Posted on 12/30/2002 4:14:38 PM PST by MortonDBallard
John Quincy Adams's Warning Against the Search for "Monsters to Destroy," 1821 And now, friends and countrymen, if the wise and learned philosophers of the elder world, the first observers of nutation and aberration, the discoverers of maddening ether and invisible planets, the inventors of Congreve rockets and Shrapnel shells, should find their hearts disposed to enquire what has America done for the benefit of mankind? Let our answer be this: America, with the same voice which spoke herself into existence as a nation, proclaimed to mankind the inextinguishable rights of human nature, and the only lawful foundations of government. America, in the assembly of nations, since her admission among them, has invariably, though often fruitlessly, held forth to them the hand of honest friendship, of equal freedom, of generous reciprocity. She has uniformly spoken among them, though often to heedless and often to disdainful ears, the language of equal liberty, of equal justice, and of equal rights. She has, in the lapse of nearly half a century, without a single exception, respected the independence of other nations while asserting and maintaining her own. She has abstained from interference in the concerns of others, even when conflict has been for principles to which she clings, as to the last vital drop that visits the heart. She has seen that probably for centuries to come, all the contests of that Aceldama the European world, will be contests of inveterate power, and emerging right. Wherever the standard of freedom and Independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her heart, her benedictions and her prayers be. But she goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own. She will commend the general cause by the countenance of her voice, and the benignant sympathy of her example. She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy, and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom. The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force.... She might become the dictatress of the world. She would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit.... [America's] glory is not dominion, but liberty. Her march is the march of the mind. She has a spear and a shield: but the motto upon her shield is, Freedom, Independence, Peace. This has been her Declaration: this has been, as far as her necessary intercourse with the rest of mankind would permit, her practice.
Friggin' peacenick!
The quote is worth remembering, but it doesn't apply to our current situation. The Muslim terrorists have been provoking us for twenty years or more. September 11, 2001 was the biggest and most recent act, but they've been provoking us at least since the bombing of the Marines in Lebanon in the early 80's. Many refuse to remember this fact, but we were there in an effort to protect Muslims. Maybe we should have just allowed Israel to eliminate more of them at the time.
The quote is also less applicable in a world where we need resources that are not available in our own country. When John Adams wrote those words, America had everything it could need in its own borders or in the oceans off its coast. Trade was nice, but it wasn't a necessity. Today, there are things that we need and can only get in other areas. To maintain our security, we must maintain access to these resources.
I think there are situations where this sentiment is applicable. I think we were foolish to become involved in the situation in the Balkans. I think much of Africa should be left to its own devices.
Except for several serious attempts to conquer Canada during the War of 1812.
And wholesale violation of treaties with various Indian nations.
Muslims have been fighting non-Muslims for about 14 centuries now. The Muslims largely took over the Middle East soon after the religion of Islam was established in the 7th century if I remember correctly, and they began expanding into Europe, Asia, and Africa. They took the northern parts of Africa and have held them ever since. They took most of the Iberian and Balkan penninsulas. Eventually, they were stopped in both places. Attempts to roll back their conquests have met with mixed results. The Iberian Penninsula was freed of Muslim rule in the 1400's. For the most part, the Balkan Penninsula was freed of Muslim rule in the 1800's although they still hold parts of the Balkans.
Some Muslims no longer have a desire to put the entire world under strict Muslim rule. Many of these are content to have largely secular governments that respect the strict dictates of the religion without forcing them on others. Many of these Muslims have become completely secular and only see Islam as a collection of traditions from their past. Many fall somewhere in the middle.
Unfortunately, there are others who want to destroy or subjugate us just as they wanted to destroy our ancestors a thousand years ago. Some of them may still see the struggle as a deeply religious quest. Others probably just like the thought of having someone to kill and use Islam as a convenient propaganda tool. Others primarily want to kill Jews for whatever reason that some people have an innate hatred of Jews, and they see us as an impediment to their killing.
The point of this trip through history is that these people want to kill us. Some of them were based in Afghanistan for a while. Others are based in Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Libya, Egypt, and other Middle Eastern countries. They aren't interested in talking things out, and there is no accomodation that we can reach with them. Therefore our options are to continue fighting them on a low level for as far as we can see, to try to negotiate some terms of our own surrender, or to keep hurting them until they surrender or are all dead.
We can't deal with all of them at one time or in the same way. In some cases, it would be better to engage their countymen economically and culturally and let their countrymen deal with them. In other cases, we are in a position to strike a military blow against them. The former way is very good at times and minimizes the shedding of innocent blood. The latter is better for breaking the enemy and making them realize that war with us isn't in their best interest. In Iraq, I think we have a good opportunity to do the latter.
I think the picture you paint of just creating new energy sources so that we won't need foreign oil is unrealistic and naive. May I ask how many college-level thermodynamics courses you have taken? If you well-versed in this area, I'd like to hear you give some specific ideas of ways to harness the "teeming" energies of "the universe." If not, I think you need to look at the issue more closely.
Furthermore, I was not speaking only of energy supplies. The industrial revolution created a need for mineral resources that simply weren't needed in the days of Adams and Jefferson. The most familiar example to me is chromium. There are no worthwhile chromium ores in the United States or really in this hemisphere, but chromium is a vital mineral. It is the alloying element that gives stainless steel its corrosion resistance. Without stainless steels, much of the chemical industry simply couldn't exist. Chromite refractories are also used in much (maybe all) of the steel industry, and without them, we probably wouldn't have any production of steel either.
Would we survive as a nation without these things? We might, but the cost of everything that we use would rise to the point that most people would lose their standard of living. I guess if you want everyone reduced to that point, then advocacy of not ensuring a stable supply makes sense. For the rest of us, ensuring a stable supply of needed materials is a part of protecting the national interest.
While some hold to this romantic notion that expansion and protection of our national interests is against the ideas on which this nation was founded, the fact is that our Founding Fathers recognized the need for the nation to act for its own good. Thomas Jefferson sent the early Navy to attack the Barbary Pirates. He could have left the Mediterranean to European shipping or just told the American ships that they'd have to deal with these people on their own. Instead, he used force against our economic enemies to protect our national interests in another part of the world.
I'm saying that once again we have a national interest in what happens in another part of the world. We need the oil fields of the Middle East to be controlled by people who will be our friends and trading partners. Failing that, we need to control them ourselves.
I think that we're further away from an alternate energy source than you might think. I read recently that most solar cells have to produce for twenty or twenty-five years before they produce as much energy as was required to make them. At that rate, a solar cell would have to work forty years before it even started being a sustainable energy source. It would need twenty years to make up the energy used in its construction and twenty more years to produce the energy that would be used to make its replacement. Then the energy that it produced would start to be useful for all of the uses that we have. I'm not saying that it couldn't work someday, but I think we're a long way off.
Hydrogen cells aren't truly an energy source. Naturally-occurring hydrogen is rare, and we wouldn't be able to harness it in any meaningful way. Hydrogen cells use hydrogen that has been split from other sources. Typically, they split water molecules to produce hydrogen and oxygen. The hydrogen produced in this way can be used to fuel a hydrogen cell, but the energy from that cell is just the release of the energy that was used to split the water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen. With losses due to natural inefficiencies, the amount of energy that comes from the cell will always be less than the energy needed to make the hydrogen.
Wind power might be a true energy source, but I'm not sure. We need to know how long the average windmill has to produce before it produces as much energy as was needed to build the windmill.
I don't mean to be completely discouraging about all of this, but there are big obstacles to making any of these alternatives work. If there weren't these obstacles, I'm sure that we'd already have more energy sources working. Of course, the big alternative is nuclear, but too many people don't like nuclear power.
I've not looked very closely at solar power, but I can believe that storage would be a problem. I think conventional plants generate power as it is needed. If you are using a boiler to generate steam to turn turbines that produce power, you can regulate the amount produced by taking turbines on and off line. I think you can also vary your fuel to the burner somewhat to change the rate at which you boil steam and thereby change the amount of power produced. With solar energy, they can only generate during the day. They have to find some way to store that energy for use at night. They can charge giant batteries, but charging batteries leads to more energy inefficiencies. It also leads to much higher costs and likely more environmental and safety issues.
I work for the chemicals division of an energy company, and I'm sure that they would market an alternative energy source if they had it. They are always playing public relations games, and marketing a new energy source would be a bonanza. Furthermore, oil production is expensive and a big headache. If they could sell off parts of the business, close other parts, lay off the extra employees, and make the same or nearly the same money in something else, they'd jump at the chance. My company is trying to get into the wind business, but I just don't think they've had much success.
Even though the energy companies work with the auto companies on some level, they are not as close as peole like to pretend. If the auto companies could develop a new way to power cars, they would gladly market it and leave the oil companies to wither on the vine. Oil companies are always trying to find ways to make the internal combustion engine more efficient in order to extend its use, but they won't have any way to stop things from changing when someone develops something new.
I don't know whether most people pay attention to the issue of alternative energy, and I don't think popular opinion is relevant. Having the masses yearning for a new energy source won't bring that source into existence. If something doesn't work, all of the wishing in the world won't make it work. We'll have a new source when someone thinks of a way to make it work. The person who has and develops this idea will likely be an individual working mostly alone. This guy or gal probably won't be an employee of an energy company but will be involved in some other technological field. I realize that this idea of how progress is made goes against the modern "let's all hold hands, understand each other, and talk about things," but I think the modern view is silly.
As an example of how you can't just demand that new energy forms be created, I remember the excitement that was stirred back around 1990 when some guys in Utah claimed to have induced cold fusion. Cold fusion is supposed to be a form of nuclear energy that is completely clean. If it ever really worked, the first company to patent the process would become incredibly rich overnight. My employer at the time was a small to mid-sized energy company, and I worked at their technical/research center. Shortly after the guys in Utah made their announcement, the CEO told a meeting that we would have the process working within a year. He put a bunch of money into the research, but it just didn't work. I never followed the public news well enough to know what happened, and I wasn't in the loop on the secret company stuff. I suspect that the guys in Utah were just mistaken in what they thought that they saw. However, I'm sure that our company didn't squelch anything that would have worked because a success would have made those involved rich beyond anyone's wildest imagination.
WFTR
Bill
WFTR
Bill
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