TALLAHASSEE - When President Kennedy challenged the nation to commit itself within 10 years to "landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the Earth," it wasn't purely for the sake of science. He had in mind a bloodless battlefield in the Cold War with the Soviet Union, which was ahead in space at the time.
The United States eventually won that race, but in the end it was like having been the first to conquer Mount Everest. There were no more mountains to climb, and no reason even to keep climbing that one.
So NASA came up with history's costliest make-work projects, the space shuttles and a space station.
Now we're going to Mars, or so the president is expected to say this week. This will be a heck of a lot more difficult and expensive than going to the moon - especially if the goal still includes coming back alive. It is also much harder to justify.
Getting to Mars, or even just back to the moon, won't bring peace to the Middle East. It won't get us out of Afghanistan or Iraq. We won't find Osama bin Laden hiding there. It won't tame Al-Qaida or North Korea.
It will postpone rather than hasten the reckoning with America's unique shame: a health system that costs more and yet cares for fewer people, proportionally, than any other.
The Mars adventure will do nothing to ameliorate global warming, climate change or habitat destruction, which are clear and present environmental dangers that threaten to eventually make this planet as inhospitable to life as we already know Mars to be.
To aim for Mars in the face of a projected $600-billion annual deficit is beyond silly. It is insane.
One could say, of course, that at least the president is finally interested in something beyond today's fundraiser or tomorrow's election.
If, that is, the purpose isn't just to nail down Space Coast votes or create a marquee issue for his intended successor, Brother Jeb.
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Speaking of clear and present dangers, remember the Vietnam village that had to be destroyed in order to save it?
Now come Richard Perle, the still influential former assistant secretary of defense, and David Frum, a former speech writer for President Bush, who would destroy this country in the course of saving it.
Their new book maintains, among other things, that to combat terror the United States needs to make everyone in this country carry an identity card bearing biometric data such as fingerprints, retinal scans or DNA.
Forgive me for thinking that it was the militia folks who were paranoid. What's to keep those "smart" identity cards from being programmed to let the government know at all times where you are and what you are saying?
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Speaking of terror, there's terror with a capital T in Tallahassee over how easy it has become to amend the Florida Constitution.
The chamber of commerce and other business lobbies will step up pressure this week for an amendment requiring any future amendments to win at least two-thirds of the vote at referendum.
It's hardly news, of course, that the Constitution is vulnerable to junk initiatives that have nothing going for them beyond the deep pockets of their sponsors. This was obvious to some of us as far back as 1978, when the gambling racket got on the ballot with the first of its three unsuccessful casino initiatives.
So why the business community's late awakening?
You don't have to be a cynic to suspect that it owes to current initiatives that would, among other things, require labeling of genetically engineered foods, ban billboards, require a voter referendum for each change to a local land use or comprehensive plan, apply Florida's antitrust law to insurance companies, require universal health insurance, create a state minimum wage of $6.15 indexed to inflation, and periodically sunset most sales tax exemptions.
Most of these have no chance of even getting on the ballot. Most of them shouldn't; of the 50 in various stages of circulation, the only ones that belong in any constitution are those having to do with tax reform and districting reform. Yet the business lobbies are right; the successes of the pregnant pig and bullet train initiatives make their case.
But their remedy goes too far the other way. They're insisting on a two-thirds vote for all amendments, not just those proposed by initiative.
No state goes that far, according to Daniel Smith, a University of Florida political science professor who advises the Senate's select committee on constitutional amendments. In the long view of Florida constitutional history, the problem was more often one of selfish legislators blocking essential progress. That's why we have not only the initiative but also a Constitution Revision Commission that's empowered to go directly to the people. Any "reform" that failed to distinguish between initiatives and revision commission amendments would be a huge step backward.
