Political Manifesto: Part II
A Laboratory for Freedom
The science behind nuclear fission goes beyond my understanding, but I know it is really incredible. I learned about it in a book titled The Curve of Binding Energy, published in 1974 by John McPhee, a staff-writer for the New Yorker magazine. The atoms in each element have an "atomic weight". As the weight of an element increases, so does its radioactivity. Nickel, for instance, contains just 28 protons and neutrons. Uranium contains 94 of each. Elements with a full "shell" of electrons have high stability, or binding energy. Elements with incomplete shells are radioactive and less stable. The "curve" in the title reflects the different levels of stability.
Scientists in Germany before World War II managed to "split" a Uranium atom by firing a "slow" neutron at it, and realized gradually what an explosive level of energy it produced. Depending on how a scientist used it, it could provide a quiet, smokeless, and seemingly limitless supply of peaceful power. In the wrong hands, it could easily blow up the planet—dwarfing anything Mankind had seen before. I learned about splitting the atom in a book titled The Griffin, published in 1986 by an American nuclear-physicist named Arnold Kramish. I actually read the book in its German translation first, as Der Greif, because I saw it in a write-up in the German news-magazine Der Spiegel. I recommend both it and Curve of Binding Energy to my readers, who want to learn more on this subjecct.
Splitting occurs in many areas of the modern human environment. Human cells split in the womb of the mother, producing a fully-formed infant at the time of birth. Corporations split when the single corporation engages in disparate endeavors that require different staff-people and separate facilities. The Bell System did that by court order and split into seven "Baby Bells," who succeeded beyond the wildest dreams of the company founders, and the court that supervised the split. A split derives from the disparate visions of the company leadership.
Nations must also split when the forces that divide the nation exceed the forces uniting it. That such things happen unsettles people. In fact, it has happened more or lesss regularly over the course of history. When a human cell divides, one side pulls away forcibly from the other. In the natural world, a status quo does not exist. Living things are always in transition. When the desire for a status quo exceeds the natural flow of life, then we have a problem—we Americans do, that is.
America consists of three unrecognized nations that fight and accuse each other constantly, mainly because they lack the courage or character to take the next irrevocable step—the natural next step—to divide and gain recognition as nations in their own right. Feuding Americans cannot bear for their rivals to abandon them. They would rather subdue their rivals than let them leave. Face it, America! That subjugation of our rivals goes on 24/7. We feel no end of stress because of it.
Disunity that cannot transition into new concepts of nations hurts America—our land with so many inherent strengths. Scientists needed a laboratory to split the atom and create an endless source of new energy. We need to open a new laboratory to split the nation, to serve the purposes of freedom, and to create a release of energy such as America has not seen in years!