On Going Round The World By Aeroplane
"I think it's the incredibility of sitting in the roaring, vibrant system at 35,000 feet and looking at the wing and engine pods that almost overwhelms me. This is my 47th flight in eleven weeks and I still can't become indifferent to this travel-miracle. These tons of aircraft have no right to be rushing me arrow-like to my far destination; they should be firmly earth-bound, probably crashed at the runway's distal end amongst the dust. But no! There go the white clouds with their grey depths sliding past below! And the inconceivably crisp outlines of the metal-grey wing and engine pods slope proudly up and back, wiggling slightly as we go.
Where are the men who dreamed these things
Who thought the way
Who solved the problems
Who built in wood and wire?
Where are the men who found the iron
Who made the steel
Titanium and aluminium?
Where are the men who dreamed the engines
Who made the pistons
And then the jets?
Where are the men who paid the call,
Who backed their judgements
With their honest earnings?
And the men who found the wireless waves
And the radar waves
And air-speed indicators?
To all these people I feel the deepest, highest, humblest, proudest admiration! My heroes! Your achievements are glorious - as are you! And to those peoples, who buy the planes for taxpayers' money; who maintain the planes with free-given expertise; who take the finished object for granted; whose Socialism could not have made one-thousandth of all this; I cock a scornful, disrespectful, angry snook!"
And for 'men' read 'people'! It was at this time, as I travelled round the world, that I was reading the various works of Ayn Rand. Although the language of the last paragraph may seem extreme, I still subscribe to the sentiment. It is personal freedom and property rights that allow the development of technology. Technology, once developed, can be implanted into societies that do not allow freedom, but they will struggle to maintain it. Ayn Rand was writing while Communism was still strong. She has been vindicated.
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