"Have you heard of Christian Apologetics? It is the branch of theology which specializes in the philosophical and scriptural arguments which support a particular religious belief. This is what these scholars call themselves, it is not a term of opprobium or a sarcastic reference to their faith. Look it up. An apologist for any belief is one who supports it and tries to marshal argument and logic in order to justify its program."

Hmm, I once was an Apologetic of Something. But after some thought and with some help such as "Watts writes on page 60, recalling the Buddha's dictum, that the raft of Buddhism is only for getting across the river. Once on the other side, it can be left behind."
http://www.amazon.ca/exec/obidos/ASIN/0802130569/702-7348149-6220044
I haven't been very eager to drag rafts around.

"I am not opposed to capitalism, in fact, I support it because it takes advantage of every human being's desire to improve himself and to take risks, and because it rewards individual initiative. I also support it because capitalist economies are self-regulating in a way that no command economy can be. However, I am not an apologist for capitalism, in fact, I am a critic of it. If you look up "critic" you will also see that it doesn't necessarily mean someone who is totally opposed to something, just as a movie critic can like a film, or even be critical of parts of it and still recommend it."

Well, personnally I'm not a critic or an apologist for capitialism. But have noticed the life is a bit more complicated than some people imagine.

"I am a critic of capitalism because even though I support it in principle, I also believe that it is inherently unstable and prone to monopoly, and because it tends to extend control over governments to provide itself protection from the competition (free market) which is the only thing that prevents capitalism from becoming a monopoly. I believe that capitalism can only work if it is monitored and regulated by government, a free government that is not beholding to special interests and which is itself answerable to the electorate without lobbies or campaign contributions to sway elections."

I don't believe this myth. I know this is commonly accepted, but there isn't any proof of this being the case.
It's governmental power which creates monopolies- lots of proof of this- look at any socialistic govt. I think having a diversity of govt with soveriegn power is best route to curb monopoly. A powerful world govt would be the worse kind of situation- unless there were other world govts [lunar, Maritan, etc]. A Strong Federal govt for the US has created more problems in this regard as compared a situation where the States were to have back this power.
This myth is based upon a fear of "runaway" power that business would get from a monopoly. If this myth were correct, then in situations like when Standard Oil was forced to break up- the value of Standard Oil should lowered- but it didn't, the sum of it's pieces was worth considerably more than the single company.

"I recognize that government control can also go too far, and it is a difficult tightrope to walk between too much regulation and not enough.
I think America has done a pretty good job walking this tightrope so far,
but sometimes I see it straying too far to the right, and I speak up. There are others who feel it may go too far the other way, and they usually are pretty vocal about it too. As long as both sides can speak up and argue without either being accused of being communists or fascists we have a pretty good chance of staying on that tightrope without falling off."

I don't see a close to a balanced middle path- the federal govt has far, far, too much power. The President shouldn't be some substitute for a god. And the Supreme Court should not be a big concern for the America public. If you replaced our federal tax system with a flat tax, you would need a flat rate of around 23%. When that rate is below 10% then we might close to some tightrope walking. And if you want to reduce Defense spending, then less than 5%.
But, if you want to compare us to the rest of the FUCKED UP world, America doing great in this regard.

"As far as space exploration is concerned, I am very much in favor of it, and I think at least 10% of the national budget should be devoted to it. I encourage private enterprise to get involved because they have demonstrated the ability to get results. But I also recognize that unless some way of generating a profit from space can be demonstrated, private enterprise is not going to be very interested. ..."

So, with national budget of 2.5 trillion, you think we should spend at least 250 billion per year on NASA? I have no idea what they would do with all this money- though I suppose they could start building star ships. Of course if NASA's budget was "merely" 25 billion that would a HUGE increase- even NASA could possibly get us to the Moon within 5 years with that kind of budget. But I don't really care what NASA's budget is- I care about doing thing that would start markets- the govt could easily do this with about 1/2 billion [or over 10 years- 50 million per year].

"I know if I had capital to invest I wouldn't put it into space right now. However, capitalists are in the business of making money, not developing space, and if they can find a way to get government to pay for enormous space development projects which provide little or no benefit they will gladly suck up the contracts. This is the point I have been trying to make."

You probably right, there are safer ways of getting more return on your money than investing in Space [though I've invested some money into the area]. As for your point, I do not advocate for large NASA projects, such as Space Power Satellites, Moon Bases, Maritian bases, or other silly things. What I do want NASA to do is explore the Moon to determine if there is minable water- and if there is minable water [which means water which can be profitably mined] than other then perhaps on small experimential scale, I do NOT want NASA to mine the water.

"In my opinion, there is only one space technology right now capable of turning a profit, and that is communications satellites. Private enterprise is heavily committed to it. In the future, when other uses for space materialize, the capital will follow, but only when profitability goes up and the risks go down. Until then, I say let the government take the lead with science missions."

Well, communication satellites are making a profit and have been doing this for decades. Rocket launch companies are also profitable- and certainly put more payload into orbit than all govt launch. I guess what you saying is that Branson's suborbital business will fail to be profitable, but you haven't given any reason for this- but you could be right.