Today, I write to you from the future,
I am flying through the air, yet again, somewhere halfway between Santiago, Chile and Lima, Peru, reclined in my seat on a stunningly beautiful, new US made, LAN Chile Boeing 787. It comes as no surprise to me that my first trip on a 787 comes out of Chile as it is South America's version of Hong Kong with all the newest and best gizmos... many restaurants have ipads for menus and many parking garages have sensors with lights which alert you to the open spaces available without having to drive down the lane just to name a few items.
On the flat screen panel in front of me I just requested the stewardess... or flight attendant. Or what is politically correct nowadays to call them? I'm not political so I don't have to be politically correct. I'll just call her, "the girl". It's so much easier not having to worry about politics!
The girl just showed up and offered me another glass of wine, gratis. Meanwhile, I'm on my Japanese made Sony Vaio laptop, plugged in to the in seat power jack and am charging my Korean made Samsung Galaxy Note 2 phone on the USB charger ahead of me. The sun is a little too bright so I lower the brightness on the oversized windows on this aircraft. There is no window shade, that's so 2009. It's just a dimmer control for the window itself. The (cute) girl preoccupied me for a moment and my computer went into lock mode... for security reasons. Luckily, I have Fast Access installed with facial recognition, so all I had to do was draw my gaze away from the Chileana and look at my computer and it re-opened with its facial recognition. I have the same on my Samsung, facial recognition is built in to Google Droid.
I forget for a moment I am even on a plane as I listen to Coldplay's "Paradise" lightly on my Bose noise cancelling headphones.
None of this stuff existed in almost any form even 20 years ago. It's amazing how fast things can progress... and I use that term in its real sense, not in the way liberal or conservative "progressives" use it... in real terms they are regressives.
Some of you may be thinking, hey, a lot of the great technical advances have come out of the slave camp of the US. My Bose headphones... the Boeing 787... Google... CIABook. But, look at the changes. Ten or twenty years ago many great products came out of Japan and Germany... and recently China. But in those days the market where most of those products would go was the US. Today many innovations still come out of the US but they are going the opposite direction. They are headed to Chile, China and numerous other countries that even twenty years ago were considered communist and were backwaters. This can be seen in that New York's Fifth Avenue just lot its top retail location top spot to Hong Kong this week... and notice three of the top five are in Hong Kong. The tide has changed and will change dramatically more in the coming years.
In many ways, China is the new US. And, in many ways, the US is the new China. Fox "News" watchers clamor for more to be manufactured in the US, thinking that manufacturing (putting products together) is they key to a great economy. But, soon, they may just get what they want - if US Government regulations stay out of the way, which is not the case today as can be seen in this video - and they'll find that they may soon be the world's new China or Taiwan of the past... the place where things get put together cheaply.
And, judging by the intelligence of these people thanks to their public indoctrination camps and TV programming, it will be questionable if many US subjects will even be able to do that.
Watch out Australia. You might just get attacked by accident!
Meanwhile, after my high tech private enterprise transportation and luxury goods I am now brought back down by the state which, like all centrally planned, collectivist systems, is decades if not centuries behind. I now have to beg others to borrow a writing device first invented in India in 500 BC. A pen... as I am forced to try to remember how to print and fill out a customs document which mostly has all the information already included in my slave card (passport) and is machine readable... and, by the way, is none of their damn business.
Next, after a free market ride which took me less than four hours to go 2,500 miles (600 mph) I'll probably spend an hour going 50 feet (0.01 mph)... through a maze that looks like it is made for rats to get demeaned and interogated by a middle aged man who could have easily been interviewed in the video above. It's the wonder of the state!
Welcome to The Wonders of "Free" Medical care
Having spent my youth in Kanada, I look on with amusement as the US takes on socialist medical "care". Oh, US subjects, you are going to love what you've got coming.
You see, once medical care is socialized all of a sudden it becomes everyone else's business what you do. If it weren't socialized and you drove a car without a seatbelt or smoked a cigarette some people may chide you but they'd have no interest in stopping you. But, as soon as it is socialized, all of a sudden the slave on slave action goes up a notch. A big notch!
US subjects may be about to get a juicy taste of what it all means. This week, a public health proposal suggested that tobacco smokers should be required to apply and pay for a "smoker's license" in order to continue buying cigarettes.
The main proponent, already familiar with socialist medicine, hails from the UK and is an immoral tyrant named Simon Chapman. He proposes that users would have to apply and pay for a mandatory license in the form of a smartcard that would be shown when buying cigarettes. The smartcard would allow the government to limit how many cigarettes a smoker could buy. Professor Chapman (yes, a professor, just another grain of proof that you should never send your children to government indoctrination centers nor colleges) thought long and hard about how many cigarettes he would allow people to smoke. He suggests 50 per day averaged over two weeks to accommodate heavy smokers.
Why not just implant a chip in smokers and if they go over what is surely Chapman's highly scientifically devised amount (read: he thought of it in the shower) of 50 per day give them a shock. Or put them in a cage. They'd then be breaking the law, after all.
It's all for the greater good.
His opponent in the grand debate, another professor... yeesh... Professor Collin suggests, "Opponents of the idea would be quick to suggest that Orwellian social engineers would soon be calling for licenses to drink alcohol and to eat junk food or engage in any 'risky' activity,"
Too late Collin. That's already done. Just ask anyone who would like to drink a beer outside or during hours not expressly permitted... or if they are only 20 years old. Or try to drink a Big Gulp in New York City.
The land of the free is about to get a little bit freer soon. Enjoy!
Back to the Beach
As I finish off this week's dispatch I have just arrived back in Acapulco where I sit on my deck overlooking Acapulco Bay on a glorious evening and ponder the future. My two favorite places to be for the next few years, US Government willing, is Acapulco and Galt's Gulch in Chile with less than an hour both to the modern, civilized city of Santiago and the luxurious ocean resort of Vina del Mar. But, in the back of my mind I wonder if I won't be able to enjoy it.
In the home of George Orwell, the UK, they have started arresting hundreds of people for Tweeter or CIAbook posts as innocuous as saying British murderous soldiers should "go to hell". I've said way worse than that... heck, I just did. I wonder if I won't spend a significant portion of my time on a free vacation to Cuba getting waterboarded by the literally heartless Dick Cheney in his black shawl and wheelchair.
Ah well, I've never taken life too seriously and, perhaps naively, not being a citizen of the main oppressive states and largely staying outside of the western world, I feel I may have some level of protection. Yet another reason to live outside of the borders in which you were born as a Perpetual Traveler. I'll just enjoy what I have and hope I am not aggressed against by the state.
I just hope they have wifi in Guantanamo.
Until next week, hopefully!
