Back in the day kids had to take a class called political science. It was mandatory in most high schools. You don’t hear the term any more. Today the AOC New Green Deal made me go back to a blog entry I wrote dated 4/28/ 08 explaining political science. I see AOC as the consummate political scientist. Not intellectually capable of explaining the scientific method, she gets political science. She is taking a page from the Al Gore book and is trying to parlay media exposure into personal wealth. Why not ? The Kardashians did it.
Political Science
When I was in school Political Science was a required course. At the time I couldn’t understand the name. There seemed to be no science whatsoever in the course. Finally, after all these years, I get it.
There is science, hard science, that has made our civilization so livable. Science created the polio vaccine. Medical science has extended our life expectancy. Science put us on the moon. Then, there is political science. Political science subtracts from hard science’s gains. Until recently, hard science was going so fast that we stayed ahead of the subtraction. That may be changing. Let me give you some examples.
Science created nuclear energy. Political science brought it to a halt. Political science must have the full commitment of the media to be effective. We were flying along building nuclear power plants as fast as we could build them. Then we had Three Mile Island. The Russians had Cherynoble. That’s it. Political science kicked in and with the help of the media, they stopped nuclear power plants in the US. The media blasted us day in and day out about the dangers of nuclear. We bought the deal. We are going to pay dearly for this as the old plants phase out and we have no replacements.
Science created DDT. Political science killed it. Too bad about those thousands of Third World people who starved to death or died of malaria. Political science has no conscience. No Hippocratic Oath in political science.
Science created asbestos. Political science killed it. Caused Johns Mansville to go into bankruptcy. Created a huge cottage industry cleaning up buildings. Billions were spent cleaning up asbestos. Attorneys raked in millions. Science says it may have been all wasted. Political science says too bad.
Science created cars with technology that burned gasoline more completely even in the summer. Political science said too late. We want to do something nice for farmers and Archer Daniels. We will set aromatic standards for the summer months even though cars won’t need them in just a few years. Winners: farmers, ethanol manufacturers, and truckers. Losers: consumers, taxpayers, and foreign countries that rely on us for food. Science says ethanol is a net energy loser. Political science says we need the farm vote, so what? Guess what, we still have those unnecessary standards.
Science created super tankers to haul large quantities of crude oil around the world. Then an Exxon captain got drunk and caused a tragic spill. Political science said we have a zero tolerance policy for any spills. Winners: lawyers who sued Exxon. Politicians who blasted Exxon for months on TV. Militant environmentalist. Losers: Consumers: all tankers had to have double hulls. Costs to haul oil went up. Less companies took any risks. It was sad that the spill happened, but the clean up was done very well and the media made it much, much worse than it was. There will be accidents in every business. Political science does not allow for any miscues.
Science created silicone breast implants. Political science ended them. Winners: class action lawyers. Losers: sellers of implants and doctors. Outcome: we are back to putting them in. Apologies: None from Political Science.
Many scientists say there is no correlation between carbon monoxide and global warming. Political scientists say we must stop all CO2 emissions now. China doesn’t have political science and they are going to ignore ours. Al Gore has set the example for how political science works. You are sitting around brooding about losing an election and voila. You jump on an idea. It doesn’t matter in political science whether you truly believe. It’s about money and power. Al won an Nobel Prize, an Oscar, and improved his net worth $50 million dollars. Now, that’s political science at it’s best.
The new rounds of political science may end all gains from real science and destroy our wonderful country. There is so much subtraction that no amount of scientific addition can save us. We can’t do one thing to add to progress in this country that involves heavy industry. No new energy sources. No new jobs. No manufacturing. No drilling, no pipelines, no mining, no energy. High prices for gasoline and diesel. We must make great sacrifices to the alter of political science. All subtraction and no addition means a smaller economy, smaller cars, smaller houses, less food, and a poorer standard of living.
This was a very good blog and so true. Good one