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Ok, you have obvious libertarian leanings, while I tend to have what you'd see as socialist leanings, and we probably shouldn't waste the diskspace here hashing it all out. I do remember that NPR report on a poll that discovered most people who self identify as Republican and more anti-big-gov't end up siding on the 'democratic' side when asked about most particular issues. (Suffice to say outright removal of Social Security would be an unpopular move.) In practice, modern society is based on making decisions in a group kind of way, even if some disagree. If enough disagree, then you and a "bunch of like minded people" can vote for politicians who better support your views. Good luck; as far as I can tell the libertarians drum up shit at the polls.
On your second point, I think there are better and more direct ways for the federal government to fund general scientific development than funneling it through a missile defense. And even if it were *great* for general R+D and not just the rather speific disciplines of aeromechanical and radar engineering, it would still be a dumb idea, because A. it won't work as promised and B. if it did work as promised its promise doesn't deal well with the suitcase nuke or smallpox aerosol.
Reagan promised to share SDI with the Russians... yeah, I think I believed that at the time. Of course, I was like, what, 10? The problem is, even if there was some joint protection going on, worldwide antimissile shield, we would still hold the trump card. No one would trust us not to act unilaterally when we felt the need. "Sorry Pakistan, where kind of pissed at how you sucked up to the Chinese at their Olympic games, we're not sure if their might not be a little oopsy when it comes to detecting India's nukes." Even if that's not what we'd do, the world doesn't *know* that, (especially with yahoos like Bush's entourage in the whitehouse, who seem very happy to act unilaterally, hence the disregard or abandonment of Kyoto treaty, ABM treaty, test ban treaty, biological warefare prevention treaty etc etc) and that's why it raises tensions.
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