Rule Of Thumb

Been reading a lot about the Challenger disaster. On the morning of January 28, 1986, the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded high in the skies over Cape Canaveral, Florida. All seven of the crew were killed, including, most famously, Christa McAuliffe, intended to be the first teacher – and non-astronaut – in space.

It’s been upsetting to learn that the fate of those seven was sealed years before any of them boarded the shuttle. Dozens of conscientious engineers had been warning their managers and the higher-ups of NASA of increasing signs of disastrous weaknesses in the structure and systems of the spacecraft. Time and again, time and again, their concerns were downplayed and ignored.

On the night before the disaster, a number of people – engineers, former astronauts, ground crews – tried everything to convince the men making the final decision on the launch of the enormous danger of a major malfunction. Through tears, screams of anger, helpless pleading, they begged the men in charge to call off the impending flight.

They were ignored, the mission proceeded, and – less than three minutes after liftoff – that explosion destroyed the shuttle and plunged the crew to their doom. Scientists still aren’t sure how long they survived … maybe the whole two-and-a-half minutes it took for their still-intact portion of the craft to hurtle into the sea.

The men who ignored the warnings of their own engineers felt bad about what happened. But most of them got over it. You realize – reading their comments, watching interviews – that they’ve long since rationalized for themselves that it wasn’t really their fault. That they made the right decision, as the top man said, given the information presented to them.

The top man failed to mention that he had long since made it clear to his team that he didn’t want to hear information – any information – that contradicted his agenda for the Space Shuttle program. So they made sure he didn’t. And seven people died.

The managers, ultimately, could live with that. They were sorry, they said. But, of course, if they were the kind of people who cared more about seven lives than they did a billion-dollar program … they wouldn’t have authorized such a dangerous launch.

Keep thinking about that, watching these last few weeks of the campaign for the presidency: people whose personal agendas outweigh the needs of other people.

I'm remembering, for instance, the chaotic, disastrous exit from Afghanistan in 2021 – all the helpless people killed in that wild rush and panic. All the friends and allies left behind to the cruelties of our enemies. And those desperate souls, clinging, for a few last moments, to the wheels of the fleeing jets.

I'm thinking of the open borders that’ve let in so many millions, and of the stories of those who’ve died because this administration didn’t care who came through. And imagining how many others will die, in days and years to come, because this administration didn’t – and still doesn’t – care.

I'm thinking of all those North Carolina hurricane victims, a few weeks ago, who couldn’t get a call through to FEMA. Or any help, when someone finally picked up the phone. Of the FEMA agents I saw, scolding people – threatening people – just for helping their neighbors.

I'm thinking of the cities that burned, during the Antifa riots, while this administration and its allies stood silently by. Of people wasting away in prison for January 6th, so this administration can savor its pound of flesh.

Of the food and gas prices rising, rising, while this administration shrugged and looked the other way. Of all the people dead and dying from administration-pushed Covid vaccines. Of Israel, fighting for its life – and Taiwan, bracing for that fight – while this administration denounces their efforts and placates their enemies.

Of all that I've heard, these last few months, of the importance of killing and maiming our children, in the name of political success.

Heard an odd billionaire say, the other day, that no one should be president of the United States who doesn’t love the people of the United States. It's a good rule of thumb. And that love, I suspect, can take many forms.

Sometimes, it sounds like a man who is coarser and cruder, at moments, than I wish he would be. Sometimes it looks like a man leaning through a McDonald’s window, cheerily handing out fries. Or grinning from the front seat of a garbage truck. Or raising his fist in defiance at those who would kill him, to silence his voice and shatter the vision of those who, with him, dream of a better, stronger nation.

“People will vote for you, even if they don’t like you,” heard a former politician say the other day. “But they won’t vote for you if they know you don’t like them.” Surely hope that’s true.

Don’t know everything about this odd billionaire. Don’t like everything I know. But I’m persuaded that he believes in his country. And likes the people who live in it.

Hope they know that.

And I hope he wins.

May the Lord, either way, have mercy on us all.