Forty years ago today, the United States won the Space Race. Three brave Americans traveled a quarter-million miles to the Moon. Neal Armstrong and ‘Buzz’ Aldrin walked on the moon’s surface while Michael Collins orbited sixty miles above.

When President Kennedy made the speech in 1961 that set the space race in motion, none – or very little - of what was needed was even in existence. It all had to be envisioned by engineers and scientists, then it had to be created: A booster strong enough to break the bonds of Earth’s gravity; a spaceship that would land on the Moon – and blast off again; the docking technology to transfer astronauts between the Earth-based craft and one that would fly in outer space only; space suits that would keep the astronauts alive and comfortable in the Moon’s extreme temperatures. The list goes on and on.

Yet, just eight years after JFK’s challenge, the U.S. was able to produce the Apollo spacecraft and fly it to a precise point in space – within sixty miles of where the Moon would be at the end of a three-day journey. Too close and they would likely crash; too far and the ship would skip past the Moon and into eternity.

All this had to be calculated - without computers of any significance compared to today’s scientific calculators. The spacecraft itself had a computer so primitive as to be unworthy of mention. Picture traveling to the Moon with the timer off your microwave.  That’s about all it did.

Of course, they had no idea how far computers would progress in forty years and, make no mistake, the space program drove much of that progress. They simply made do with what they had. But the point is that they were successful.

Fast forward to today. The U.S. lags behind the world in math and science education. Most big cities have about a 50% graduation rate from their public schools. Many universities, including the one where my degree was earned, have remedial classes in math because many of the students they accept are not prepared for college-level work. One has to wonder what the ones not accepted (or not applying) to attend college are prepared for.

This can’t be acceptable if the U.S. is to remain a power player on the world stage. Politicians pay plenty of lip service to education, but the bottom line is always the same: give us more money.

Spending on education has ballooned over the last four decades, while performance has not improved. It’s time for two reforms: accountability and school choice. A school system that graduates half its students in four years is obviously doing things incorrectly. Get rid of underperforming teachers and administrators. Our children’s and our nation’s future is more important than their misguided career choice. While the above will take some period of time, children can’t be wasting their time in underperforming schools. Let parents use their school tax funds to send their kids to any school – public or private. That money belongs – or should belong – to the child, not to the district in which the family happens to live.

Only then might the U.S. get out of the “gimme gimme” funk that it’s in and return to the can-do days when we found a way to get three brave men to the Moon. 

Today, the Senate Judiciary Committee will begin it’s hearings into the confirmation of Supreme Court nominee Sonya Sotomayor. It is necessary for one to be pragmatic and face the fact that the Democrats, with their large majority in the Senate, will have no trouble confirming her – barring any last minute explosions.

However, one can dream. Dream of a Senate not full of progressives, for whom the Constitution has been just a quaint old document and an annoyance to be sidestepped whenever possible – going back as far as Woodrow Wilson. (That’s nearly one hundred years, folks. No wonder our Republic is so far off the rails.)

Imagine instead a body full of Senators who understand and revere the Constitution; who understand how the Constitution provides the means to limit the Federal government not the people. If some parallel Senate was composed of such people the questioning of Judge Sotomayor might go something like this:

Judge Sotomayor, The Fourteenth Amendment says, in part, that no state shall “deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” This amendment, adopted in 1868, expands on the language in Article 4, Section 2, which says, “The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States.” Please reconcile these two examples - clearly endorsing the ideal of equality, regardless of a person’s external appearance – with your finding in the Circuit court that the civil rights of one group of firefighters in New Haven, CT take precedence over another group, solely because of their external features.

Judge Sotomayor, you stated that in deciding cases before the Court, you intend to apply a certain amount of empathy towards minorities and those ‘less fortunate,’ however you define that term. Please cite the article and section of the Constitution that allows Supreme Court Justices to use anything other than a fair interpretation of a case, against Constitutional allowances of the government’s power, to decide a case. You do understand that the lady holding the scales of justice is blindfolded for a reason, do you not?

On more than one occasion you mentioned that the fact that you are a Latina would help you reach better conclusions on the Bench than a white male. Two questions on that: What, exactly, do you think the chances would be of this body confirming any white male who had made the same statement – professing his superiority because of race? And secondly, given our line of questioning on true equality – not the lip service that we give to equality today – wouldn’t it be extremely unfair to ignore a statement like that from you when it would almost automatically disqualify someone else?

Don’t hold your breath for any of these questions to be asked of the nominee – and if they were, the questioner would certainly be derided as the worst misogynist-racist in existence anywhere.

But, one can dream.

The left's mantra that Barack Obama will reverse the "failed policies" of the last eight years has intensified in the days following the inauguration of the incoming President. What the lapdog media won't mention is that the policies that have put us where we are today are policies of the left, not the right.

Take, for example, the Community Reinvestment Act, which codified the idea that financial institutions would be expected to give home loans to people with bad credit or be subject to extortion from community groups. Taxpayer-subsidized extortion, no less. Any Conservative values represented in that? Not as far as I can see.

How many conservatives believed that our government needed another budget-busting entitlement like prescription drug benefits?

When President Bush signed the McCain-Feingold campaign finance legislation, he said the courts would have to decide whether it was Constitutional. Most conservatives understand the First Amendment: "Congress shall make NO law..." That seems pretty straightforward. Unfortunately, for too many in elected office today, the Constitution is a speed bump on their way to ever-greater control of the great unwashed.

A government that continues to grow in scope, and expense, and in control over the governed cannot be said to be failing because of the policies of the right.

For nearly two decades now, the policies of the right have been pretty much ignored, marginalized, and maligned. Even the 1994 freshmen class in the House of Representatives, elected on a platform of reform (stated beautifully in their contract with America) couldn't - or wouldn't - stand up to the constant barrage of propaganda from across the aisle and their press agents in mainstream media outlets.

The conservative values upon which they were elected were pushed aside in an incredibly naive attempt to gain the respect of those working for their defeat.

Proven goals like tax-cutting and regulation relief were pushed aside in favor of compassionate conservatism. Being called a racist or bigot for supporting anything other than a politically-correct view of an issue became effective. The media dutifully parroted such idiocy.

Nearly twenty years after President Bush 41 uttered the famous "read my lips, no new taxes," we are spending more on bailout and stimulus plans (that won't work) than Ronald Reagan spent in his last budget. The printing presses at Treasury are humming. We're borrowing lots of money from countries that don't like us.

Give President Bush full marks for preventing another terrorist attack on U.S. soil. As for the rest of our recent history, we are where we are for a great many reasons. Just please don't try to convince me that it's because of a failure of my ideas. My ideas haven't been tried.