Freedom and Virtue

Chelsea Follett of the Cato Institute’s Human Progress project wrote last year: “A realistic picture of the human condition should compare the imperfect present with a much more imperfect past rather than with an imagined utopia in the future, as well as acknowledge the truly incredible progress that humanity has already made. Unfortunately, instead of viewing the present as a vast improvement on the past, many people see the present as failing to live up to some sort of ideal world and deny the progress that has been achieved.”


A federal appeals court's opinion on Lindie Banks v. Northern Trust Corp included a reference to The Night King in GoT.

Negotiating for us to increase our exports as much as possible, and to increase ‘in exchange’ our imports as little as possible, the Trump trade team is unwittingly negotiating to enrich foreigners at our expense. ‘We insist on producing a lot more stuff for your enjoyment, and we demand that you produce as little as possible stuff for our enjoyment!’ is Trump’s message to foreigners.Fortunately for us, foreign-government leaders are just as economically ignorant as is the Trump team.--Bordeaux

“Mars -- different in almost all respects from Earth -- is nonetheless the closest thing to a sister planet, at least one close-by. But close is a relative term. Our elliptical orbits are such that we come as close as 34 million miles to each other and as far as 250 million. A rocket leaving Earth for Mars has a choice of many possible paths, but the most economical in terms of fuel is called a Hohmann transfer and takes between six and nine months one way. Our two orbits are such, however, that a crew arriving at Mars from a Hohmann would have to wait a year or more for a favorable return alignment. Therefore, a round trip would take more than two years. Compared with Apollo’s eight days, that is huge, and creates a host of new issues. All in all, Apollo was child’s play compared to a Mars landing.”--Michael Collins


Conventional hydroelectric power provided nearly one-third (more than 30%) of the nation’s electricity in 1949, and its share was above 20% from 1950-1958 before steadily after that. By 1987, hydroelectric power was supplying less than 10% of US electricity and during this century the share has ranged between 6% and 8%. Curious it never has been more but many opponents want wind and solar and nothing else.


                                  Freedom and Virtue

Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become more corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters.--Franklin

Is there no virtue among us? If there be not, we are in a wretched situation. No theoretical checks, no form of government, can render us secure. To suppose that any form of government will secure liberty or happiness without any virtue in the people, is a chimerical idea. --Madison

There is a belief, way down in the Conservative's heart, that the words of the Constitution will save the nation, that somehow the basic concept of liberty and equality before the law, is carved in constitutional stone and reverberates in a receptive citizenry. But a recent survey of college students shows that 46 percent believe First Amendment rights to free speech are outranked by “efforts to promote and enforce an inclusive society.”
As the assaults on and off campus have shown, not only are the opinions of people limited, so is their safety. And, for some reason, these people think that the constitution was not created for dissimilar people.


But Metaxas, commenting on the country's formation, writes, “For the first time a nation was created that was not merely a group of ethnically or tribally similar people. Nor was it a nation composed of disparate groups held together by a strong leader.”

So the foundation does organize dissimilar people on commonalities.


But, according to John Adams, that nation has limits:
"We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge or gallantry would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution is designed only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for any other."

For people of the Enlightenment, the Founders made a lot of assumptions about the basics of human nature.