral systems were altered to make it feasible?

    “They [parties] are simply voluntary organizations of people who use freedom of association to cooperate in electing candidates. There is nothing nefarious about that. And the jungle [i.e. nonpartisan open] primary is a direct attack on that freedom.”

    In 2008 the Supreme Court ruled 7-2 that WA state’s “modified blanket primary” Initiative 872 (i.e. a nonpartisan open primary >> Top 2 system) did not violate parties’ First Amendment right of free association.

    “Question: Does Washington’s “modified blanket primary” system violate the First and Fourteenth Amendment right to freedom of association by denying political parties control over which candidates to endorse?

    In a 7-2 opinion, the Court reversed the Ninth Circuit’s ruling and held the party affiliation provision constitutional. Writing for the majority, Justice Clarence Thomas explained that the state law never referred to the candidates as nominees of any particular party. Rather, the nominees were simply asserting which party they preferred to be associated with, and the Court found no convincing evidence that this association would lead voters to believe that the particular party actually endorsed the nominee.”

    https://www.oyez.org/cases/2007/06-713

  35. Gravatar of John S John S
    5. September 2022 at 08:01

    [Sorry for the double post, the original must have gotten stuck in spam.]

    Furthermore, there is a question of free speech re: candidates’ right to declare their party preference, regardless of party nomination. Thomas writes:

    “A political party cannot prevent a candidate who is unaffiliated with, or even repugnant to, the party from designating it as his party of preference.”

    https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/06-713.ZO.html

    Also, see note 7 of the link: “The First Amendment does not give political parties a right to have their nominees designated as such on the ballot.”

  36. Gravatar of anon anon
    5. September 2022 at 08:46

    John S – thought provoking!

    So why even have primaries? If a majority is indiependents, neither R nor D, let all and comers on the ballot – Rs/Ds/Others can have X/Y/Z candidates and let the voters cast on who they prefer the most? May be to be practical limit the total # of candidates in a ballot – and the final list is lottery selected if total candidates in fray > practical limit. The party can put its heft/money behind those it deems to be theirs/ranking and the rest has to fend of for themselves!

  37. Gravatar of John S John S
    5. September 2022 at 10:52

    Thanks anon.

    “let all and comers on the ballot – Rs/Ds/Others can have X/Y/Z candidates and let the voters cast on who they prefer the most”

    This is actually the system I favor: a 1st round of voting consisting of a nonpartisan open primary with X number of candidates proceeding to a ranked-choice general election. (Some states have 2 final candidates, Alaska has 4; I prefer 5 to represent a variety of viewpoints.)

    https://political-innovation.org/final-five-voting/

    “So why even have primaries?”

    As you say, I think there needs to be some practical way of narrowing the number of final candidates for debates and to give voters some sense of where candidates stand on issues. I think it’s better for voters to select the final candidates than to use a lottery.

    Also, one major criticism of ranked-choice voting is that it’s too complicated for voters to understand. I think this claim is way overblown — 85% of Alaskan voters said RCV was easy to understand (a % which will surely rise) — but trying to rank 13 or 17 candidates would make anyone’s head explode.

  38. Gravatar of John S John S
    5. September 2022 at 11:09

    Another advantage of a two-round system is that it gives lesser-known candidates an opportunity to make up ground against big-name politicians who have a massive advantage in the initial free-for-all. For example, Palin crushed the field with 27% in the 1st round of AK’s nonpartisan open primary, but in the general election Begich narrowed the gap with her quite a bit (31.3% to 28.5%) and Peltola came back from 10% in the primary to win the whole thing.

    https://www.npr.org/2022/06/15/1105429864/palin-begich-gross-advance-alaska-us-house-race

    A two-round system also gives voters time to decide who to choose with their 2nd, 3rd, and 4th choices. This encourages inter-party cooperation since candidates can’t afford to piss off voters who might choose them as an alternate. (Even Palin started to play nice with Peltola during the general campaign, although we don’t know how successful this was b/c Palin was eliminated in RCV round 1 and we thus don’t know her supporters’ alternate selections).

    Less partisanship and more aisle-crossing seems preferable to the current extreme polarization.

  39. Gravatar of Christian List Christian List
    5. September 2022 at 11:52

    There is no need for the Artemis program and certainly no need for the Chinese program, of which Scott suddenly seems to be a big fan. Why is that?

    It’s a waste of money. Since when does Scott like absurd government spending on wasteful programs and then from such a vicious autocratic regime. What hypocrisy.

    The rockets by Musk seem to be doing more than fine. The U.S. citizens should put far more pressure on NASA to end its wasteful programs.

    The billions and billions of wasted tax dollars are obscene, grotesque, shameful, and only serve to artificially keep jobs alive at inefficient, statist corporations like Boeing.

    These companies and these NASA programs don’t open up our path to space – they shut it down.

  40. Gravatar of George George
    6. September 2022 at 06:18

    Judge has granted Trump’s request for a special master to review attorney client and executive privilege.

    https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.flsd.618763/gov.uscourts.flsd.618763.64.0_2.pdf

    Contrary to media reports and DOJs filing, Trump’s team didn’t seek a special master “too late” in the process. His lawyer asked for one the day after the “raid” (aka state sanctioned burglary).

    They stole some of Trump’s medical records.

    The “Filter Team” didn’t work (shocker!)

    https://i.imgur.com/eh6SJfB.png

  41. Gravatar of ssumner ssumner
    6. September 2022 at 09:04

    Christian, You said:

    “of which Scott suddenly seems to be a big fan.”

    LOL, I see you still don’t know how to read.

    George, Watch that judge get overruled.

  42. Gravatar of Christian List Christian List
    6. September 2022 at 11:47

    Okay, Scott, I give you that.

    But the US has more than enough reasonable reasons not to participate in the Chinese national program. It’s not only pride. The Chinese can do it on their own, there is no advantage for the US, and Musk could do it just as well, most likely better and cheaper.

    NASA’s policy here is once again just wasteful. It seems to be purely political. It seems to be about politics, privileges, and subsidized jobs.

  43. Gravatar of George George
    7. September 2022 at 06:07

    https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/09/shocking-video-via-mc4ei-gateway-pundit-13-minutes-never-seen-footage-ballot-trafficking-detroit-michigan/

    Those who have seen evidence and know there was election fraud 2020, and those who have not seen the evidence and don’t know there was election fraud 2020.

    Those who have seen evidence and DO SAY there was election fraud 2020, and those who have seen evidence and DON’T SAY there was election fraud 2020.

    Those who have seen evidence and DON’T SAY there was election fraud 2020, and those who have seen evidence and LIE that there was NO election fraud 2020.

    https://www.heritage.org/voterfraud-print/search

  44. Gravatar of George George
    7. September 2022 at 06:09

    ssumner: “Watch that judge get overruled”

    Watch the overruling judge get overruled.

  45. Gravatar of David S David S
    7. September 2022 at 09:17

    Okay folks, no soft landings—it’s Growth Recession time. Make sure your belts have a few extra notches on the tight side.

  46. Gravatar of George George
    7. September 2022 at 14:24

    https://i.imgur.com/GYaRFOY.jpg
    New UK PM was close friends with pedophile Jimmy Savile.

    Biden just hired pedophile John Podesta as the new climate hoax money laundering czar.

  47. Gravatar of George George
    7. September 2022 at 19:24

    https://www.reviewjournal.com/crime/homicides/police-arrest-county-official-in-reporters-stabbing-death-2635486/amp/

    https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/elections/ex-virginia-election-official-indicted-corruption-charges-related-2020

  48. Gravatar of George George
    8. September 2022 at 04:02

    Democrat/RINO Party -> MSM -> Same pattern

    https://truthsocial.com/@Libertas/posts/108957482837228436

  49. Gravatar of George George
    8. September 2022 at 08:08

    https://twitter.com/bennyjohnson/status/1566230943693676544

    “81 million votes” LOL

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