Did You Know
By Bonnie Donovan
In last week’s column, we warned of the Chinese government’s infiltration of America.
The day after we released the column, we received a report on how, through espionage in American companies, the Chinese military had been able to produce their fifth generation of a fighter plane. This is the Chinese J20, built by copying the technologies in the U.S. F-22 Raptor. It is significant to know that America has never sold F-22 raptors to any other country.
The Chinese theft of American secret technology occurred here in America.
The main designers and manufacturers of the F-22 Raptor were Lockheed Martin and Boeing, with hundreds of sub-component suppliers.
China concentrated for 10 years on stealing the technologies in the F-22, and they were astoundingly successful. By doing so, they have been able to narrow the technology gap between America and China by 10 to 15 years.
On the subject of new technology, Did You Know? was exposed to the power of a combination of artificial intelligence technology, coupled with many drones. We learned how this combination can replace human efforts for both good and evil.
A.I. and drone technologies are developing fast. While not feasible today, imagine the day when four large container ships — with legitimate papers and controlled by artificial intelligence — are cruising hundreds of miles apart outside American territorial waters, along the American Pacific and Atlantic coasts.
At 2 a.m., the doors of their containers open. From each ship, hundreds of A.I.-controlled drones rise and fly over all the major East Coast and West Coast cities. Boston, New York, Washington, Miami, Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego. What will the drones deliver to the millions of people living there?
Multiple balloons can fly, undetected, across American airspace. How about four ships in two pairs, hundreds of miles apart on two oceans, hidden among hundreds of others?
On another matter, a reader of Did You Know? dropped off a copy of 46 pages of highly detailed, questions that are very intrusive of personal privacy, called “The American Community Survey,” which they received in the mail.
It is conducted by the Census Bureau and is mandated by your U.S. government that the recipients are, by law, required to respond.
Did You Know? does not know the full use to which the collected information will be put. It might well be a test for including these questions in future, full census surveys.
Not only are recipients required to reveal the most private details of their personal lives, but they are also required to identify themselves by name.
Failure to complete and return the survey or to provide inaccurate answers will result in heavy fines.
This is not a census survey, in that it has been sent only to 3 million households, out of 123.6 million in America, but it is already here in Santa Barbara.
Hope that you do not receive one.
This survey is designed not only to identify you but also to probe into every aspect of your life and your resident family’s life. Your life histories, your employment, and your complete financial situation are all included, and more.
If this is a test for a complete census, the government could have all the information necessary to set up a social credit system to control individual behavior, similar to that now in place in China.
Did You Know? was also forwarded Pepperdine University’s new promotional video that the Malibu school released at its recent 25th anniversary. It features Ronald Reagan in 1976 when he was asked to write a letter to be opened in 100 years. Check out the promotional video, “Shaping the World for the Next 100 Years,” on Pepperdine’s YouTube channel — youtube.com/watch?v=P5tCYePzOzA&feature=youtu.be.
I invite you to take a few minutes (just three!) to watch the video, which begins with a familiar voice.
This brief video is based on one of Mr. Reagan’s most popular radio addresses from September 1976. Pepperdine first learned about this text by reading Mr. Reagan’s words in “In His Own Hand” — a book co-edited by one of the university’s newest faculty members, Dr. Kiron Skinner.
President Reagan was asked to write a letter to be put into a time capsule to be opened in 2076 in Los Angeles. He was asked to mention in the letter some of the most serious problems confronting the United States in 1976.
What he wrote in 1976 (47 years ago) could be today.
Below are parts of what he said.
“Think about it for a minute.
“What do you put in a letter that’s going to be read 100 years from now — in the year 2076? The people who will read it ‘will be living in the world we helped to shape.’
“Will they read the letter with gratitude in their hearts for what we did, or will they be bitter because the heritage we left them was one of human misery?”
“The greatest problem the United States faced in 1976 was the choice between continuing the policies of the last 40 years that have led to bigger and bigger government, less and less liberty, redistribution of earnings through confiscatory taxation, or trying to get back on the original course set for us by the Founding Fathers.
“Will we choose fiscal responsibility, limited government and freedom of choice for all our people? Or will we let an irresponsible Congress set us on the road our English cousins have already taken? The road to economic ruin and state control of our very lives?”
“On the international scene, two great superpowers face each other with nuclear missiles at the ready — poised to bring Armageddon to the world.”
“Those who read my letter will know whether those missiles were fired or not. Either they will be surrounded by the same beauty we know, or they will wonder sadly what it was like when the world was still beautiful.”
“If we here today meet the challenge confronting us, those who open that time capsule 100 years from now will do so in peace, prosperity and the ultimate in personal freedom.
“If we don’t keep our rendezvous with destiny, the letter probably will never be read — because they will live in the world we left them, a world in which no one is allowed to read of individual liberty or freedom of choice.”
“Will we choose fiscal responsibility, limited government, and freedom of choice for all our people?”
Bonnie Donovan writes the “Did You Know?” column in conjunction with a bipartisan group of local citizens. It appears Saturdays in the Voices section.
