Are the New Conservatives right, the US can't do big things?
Asked by
ETpro (
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October 1st, 2011
I saw that we shut down the Tevatron at Fermi Labs this week. We have been leapfrogged in particle physics by Europe with the Large Hadron Collider at CERN.
And the Chinese are leading the entire world in investment in renewable energy ike solar, wind, tides, and geothermal. They intend to own the world market for green energy. South Korea leads the world in green energy adoption, followed by China and Germany with the US in a distant 6th place. South Korea is moving ahead in green energy 8 times as rapidly as the USA is.
Should we be thankful to our right wing for showing us that American Exceptionalism means NOT doing big things, particularly if it’s government trying to do them? Is American Exceptionalism instead taking exception to doing anything that wasn’t already being done in the 18th century, or anything that isn’t done at a profit by a corporation?
Weren’t we fools when we did stuff like building the Transcontinental Railroad, the Panama Canal, Grand Coulee Dam, The Interstate Highway System, and the Apollo Moon Landing missions? Didn’t we know government can’t do anything? Didn’t we know those people who worked on those projects had no jobs, since government can NEVER produce any jobs?
What Corporate Exceptionalism should we look forward to now that we know that government can’t do anything, and only private, for-profit corporations can build things that really work and last? When can we get around to laying off the 40 million Americans who just think they have a job, but actuality work for local, state or federal governments? Maybe then the economy will really take off.
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10 Answers
At least we don’t question the amount poured into the Pentagon.
@johnpowell Oh I don’t know. Just think how much we could save by outsourcing all US defense to Erik Prince and Balckwater Xe Services LLC. (That’s Xe pronounced She). They only pay each “soldier” about $180,000 a year and run a burdened cost per man slightly under $1,000,000. And think how much safer liberty would be if a private, for profit company made all the life-or-death decisions, relieving us voters of having to worry about it. I just can’t wait for full-fledged corporatocracy. My eyes have been opened.
The F-35 is 122 million per plane. And do we really need them? I thought terrorism was the new Cold War. We could have had high speed rail between Seattle and San Diego for the cost of 20 planes.
@johnpowell Why build rail connections and roads that stimulate growth when you can take the same money and blow it all up?
One obvious issue here is with China and Green Energy. Truth is they are illegally obtaining and using designs by Americans without paying the patent rights. Certainly it is easier to make anything cheaply if you do that.
How are you going to convince people that take it as an article of faith that men and dinosaurs lived together a few thousand years ago to support building anything like that again? We are headed towards a disaster on this front; brain drain on the order of the collapse of the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany in the 30’s.
@hiphiphopflipflapflop That isn’t a bad thing as far as many people are concerned. Look at the rise of active anti-intellectualism that is sweeping the nation. Critical thought is heresy, facts are condemned, logic is ridiculed… in short, that is what they want!
Put another way, ignorant people are easier to exploit, while educated people may oppose their agenda and actually have a chance of stopping it. So they not only let all the “Socialists” run from America; they say, “Good riddance!”.
I think you might want to read about the way Neo-Victorian “Change Cage” cities work in the Airship Pirates RPG. Long story short is that innovation of any sort or the use of any technology that wasn’t around in 1900 is illegal to the point where serial-murdering pedophiles are considered acceptable by comparison. I suspect that, while it won’t be quite like that, they want to head in that general direction. If nothing else, it makes the bottom line look better.
Hard to tell if this is a question or more of a rant, dear @ETpro, but that doesn’t mean I don’t agree with you.
Even I agree with you @ETpro . But I’d like to see the rant continue.
@plethora As would I. Like they used to say on the X Files, “the truth is out there.” Both liberals and conservatives hold to some ideas that simply are not ture. And ideas that are not true are very poor guides for future policy.
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