Anyone who’s occasionally watched Discovery Channel over the better half of the decade is familiar with Mythbusters. The President of the United States includes himself on the large list of Americans who appreciate the efforts of Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman to explode myths—literally—while making science fun.
In the latest episode, the President challenged the experts to revisit the myth of Archimedes’ Solar Ray. As the myth goes, Archimedes used the reflection of the sun on soldiers' shields to save his city from an invading Army. The problem? Adam and Jamie already "busted" the myth long ago. Even presidential couch pals Joy Behar and Whoopi Goldberg, who apply the scientific method every day in their search for insipid perfection, could have told him to go with something new!
The president's rational for returning to the myth was that there wasn't enough "man power" used the first time around. Just as the president seems to think that if only the government spends more money to "stimulate" the economy--despite ample evidence to the contrary--Wednesday's President's Challenge episode required the Mythbusters use 500 soldiers (i.e., students) to aid them in their quest. In a weird way, Mythbusters served as a microcosm for what modern day liberalism is all about: idealistically returning to proven failures in the hopes that something will be different… if only the progressive elite are the ones calling the shots.
While it's great that President Obama's participation in the show may motivate young minds to get involved in mathematics and science, there are a number of myths the show has yet to tackle. Some suggestions for future installments might be to test some of the common tenets of today's liberalism:
- Fruitful dialogue can be had with the world’s worst dictators and despots without first coming at them from a position of strength.
- 535 members of Congress can "plan" 14 trillion dollar economies better than the collective knowledge of millions of Americans making voluntary transactions every day.
- The United States would be better off if it just got rid of that crazy notion that the principles it was founded upon somehow make it "exceptional."
- Rights derived from a Creator aren't really any different from "rights" created and changed on the whims of politicians in Washington, DC.
- At some point, you've
Such an episode would have been ratings gold. Think about it, Discovery Channel: Special guests Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Hugo Chavez, and Sean Penn.
During the episode President Obama said that it was "cool" that Adam and Jamie blew things up. While it's unclear if the president sometimes imagines he's a Mythbuster with a Jamie Hyneman mustache as he contributes to exploding federal deficits and unemployment lines, his assessment of the show is accurate. With luck, the duo will be inspiring kids to pick up physics and chemistry books for years to come. Let's just hope they don't make a habit of inviting liberal politicians onto the set.
