Nuclear Power and Manned Space Flight: Victims of Democrat's Progress Backwards?

Today I watched the movie Apollo 13 for perhaps that hundredth time. As I watched that wonderful movie, I grew a little emotional, but it wasn't because of the drama of the movie- it was because I am upset and angry and sad that America has abandoned manned spaceflight in my lifetime, and seems to be abandoning the larger future too, a future where man would harness the power of an atom splitting and travel among the stars, a future of dreams and inspiration. America instead is collapsing on the weight of promises made to generations past, ruled over by elitist politicians who seek only to control us, and everyday our nation moves farther away from living a prosperous life in the stars in freedom and liberty, however preposterous or unlikely that future may have been.

The current leadership of our nation speaks of 'progress,' but they are abandoning nuclear power and manned spaceflight in favor of providing healthcare insurance to people who are encouraged not to purchase it and spending money they don't have to support railroads and electric motor carriages and windmills. The future that Obama, Democrats, liberals, and Republicans that go along with them is not a future full of cheap safe energy and man roaming freely in the stars- it is a future with man going backward, remembering that once, long ago, before I was born and before my students were born, man built generators that were powered by the atom splitting and man walked on the moon.

Man once walked on the moon! Nuclear power plants were once built! Say it- and then realize that these are events of the past- that the new normal and likely new future of America and the world is a long, slow slide backwards into tyranny, injustice, and confiscation of property by elites. Oh, I know it is 'nice' to give out healthcare to anyone who asks and that we all want teachers to be paid a million bucks and that no job should be insecure and that energy should be provided from dancing on the suns rays or blowing gently on flowers, but that is not reality! The reality is that the future is slipping away, and much like the greatness of Rome was the standard for centuries or the might of Britain was to be envied for generations, ours is a time that is slipping away, slipping away based on the policies pushed for by Democrats like Obama, Granholm, Stabenow, Levin, Rogers, and others. Modern day liberalism has failed to move man into the future- rather, man has been moved backwards through its policies of standing in the way of human liberty and freedom, by embracing the killing of life and babies, and by stealing other peoples property.

The reality of the situation is that Obama and the policies of Democrats in Congress and in the Senate are stopping the development of nuclear power, which is safer and more environmentally friendly than any other power generation, even with the worst case events of Japan factored in. By moving away from nuclear power, especially in the way that we are moving away from nuclear power, we are retreating from what made and makes our nation great enough to get to the moon and beyond.

Here is part of my post from 2009 called Yucca Mountain, in which I wrote:

But this is not a nation built on laws from our legislative branch any more- our nation is turning into a dictatorship of tyranny under Obama. Obama declared that the policy will change, that the Yucca Mountain facility will no longer be considered as a site to store our waste, and that from now on, he is calling the shots in our nation, not Congress. He openly defied Congress and his energy secretary, Steven Chu, has mocked efforts by Congress to have him follow the laws of our nation with regards to this issue.

There is no real backup plan advanced either- Obama in all his brilliance is putting together a 'blue-ribbon' panel to produce a report on what to do with the nuclear waste that is piling up in our nuclear facilities, but nothing will come of this effort and 4 years from now, we'll just have more nuclear waste building up in temporary on-site storage's that were never designed or meant to house spent nuclear material for long periods safely. Obama's policies will hurt the security and environment of our nation, and he is putting these policies in place in clear violation to the laws and policies that Congress has legislated this very year.

The absurdity of the situation is that Obama and the Democrats are spending trillions of money that they don't have, spending more money and accumulating more debt than any other administration ever before, and yet they are actually cutting and blocking real programs that will take us into the future! Blocking funding and support for nuclear power is just one part of this retreat backward.

Here is part of my post from Feb of 2010 called Obama is No Visionary:

Increasingly, one of the distinctive features of Obama's Presidency is its lack of vision. As I was reading about Obama's decision to cancel NASA's Constellation program, this thought struck me even more so than my earlier "Obama's New NASA Policy- Yet More Broken Promises and Lies" thought. Oh, I still believe that Obama's policy represents yet another example of how he breaks promises and lies through his teeth, but I'm past that now, and now I'm sad about the loss of the Constellation program because it demonstrates the lack of vision by our President.

If Obama was reaching for the stars and falling short, at least he would be getting into the upper atmosphere. If Obama was attempting to do grand new things, it would be a different story, but what we have with Obama is a President who is covering all the bases that Europe and the Soviet Union already covered long ago. Nationalized healthcare isn't bold or new- it's been tried and done and proven to be a failure for decades. High taxes, high regulation, and redistributing wealth to poor, unproductive people? USSR did that and found it failed too.

Go down the list of Obama's bold vision for the future, and what you find is someone who is firmly fixed on visions of the past put forth by people like Woodrow Wilson and FDR. Obama is not dreaming big and reaching for big things. He isn't going to remake society, or change society- he is going to drag society back into the mud, try ideas that have already been tried and failed, and display an utter lack of real vision when it comes to solving the problems facing our society today.

This is not to say that Republicans have vision- some of the approaches of the Republican Congress from 2000-2006 and George W. Bush's Presidency were pretty blind-sighted. Oh, there were visionary attempts- reforming social security, No Child Left Behind, Department of Homeland Security- but not enough. And this isn't to say that those were successes- some were, some were not- but at least he was reaching for the stars, trying to hit one out of the park, and doing something that got our nation excited.

Obama sees the moon, and instead of reaching for it, instead of dreaming about getting past it, instead of seeing Americans settling asteroids and exploring the galaxy, he looks down, and down, and down, and sees Chicago, and the power politics of that city, and drags people into the mud to squeal with him at the trough of pork and name calling. He pinches pennies from visionary programs and then throws dollars at failed policies of a bygone-era. He has an utter lack of vision. Listen to Obama talk about the America of the future and it looks strikingly like the Soviet Union of the past or the Europe of the past. It is not visionary in that it looks to the future and imagines how to get there.

As Obama's poll numbers dip, as Republicans win back the House and Senate, Obama will not become more visionary. To be a visionary, you need confidence in your vision, energy and skill to take someone there, and a self-confidence to plow ahead and drag a nation into the future behind you. That isn't Obama- he is a shell of a man, play-acting as an adult, desperately trying to hide his lack of knowledge of history and economics, and rather sadly filled with hubris and unfounded overconfidence. He has only been in office one year, and is snapping and fraying at the edges, looking old and haggard in spite of his low workload and frequent vacations. As he loses popularity, he will become less visionary and will push harder and harder for visions that he read about or was told about by someone else- you can count on that.

Whether it is retasking NASA to build Muslim self-esteem or being too busy playing golf to get around to appointing an administrator to run NASA or cancelling our manned space programs, Obama's vision, supported by Democrats and liberals, is one that drags our nation back into the barbarian past and not to the glorious future.

I still want my nuclear powered jetpack to take me to the moon and back, but thanks to Obama and Democrats and their liberal policies, every year this dream becomes less a possible future and more a crazy dream of hope and change.