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An American born to a 17-year-old mother, adopted at the age of 4 by her newly married Cuban immigrant husband raised in middle-class circumstances in Texas and Florida, gave a farewell speech during his high school graduation speech in 1982. His purpose in life, said Jeff Bezos, was to colonize space.
On Tuesday, Bezos took off into the upper atmosphere on a craft he paid for in part with the unprecedented fortune he earned as the biggest retailer of the 21st century. History can record not that Bezos created Amazon, but rather that he was the Magellan of our time.
After billionaire Richard Branson’s space trip last week, and in the wake of billionaire Elon Musk’s SpaceX launches, Bezos’ flight has now solidified a future that will feature private exploration of the universe at- beyond the Earth and the sea.
Sixty years ago John F. Kennedy called it “the new frontier”. Today, the new frontier is being explored not only by governments, but also by wealthy explorers – people willing to put their fortunes (and, incidentally, their lives) on the line to expand the frontiers of human possibility.
The manned missions of the 1960s and 1970s, along with the most recent unmanned excursions to Mars and the discoveries of the Hubble Telescope, had the glorious effect of inspiring wealthy entrepreneurs like Bezos who are driven by an overwhelmingly optimistic sense of the potential of transformation. of human technological achievement.
The changes in human fate that these trips portend are astonishing.
And how was Bezos received by connoisseurs? With contempt and contempt, of course.
Here’s a headline from the Rolling Stone website: “Jeff Bezos Uses Money To Spit Shows Directly Into The Upper Atmosphere During Space Travel.”
What about Democratic politicians? Here is Representative Katherine Clark, one of the leaders of the House of Representatives: “You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to know it’s time for billionaires to pay their fair share.” Democratic Representative Pramila Jayapal: “Billionaires will do EVERYTHING to avoid paying their fair share of taxes. Now is the time for wealth tax.
In fact, Bezos paid $ 1.4 billion in taxes between 2006 and 2018. That may not be enough for Representatives Clark and Jayapal, because for leftist politicians the correct tax rate on the rich is probably around 100%, but still seems to be quite a lot to me and probably to most rational people.
Here is representative Mark Pocan: “2.2 billion people do not have access to safe drinking water… but, hooray! Another billionaire has just reached the edge of space.
Pocan is a fool. If billions of people are suffering on Earth, one of the ways to help alleviate and overcome this suffering in the future is through technological innovations that will be the offshoots and products of what Bezos and his fellow explorers are making possible. today.
One politician who did not indulge in this nihilistic gossip was the President of the United States. “This is a special American moment,” her press secretary Jen Psaki said in response to the theft.
This is the right take. Perhaps his fellow Democrats will listen – and delete their ill-spawned Twitter accounts.
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