"The welfare of humanity is always the alibi of tyrants" - Albert Camus

Monday, March 14, 2011

What Is Next? Stop Air Travel?

All sorts of commentators and politicians alike are calling for a moratorium on nuclear energy because of the mishap at a 40-year old nuclear power plant following last weeks tragic earth quake and tsunami in Japan.  Similar misplaced calls for moratorium were heard, and heeded by the Administration, after the B.P. Gulf spill.  What is it with knee jerk reactions when incredibly rare disasters take place?

The answer lies in the progressive goal of dismantling the free market system that they despise so deeply.  Energy is the life blood of a free market economy, which in turn is the mortal enemy of utopian visions of social justice achieved by collectivist methods such as socialism.  Despite the fact that in a meritocracy the only possible path to 'justice' is through an unhindered free market system that preserves liberty, the left is determined to starve the free market beast by depriving it of cheap and abundant sources of energy.

The problem in Japan is not that nuclear power is unsafe - it is the location of the island nation on one of the most active fault lines in the world that makes it highly vulnerable to earth quakes.  Same safety statement goes with deep sea drilling - a perfectly safe activity that had resulted in no major accident in decades. 

The intellectual dishonesty is mind numbing.  What does building nuclear power plants in 80% of the U.S. that are not on significant fault lines have to do with accidents that should have been foreseen due to the riskiness of a location almost 10,000 miles away?

Countries like Japan and France use nuclear power for clear majority of their energy needs, and safely so.  An 8.9 earth quake and a 31 foot tsunami are inevitable and devastating enough to destroy anything - just like a plane falling out of the sky.  What is next?  Are they going to talk about banning commercial flight?

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