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Liberals have several arguments against building a missile shield. First, they tell us that it is not practical or even possible. It is very like liberals to be stuck in the past. They do not see the possibilities of new technologies, because they would rather do without new technology altogether, banning cars, energy production, and advanced farming techniques. They do not understand modern space, optical and weapons technologies and our ability to integrate systems.
The fact is, if we can conceptualize a missile defense system, it can probably be built and be effective.
Liberals know that America can perform almost any feat. Landing on the moon and the development of the nuclear bomb are two examples of projects we completed that were at one time thought impossible. It is here then that Liberals fall back on an old and time-worn argument. They bring up the notion of mutually assured destruction, the acronym for this term is MAD.
The MAD concept is that both sides, in possession of weapons of mass destruction will be afraid to use those weapons because, once launched, the launching side is assured of retaliation and of being destroyed themselves. A nice economical theory as far as it goes
Now the idea of MAD, as it is circulated by the left, illustrates two things about left-extremist arguments. First, they are generally based on wishful thinking. MAD assumes that all humans are rational. A catalogue of world leaders in the last century would easily disprove that theory (witness Hitler, Stalin, Idi Amin, Sadam Hussein, Kim Il Sung, Mao, Chamberlain, just to name a few). How many of these men, had they been in possession of massive nuclear weapons, would have refrained from their use?
Second, liberal thinking adopts contradictory arguments to defend two of its pet positions. They say that the thing that keeps nations from war is the idea that if they start a war, they will surely be destroyed. Then, when we discuss gun control, they deny the preventive effect of individuals carrying a concealed weapon and the likelihood of the destruction of a perpetrator.
Conservatives understand that Mutually Assured Destruction may work in the world of perfectly rational people. Since we are not always dealing with rational people in world politics, it is better to prevent even one nuclear blast using a missile shield than to rely on psycho-babble to defend our cities. To argue against this on the macro level is like saying police should not be allowed to wear body armor on the micro level.
In an ideal world we would not need nuclear weapons, nuclear shields, handguns or body armor. Nevertheless, we live in a mad, mad world where mutually assured destruction is, in the end, only the ticket to self-destruction.
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