No Time to Hang out the Wash

The shuttle program should have been left for the private sector to develop in the first place. The alternative option was to have a proud, patriotic government handle it; one that was determined to prove to the world that America is, and will always be the best. Either option is no longer viable. Encumbered with government regulation and high taxation, the private sector has been left to whither on the vine. At the same time, government is proving itself to be inefficient, corrupt, apologetic and not the in least bit patriotic.

As such, what is happening to our shuttle program serves as a metaphor for what we can generally expect in the years to come: mediocrity, despair and an overall lack of vision; this, as we lurch from man-made disaster to man-made disaster. It occurs to me that, as long as God was in charge, our lives were much simpler and infinitely more predictable.

Government was never meant to be more than a tool for the people to use to their best advantage. A tool can never exceed its prescribed function. By allowing government to grow unchecked at the expense of the people's rights and liberties is like letting a driver-less bulldozer (tool) run through the neighborhood. Not every house will be taken; just enough to let everyone know that things are out of control.

So, the people either huddle in cellars or make plans to escape the neighborhood. All know that this is not the time to hang the wash out to dry, much less build space shuttles. (Though, leaving the planet is fast becoming an attractive reverie.)

There was a time when America was the ultimate destination for the downtrodden. I still hear it said almost every day here in India by the families of young Indians struggling to pay exorbitant sums to give the kids a chance to study or work in America. I hear the old folks proudly listing the members of their families who, in their estimation, have reached the ultimate rung on the ladder (somewhere in America). News of the runaway bulldozer has not reached here yet. And if it has, it’s promptly dismissed. “America is the richest country,” they keep reciting. “Nothing bad can ever happen there. It’s impossible.”