Guest post by Viv Forbes
The deaths of Steve Jobs and Neil Armstrong could signal the end of a remarkable era of scientific and engineering achievement that started about 200 years ago when James Watt and Robert Stephenson managed to harness coal-fired steam power to drive engines and locomotives. This was followed by technological innovations like electricity, diesel engines, nuclear power, the Model T, Colombia and the Apple 2.
During that era of innovation, we progressed from horse and buggy to supersonic flight; from semaphore to smart phone; from wood stoves to nuclear power; from the abacus to the PC; from flickering candles to brilliant light at the flick of a switch; and from wind-jammers sailing to the New World to rocket-ships landing on the Moon.
That era brought prosperity, longevity and a richer life to millions of people while creating the surpluses that allowed them to take better care of their environment. It also gave the free world the ability and tools to defend itself from aggressive dictators in two World Wars and the Cold War.
We are now living in the after-glow of that era, relying on past achievements and investments while Green doom-mongers are allowed to scare our children and reject our heritage.
What will today’s “Green Generation” be remembered for?
Already they have re-discovered wind power, wood energy and electric cars that were tried and largely rejected a century ago; they now encourage the production of once-banned ethanol corn whiskey, but waste it on cars; they spurn the energy potential of nuclear, coal, oil and gas; and they would close our airports and lock up our resources whilst developing computerised spy-ware to record, regulate, ration and tax our usage of everything.
And one branch of NASA, the once-great risk-taking body that put Neil Armstrong on the moon, is now supporting an anti-carbon cult that advocates the closure of the whole coal industry from mine to power station.
The legacy of today’s doom-mongers will be measured by the number of dams not built, the number of mines, factories, farms, forests and fishing grounds closed and the number of humans living in poverty.
Like the emperors of the Nero era in ancient Rome, they celebrate their destructive achievements by staging expensive Climate Circuses, while behind closed doors they plot to destroy the last vestiges of the freedom and property rights that allowed past generations to “Reach for the Stars”.
The slogan of the coming era should be “Retreat to the Past”.
So vale Neil Armstrong and Steve Jobs – we are losing far more than most people realise.
Viv Forbes,
Rosewood Qld Australia
I am happy for my email address to be published.
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“Second, no one is more concerned than I about big government, just remember, you cannot trust either party, though the Republicans, I believe, are the lesser of the two evils and third parties never win.”
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Perhaps here in the US we should pass an amendment where, in a federal election, if no one won more than 50% of the vote then one month later there would be a runoff election between the top two vote getters. They would then have to get the support of the 3rd (or even 4th) party voters.
Just a thought.
Gunga Din says:
August 29, 2012 at 8:31 pm
“Perhaps here in the US we should pass an amendment where, in a federal election, if no one won more than 50% of the vote then one month later there would be a runoff election between the top two vote getters. They would then have to get the support of the 3rd (or even 4th) party voters.
Just a thought.”
Possibly. However, once all of the illegals are voting to the left with the dead people from Chicago and other liberal bastions, along with all those on the dole and at the public trough, it may be a dangerous gambit.
“””””…..davidgmills says:
August 29, 2012 at 8:16 pm
I could debate you guys till the cows come home and you would not come up with an original idea. You simply rehash the tired old common generic libertarian commentary that does a real disservice to genuine libertarians. You really need years of genuine book study and not hours of TV and talk radio. Read a few thousand pages of cases and get a bare bones grasp of the government and back to me……””””‘
So David, reportedly, the Obamacare bill is 2,500 pages long, and so far not one of the 535 people in the Congress have read it. Many if not most, have not read one page.
So the US constitution is maybe six or seven pages long, well maybe ten if your throw in the Bill of Rights and the other amendments.
Difference is the Constitution is written in English so we the people can read it and understand it. No need for “interpretation” which is a euphemism for replacing words with “other words”; and other words have “other meaning”, which is why we choose to not use “other words” than the ones actually written in the Constitution
It would seem that the Obamacare bill is written in that mediaeval Roman mumbo jumbo that you lawyers like to use. Why is it that “professionals” like lawyers, accountants and doctors, don’t have a “job” or “business”; they have a “practice”, and they like to “practice” on their customers; “We won’t charge you unless by some miracle we collect on your behalf.” Then we behalf your winnings for us.
And they evidently aren’t too good at their practising, since every one of them carries “malpractice insurance”. for when they screw up. Never heard of a practicing professional giving a money back guarantee of their performance.
That’s why engineers aren’t professionals; our stuff has to work, and we guarantee that it will, or we don’t get any more work.
george e smith says
Bravo, spoken like a true engineer.
Sorry to be pedantic but there was only one emperor of the Nero era and that was Nero.
davidgmills,
You say you are a lawyer and that may be your problem given this statement:
“If you want small government, the only solution is to disband the United States or to amend the constitution to make the federal government and federal law of no higher standing than state law.”
While my expertise is in Quantum Electro Optics I believe that the greatest invention of mankind comes not from my world (physics) but from yours. The invention I refer to is “Due Process”.
So what can an immigrant legal ignoramus cite to challenge your assertion? Nothing less than the highest law of the land, the US Constitution, written so laymen could understand even though many lawyers still cannot.
Under the US Constitution the states designated certain powers to the federal government. The designated powers were few and the undesignated powers were many. I already quoted the tenth amendment to you but since you ignored me here it is again:
“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.”
People who support expanding the power of the federal government start by ignoring the “Designated Powers” and the tenth amendment. Then they twist the “Commerce” and the “General Welfare” clauses to diminish the role of state governments.
Right now you expanders of the federal government are in the ascendant but don’t count on it continuing. Not too long ago Newt Gingrich and his block grants returned power to the states at least on a small scale. I realise that to a lawyer like yourself it does not matter who wins in such tussles because you get paid no matter what happens.
Just remember that people who value freedom don’t think like lawyers.