AN OPEN LETTER TO JERRY POURNELLE
Dear Mr. Pournelle,
Forgive me for criticizing you. You were right and I was wrong. I take my hat off to you, but I’m not the least bit sorry.
Three years ago I wrote you a letter attacking an article you had written for your column “A Step Farther Out”. The subject was radiation hazards from nuclear power plants, etc.
Your invigorating and sarcastic reply prompted me to investigate the subject thoroughly in the spirit of I’ll show him! Formal reasoning doesn’t take sides … all I managed to do was prove to myself that you were right.
The obvious next step was to show the local anti-nuclear activists the results of my investigation so that we could all go home satisfied and content that it wasn’t really as dangerous or expensive as we’d feared. They wouldn’t even look! When I confronted them with questions, I got evasions. When I confronted them with facts, these were either ignored or denied (not rebutted; denied!). When I confronted them with mathematics and propositional logic they responded with a fear that bordered on panic.
That fear fascinated me. A deep-seated horror of rationality had to come from somewhere, and I had to delve into philosophy to find out where . . . but it didn’t take long —who was John Galt?
Who stands to lose if the free democracies of the western world… —equip themselves with the means to produce electricity, i.e., productivity, i.e., wealth?
Who stands to lose if these free nations build power plants… —that are relatively immune to miner’s strikes, oil strikes, rail strikes, operator strikes and other forms of worker manipulation?
Who stands to lose if we build… — power plants so hardened that they have a good chance of continuing to supply electricity to radar tracking systems, missile silos and communications systems even after a nearby nuclear detonation?
—Plants which can continue to produce electricity for years even if blockaded or besieged?
—Power plants which enable us to improve our knowledge about, and supply of fissionable materials suitable for deployment in weapons systems?
—Plants which cannot easily be infiltrated by saboteurs or “liberated” by gangs of terrorists?
Who stands to gain if we back away from this opportunity?
Rationality is our tool for individual survival. To reject it is to embrace death, perhaps not immediately, but somewhere down the line the dues will be paid. In the meantime, we have altruism—the doctrine of human sacrifice embodied in the form of collectivism. Jane Fonda once said, “The church that I relate to most is called ‘The People’s Temple’… It provides a sense of what life should be about.” Now you know why and I know why.
No, I’m not sorry I hassled you, you ornery old grouch! I’m glad! Thank you for being a vile enough old reprobate to actually stand up and shout me down when you knew you were right! Nuff said . . . now stop gloating and get back to work.
Sincerely, Hank Phillips
Austin, Texas
This same edition of Amazing Stories also contained a tale I’d been searching for since 1980. The title is PLANET 7, by John E. Stith, a Colorado programmer. The story starts on the back cover of the magazine and is one of the finest–and shortest–ever written. These past 40 years science has been attacked by mystical bigots angered at how nuclear assays demolished their blind faith in such fables as the Shroud of Turin as a Jesus-wrapper. Thermometer readings published in newspapers prove the Climate Sharknado data are fake and internally inconsistent.
Even High School plane trigonometry is a menace to anyone who wants you to believe JFK was shot from six stories up as the limo rounded the curve from Houston Street onto Elm in Dallas. The Parkland Hospital drawings show the first bullet came from ahead, entered his throat at the tie knot and exited, lower, from his back. That bullet HAD to travel in the same horizontal plane that contained the railroad tracks. It did not travel down at a nearly 45º angle from the sixth floor of a building sixty feet away.
Nothing Gerald Ford, Allen Dulles, Hale Boggs, Nixon, Arlen Specter, Commander Boswell or their minions say will make this verifiable High School math and autopsy drawing go away. Even the bullet path is at right angles to the Book Depository, which was to Kennedy’s right (North) as the limo turned from Houston to Elm. The hypothesis that a shooter fired from inside the tarp-covered truck pointed East in stalled traffic on Commerce (shown in the Cancellare photo with the parents protecting kids on the grass) is not too farfetched to merit examination. The bullet that hit Ike-Nixon appointee Connally (disliked by Oswald) came from up high.
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Get the complete story in Prohibition and The Crash on Amazon Kindle in two languages. After this you’ll be able to explain to economists exactly how fanaticism and loss of freedom wrecked the U.S. economy.
Prohibition and The Crash, on Amazon Kindle
Check out LIBtranslator, my political economy blog at https://libertrans.blogspot.com/
Brazilian Sci-fi from 1926 featuring the beautiful daughter of a scientist touting prohibition and racial collectivism in America’s Black President 2228 by Monteiro Lobato, translated by J Henry Phillips (link)
I also produce books and articles in Portuguese, using Brazilian historical sources at http://www.expatriotas.blogspot.com or www.amigra.us
My financial history blog, http://www.Libertrans.us, is at libertrans.blogspot.com
- Posted in History
- Tagged change, freedom, improvement, libertarian, political clout, repeal, spoiler votes
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