As I said before, I don’t know anyone in my age group who expects to collect Social Security. Having a private means of retirement is par for the course for anyone middle class and above.

Private home ownership remains high and is the norm not only for the middle and upper classes but even for the working class as well.

There are 400 million firearms in private hands in America. Or, put another way, the average American family of four owns five firearms. Five firearms and three cars. Private transportation and self defense are the norm.

A slow-motion revolution has been occurring over the last thirty years in the private ownership of firearms. In most red states now a law-abiding citizen can buy and own a shotgun, rifle, or handgun without a permit. Not only that, 29 states now allow “Constitutional carry”, that is either the open or concealed carry in public without a permit. That happened one state at a time first with concealed carry permits and then with carrying without a permit.

I see the same slow one-state-at-a-time thing happening now with homeschooling and school vouchers. The idea was denounced as nuts just a decade ago but is now slowly spreading throughout the red states. It’s still early in the process, but the movement has the same feel to it that the concealed carry movement did 30 years ago. There’s quite a bit of grassroots support for it.

So cry when you read the news, but with private transportation, private home ownership, private retirement, mostly private healthcare, private armed defense, and increasingly private education, there is reason to rejoice as well.

mkent: Gosh, the difference in out life experience is quite profound. I also grew up in New York City, lived there for the first 45 years of my life, and then moved to DC region for another fourteen years. Even now I live in Tucson, where the urban population is an extreme mix of military, retired, and academic. The left dominates sadly.

The one lesson however I gathered most from my childhood was the traditional American and Jewish perspective that you must think for yourself and not follow the herd. For me, that lesson, combined with a passionate interest in the space race resulting from the Cold War and the contrast between the Soviet Union and America, made me think very differently from all around me.

The most popular movies of my youth were Star Wars (a small band of anti-government rebels takes down the Evil Empire) and Smokey and the Bandit. Alex P. Keaton ruled prime time TV. The other popular TV shows were M*A*S*H which, whatever you can say about its politics it most certainly was not pro-government, and the Dukes of Hazzard. The first 45 I ever bought was

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3VN54M1OXA

when I was about eight years old.

I went to college at a school in upstate New York that graduated about 1200 engineers a year and about 15 humanities majors. Not 1500 but 15. Not only filled with engineers but also the second largest ROTC installation in the country behind Texas A&M.

I got an Apple II in 1982 and watched the PC revolution in the 1980s (despite what they later turned into, Apple’s 1984 ad really did capture the feeling of the age) and put my Apple II on the internet in 1988. Years before even the World Wide Web and a decade or more before social media, the internet back then was a very libertarian place. If you didn’t experience it back then I don’t think you would ever believe just how libertarian it was. Alex P. Keaton ran the place.

My whole career was spent working as an aerospace engineer at major defense contractors, including a stint at Edwards Air Force Base where even the government employees didn’t trust the government. At some places you would be more likely to find members of the Sovereign Citizen movement than any gun control or environmental group. I don’t think I know any person in my age group who expects to be able to cash a single Social Security check.

The weird thing is, that distrust of government runs throughout my entire age cohort left, right, and center. I guess everyone thinks his generation is different, but at least in that respect I think Gen-X really is different than the two generations that went before or came after. I only wish we were numerous enough to matter more.

mkent: I must add that my social circles have sadly been a much better representation of the American voting public for the past three-quarters of a century than yours. How else would be get stuck with this monster government that is constantly stamping its boot into our faces?

And don’t think Trump is going to defeat it. He is clearly making a dent, but one need only watch the effort of the Republican Congress to thwart him by refusing to reduce the budget to get a sense of how difficult this battle will be. Americans still love their big government and the checks it sends them, and they are not yet sure they want to give that up.

For one 100 years ago America did not have very many if any building codes like we do today.

Do not worry Chicago will not burn from a cow tipping over a lamp

mkent: You are lucky. I am Jewish, so almost all my relatives were blind Democrats. I worked in the film business for 20 years. Ditto. Then I taught at NYU and the New School. Ditto. When I became a science journalist I was surrounded by the same. As a space historian I had to deal with publishers. Ditto.

Even in social circles, the baby boom generation that I grew up with was all raised with a love of good government regulation as the solution to all problems. If this has finally begun to change it is most gratifying, but for me it has likely come too late.

No offense intended, but you must hang out with different Americans than I do.

Steve White: Starbase however already has “municipality” status, its residents voting for this just two weeks ago. I call it a company town in that it exists solely because of SpaceX, and it is SpaceX that is essentially building it. And it appears to be doing it generously and with the right goals.

Having said that, you are right that in such situations it is imperative to keep watch, or as Reagan said, “Trust but verify.” Musk sets the tone right now, which in all things appears correct. He won’t be there forever.

I do wish however that Americans applied this same skepticism to our government. For my entire life they have refused to do it, trusting the government in all things blindly.