Florida Today on July 22 published an interview with Space Coast Representative Bill Posey.
In the interview, Posey repeated nonsensical claims he'd made in the past that China intends to colonize the Moon as a military threat.
The moon, first and primarily, is the military high ground. We know the Russians want to colonize the moon. The Chinese are going to colonize the moon — they’ve said so.
Posey's official biography indicates no military experience, or any reason to think he understands anything about military strategy.
I've submitted to Florida Today a letter to the editor in response to Posey's claims. The text is below.
In his July 23 column, Matt Reed repeated a claim by Rep. Bill Posey that, "The Chinese are going to colonize the moon — they’ve said so."
Posey has claimed this many times, but never offered any proof.
China has said time and again they might build a modest space station by the end of the decade.
In their most recent space policy white paper, China said that they will "conduct studies on the preliminary plan for a human lunar landing."
That's a far cry from a Moon colony.
Posey has claimed that the Moon is "a military high ground," an absurd notion. It would be much easier to attack the U.S. from off our shores than spending hundreds of billions of dollars to station missiles 240,000 miles away.
And how stupid it would be for China to destroy a nation that owes them $1 trillion. That would collapse the Chinese economy.
Posey may claim to be a fiscal conservative, but blowing the federal budget to station soldiers in a lunar fortress shows he's totally irresponsible with taxpayer dollars.
Mr. Posey, it's time that you start providing evidence to back up your claims.
And for those of us in the reality-based world, it's time for us to call on the carpet a demagogue who makes absurd claims trying to frighten people into keeping him in power.
UPDATE July 26, 2012 — Florida Today published my letter today.
Look at the BRIGHT side. He's a conservative, but he's reached the 1960's. Pretty soon, he'll move on to accepting civil rights for black folks, and a few years after that he'll learn that Apollo 11 actually did go the moon and back, and he'll start thinking positive things about the space shuttle, and in another 50 years or so -- God only knows what level of enlightenment he will reach.
ReplyDeleteParaphrasing Yoda, ahead of the curve for Congress people, he is.