15 Nov 16

“Since politics is the “art of the possible,” it appeals mostly to second-rate minds. First-rate minds are interested only in the impossible. This is why we have brilliant scientists and industrialists, but only mediocre politicians”

Anon

In 1865, the British Parliament passed the “Locomotive Act,” also know as the “Red Flag Act.”

It required that all trains on the island, freight and passenger, never exceed four miles per hour while in the countryside. A two mile-per-hour speed limit was imposed in built-up areas. Even then, a flag-man was required to precede the train by fifty meters as a warning to pedestrians and wagons alike.

This relatively new steam technology was feared by politicians (who fear all new technology), because like all politicians, they were deathly afraid it might be corrosive to their political power and their ability to “control” the population. As always, the welfare of citizens, and of the civilization, was the last thing ever considered!

“Highly educated” detractors (the same academic charlatans who promote “global warming” today as a method for holding back technological progress) assured the public that thirty miles per hour (the speed of the fastest horse) was all the human body could withstand. Acceleration to greater speeds, we were solemnly warned, would surely be fatal!

Today, we have the opportunity, through our new Administration, to reverse this same “fear-oriented” attitude toward modern guns and our Second Amendment that has been cynically promoted for decades by dread-mongering leftist politicians, all in an effort to separate citizens from new technology.

Their attitude is the same as that of British politicians a century and a half ago, who were so fearful of emerging railroad technology of the era. Modern weapons in the hands of “ordinary” citizens frightens leftists as does nothing else. You can tell from their contemptuously self-righteous rhetoric!

“Who never compares his notions with those of others… often thinks himself in autarkic possession of the Truth, when he is only fondling an ever-putrefying error, long-since exploded!”

Samuel Johnson

/John