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  • VDHs Private Papers::Americans Want It Both Ways

    Today's Americans inherited the wealthiest nation in history but only because earlier generations learned how to feed, fuel, finance and defend themselves in ways unrivaled elsewhere. Lately we have forgotten that and instead seem to expect others to do for us what we used to do... more

    Reviewed by FLR May 27, 09:23pm ( 12 reviews ) • victorhanson.com

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  • Reviewed by chouette2011 on Jul 15, 10:06pm

    Except there is only enough uranium for the current number of nuclear power plants to run for about 30 years, that goes down every time a new one opens.

  • Rated by nicklinn on Jul 04, 12:45pm

    From the page: "Why? In times of chronic water shortages, environmentalists have sued to stop irrigation deliveries in order to save threatened two-inch-long delta fish that need infusions of fresh water diverted from agricultural use." Oh for crying out loud. Those deliveries are trucked in at a huge loss to the federal and state government in order for idiots to grow crops in the desert. Deliveries stopped because due to drought the reservoirs were abnormally low and the population having drinking water was more important then some guy growing crap in the desert. Water deliveries have nothing to do with can do attitude and more to do with government welfare teat sucking.

  • Rated by locomoncayo on Jun 28, 2:31am

    Exactly! Now that resources aren't plentiful, we might want to consider that farming in the desert isn't the best idea!!

  • Rated by alainjournalist on Jun 01, 8:57am

    Some interesting and valid points in this article. I had to laugh about US military power and removing tyrants abroad. It should read: removing tyrants we no longer want to support. On energy security, I'd suggest that Obama is at least stepping in the right direction in terms of moving to renewables. I'm not sure how successful he'll be as these things tend to get watered down in the US. Special interests seem to destroy these things.

  • Rated by anjan1952 on Jun 01, 5:44am

    I agree with you. Now the latest Global issue is Global Recession. I am inviting all and every one to join our team members to help out the victims of the Global Economic Recession. Welcome!

  • Reviewed by flyinglungfish on May 28, 6:56am

    Silly rabbit, nothing is unlimited. Reports of limitless coal shale are based on current (at the time of the report) energy consumption and don't account for exponentially increasing energy demand. Also, the report that said we have "500 years worth of coal" also didn't account for the logistics of getting to that coal. In the beginning you find bouldars of pure coal just sitting on the ground, but then you have to start digging for it, and the quality slips, until you're basically burning rocks. So the truth is that we probably only have 300 years worth of useable coal that we can reasonably expect to find, and accounting for ever-increasing energy demands, we have 30 years worth of coal. Max. So consider this: we can't have it both ways, but the right way isn't to drill here, farm hard, water our lawns, and the environment be damned. We need to enact policies that encourage a controlled worldwide population decline (female education levels have a direct and striking correlation to family sizes around the world) and we need to become conservation minded. If we can actually decrease our resource demands, then we won't have to worry about the survival of the human race, and maybe we can be the wealthiest nation again.

  • Rated by FLR on May 27, 9:23pm

    Today's Americans inherited the wealthiest nation in history but only because earlier generations learned how to feed, fuel, finance and defend themselves in ways unrivaled elsewhere. Lately we have forgotten that and instead seem to expect others to do for us what we used to do ourselves. Take our plentiful, cheap and safe food supply. Long ago, Americans struggled to create farmland out of swamp, forests and deserts, and built dams and canals for irrigation to make possible the world's most diverse and inexpensive agriculture. Now in California the nation's richest farm state the population is skyrocketing toward 40 million. Yet hundreds of thousands of acres of farmland this year are going out of production, and with them thousands of jobs. Why? In times of chronic water shortages, environmentalists have sued to stop irrigation deliveries in order to save threatened two-inch-long delta fish that need infusions of fresh water diverted from agricultural use. And for both environmental and financial reasons, we long ago stopped building canals and dams in the Sierra Nevada Mountains to find sources of replacement irrigation water. So farmers are asked to produce more food for more people in a desert climate with less water while environmentalists dream of returning to a pristine 19th-century sparsely populated California of smelt and salmon in their inland rivers. But the end result will be more imported food from less environmentally sound farms abroad. Consider energy consumption and supply as well. The United States still has plenty of untapped natural gas and oil both offshore and in Alaska. We have nearly unlimited coal supplies and oil shale, in addition to the ability to build dozens of new nuclear plants. Developing such traditional sources of energy responsibly would save us trillions of dollars in imported fuels, keep jobs here at home and allow the nation a precious window of energy autonomy as we steadily transfer to more wind, solar and renewable energy. If we exploit our own energy carefully offshore and in Alaska, it will mean less sloppy foreign drilling off places like Nigeria or in the fragile Russian tundra to feed American cars and trucks. But this generation of Americans does not want messy drilling at home only to keep driving. That means more borrowing to buy imported fuel, while telling others to do the dirty work of drilling crude oil in their own backyard. Both Democrats and Republicans have also taken for granted having enough military power to intervene overseas to remove tyrants like Saddam Hussein, Slobodan Milosevic, Manuel Noriega and the Taliban and to stop atrocities whenever we can. But such power takes hundreds of billions of dollars in expensive hardware and military personnel. Barack Obama is no exception to this bipartisan muscular idealism. He sent more troops into Afghanistan, keeps attacking terrorists in Pakistan and, during the campaign, even talked about deploying additional troops to save those in Darfur. But he also wants to keep the defense budget static, or even cut it in some places. In our have-it-both-ways generation, we want to keep our involvements abroad while not worrying as much about the practical means to meet them. Then there is the question of national debt. We are now projected to run a record $1.7 trillion deficit and may add $9 trillion to our existing $11 trillion in existing aggregate debt over the next eight years. The president, though, has outlined vast new entitlement programs in health care, education, environmental programs and infrastructure. The problem, of course, is that we have not earned enough money to pay for any of these additional expenditures. Again, the glamorous ends get the attention, never the mundane means of how to obtain them. Continued...