SATISH SHARMA - not just Rotigraphy.: What was Carl Sagan's response when asked if he was a socialist?

https://x.com/jameswebb_nasa/status/2050620490817867855

JAMES WEBB

Translated from Portuguese

What was Carl Sagan's response when asked if he was a socialist?

In 1989, during a CNN interview, Ted Turner posed the question directly:

Ted Turner: "Are you a socialist?"

Carl Sagan replied:

"I'm not sure what a socialist is. But I believe that the government has a responsibility to take care of people.

I'm not talking about handouts. I'm talking about making people self-sufficient, capable of taking care of themselves.

There are countries perfectly capable of doing this. The United States is an extremely wealthy country and perfectly capable of doing this. It chooses not to. It chooses to have homeless people.

We're in 19th place in the world in infant mortality. There are eighteen countries that save their babies' lives better than we do. They care more about their babies than we do about ours. I find that a shame.

And this country has immense wealth. Just look at something like 'Star Wars.' They've already spent about 20 billion dollars on it. If they let those guys keep going, they'll spend a trillion dollars on 'Star Wars.'

Think about what that money could do in education, in social assistance, in giving people a sense of self-confidence, in improving not only people's happiness in America, but their economic situation and the competitiveness of the United States.

We're spending money on the wrong things."
…

Without accepting the label or engaging in an ideological game, Sagan redirected the discussion to the place that truly mattered: not ideology, but a nation's moral responsibility toward its own wealth.