Nothing lasts anymore. I should say
nothing lasts very long anymore. Liberals used to disdain the concept of
‘planned obsolescence,’ yet they say not a word about the increasing short lives
of appliances and other items. Their own policies, supposedly designed to
reduce carbon emissions and conserve energy and water, are part of the problem.
Those of you who are old enough to
have had appliances from Whirlpool, Maytag, et. al. in the distant past and
have recently purchased new ones will know of what I speak. My family once had
a refrigerator that lasted 40 years. The original washer, dryer, and dishwasher
that we purchased in 1994 for our then new house just quit working in the past
couple of years. One of their replacements already died. In our latest
excursion to a very reputable appliance outlet near where we live we were told
flat out: “Appliances which used to last for decades are now only going to last
you maybe seven, eight, nine years tops.”
The onerous restrictions, regulations,
and mandates that manufacturers now have to abide by are ridiculous and self-defeating.
Better for the environment? Safer for us? How is it better for the environment
if large machines that used to last, say, 25 years now have to be replaced
after just 8 or 9? Chuck the old ones into a landfill or recycle them, doesn’t
matter. News ones have to be manufactured to replace them. And that uses lots
of energy and produces plenty of carbon emissions. And that is, presumably, not
better for the environment.
Safer for us? In days of yore, if you
had a fender-bender in a big ‘ol American sedan, you just pounded the dent out
and went on your merry way. Might not have even knocked the coffee cup off the
dashboard. Today? Because of fleetwide Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards, “sedans” are much smaller and lighter…and
more dangerous in serious accidents. Moreover, the same fender-bender
referenced earlier costs you many thousands of dollars due to the
integration of computers, sensors and cameras in your plastic molded bumper and
elsewhere. Those same computers, cameras, and sensors were supposed to
dramatically reduce accidents, or so we were told. But both the frequency and
severity of automotive insurance claims have increased lately.
Nothing lasts forever. The Romans
discovered that the hard way. But even our Constitutionally guaranteed
freedoms, which have lasted for 237 years thus far, are in danger of passing
into history. Ronald Reagan warned us that this could happen, stating: “Freedom
is never more than one generation away from extinction.”
If we aren’t vigilant and courageous
in the very near term, there will soon come a day when we sadly realize that
our freedoms will not outlast the washing machine we purchased last week.
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