Okay, to begin with, I’m not a “Trekkie.” If you are a Trekkie, good for you. Keep practicing your Klingon, but not until you read this piece. If you’re not a Trekkie, don’t stop reading, assuming I’m going to waste your time arguing which of the Star Ship Enterprise captains would be a better president than Barack Obama (answer: ALL of them).
But I have seen a few episodes over the years, and I watched an interesting one the other night. That would be the end of the story if I hadn’t also read an AP article online today. You know how sometimes seemingly divergent bits of information somehow coalesce into a moment of enlightenment? Who would have guessed that a Star Trek episode and an AP article (which probably both contain the same amount of hard facts) could come together to do just that?
In the Star Trek episode, the Enterprise had entered a region of space looking for another ship that had been lost. As they neared the wreckage and saved the sole survivor, a series of potentially damaging pulses approached the ship, causing the crew to activate the ship’s shields. However, each pulse was stronger than the one before it, causing the crew to increase the shield strength accordingly to prevent damage to the ship. This pattern continued: stronger pulse, increased shield strength; stronger pulse, increased shield strength; until it was realized that soon the shields would not be able to withstand the increasing power of the pulses and the ship would be destroyed.
The ship was saved, however, when a crew member named “Data,” who is an android (hey, it’s Star Trek; what did you expect?) realized that it was the ship’s shields themselves that were creating these pulses, and that in order to save the ship, they had to take a leap of faith, deactivate the shields, and hope the pulses stopped accordingly. Of course this is what happened, allowing the crew of the Enterprise to live to fight another day.
The article I read was written by Christopher Webber for the AP, and titled, “Calif. Gov Takes Action as Gas Prices Keep Rising.” In the article, Webber explains how gas prices in California have hit record highs, with many motorists paying $5 a gallon or more. Governor Jerry Brown ordered state smog regulators to allow gas stations in the state to sell “winter blend” gasoline effective immediately to fight these high prices. In California, gas stations aren’t allowed to sell “winter blend” gasoline until after October 31. However, most refineries outside the state have already switched to refining this winter blend gasoline. (By way of explanation, these two “blends” are an attempt to lower smog and ozone levels during the summer by making “summer blend” gasoline slightly more eco-friendly.)
California has the harshest regulations in the country with regards to fuel efficiency of vehicles, gasoline usage, etc. Because of this, the state also has the highest gas prices. As anybody who understands economics knows, this makes perfect sense. Regulation always increases costs.
But it doesn’t stop there, and this is where my Star Trek episode comes into play. Regulation increases costs, and eventually people get upset at these increased costs. The government, filled with people who think, “If I can just get the regulations right, I can fix this problem,” imposes further regulations, which then increase costs yet again. This pattern continues, with more regulations leadings to higher costs and higher costs leading to increased regulations, until some intrepid “crew member” stops the downward spiral, takes a leap of faith, and deregulates things. We see this in every sector of the economy; it is an economic fact. Unfortunately, those in control of the ship of state are often either too blind, too stupid, or too unwilling to give up their power to take that leap of faith and save the ship.
We’re headed that way in this country. In one of the college courses I teach, I recently had students complete a project where they compared Barack Obama’s stand on various issues to those of Mitt Romney. On the topic of health care, one student downloaded this wishful piece of information regarding Obamacare: “Health reform will also lower costs for families and for businesses and for the federal government, reducing our deficit by more than $1 trillion in the next two decades alone.”
Doesn’t that sound fantastic? More government involvement with the health care system will bring down costs! The fact is, the regulations contained in Obamacare will drastically increase health care costs, lower quality of service, and eventually lead to rationing of care. (All you have to do is look closely at the government-run health care systems in other countries to see this in action.) And this is just one example. The same is true of all burdensome government regulations in all industries.
Ronald Reagan understood this concept years ago when he said, “Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.”
The good news is, we have an election in just under a month, and we can choose to take a leap of faith and elect a president who is committed to turning down the shields and saving the ship from the coming pulses of economic collapse. It will be interesting to see if enough of us understand what is happening to take that leap of faith before the ship is destroyed.
Mike Jensen is a freelance writer living in Colorado. He received his M.A. in Professional Writing from the University of Alaska Fairbanks, where he wrote his first book, Alaska’s Wilderness Highway. He has since published Skier’s Guide to Utah along with humor, travel, and political articles for various magazines and newspapers. He is married with five sons, and spends his free time at a remote cabin in the Colorado Rockies.
