Nothing lasts anymore.

I should say nothing lasts very long anymore. Liberals used to disdain the concept of ‘planned obsolescence,’ yet they say not a word about the increasing short lives of appliances and other items. Their own policies, supposedly designed to reduce carbon emissions and conserve energy and water, are part of the problem.

Those of you who are old enough to have had appliances from Whirlpool, Maytag, et al. in the distant past and have recently purchased new ones will know of what I speak.

My family once had a refrigerator that lasted 40 years. The original washer, dryer, and dishwasher that we purchased in 1994 for our then-new house just quit working in the past couple of years. One of their replacements already died. In our latest excursion to a very reputable appliance outlet near where we live, we were told flat out: “Appliances which used to last for decades are now only going to last you maybe seven, eight, nine years tops.”

The onerous restrictions, regulations, and mandates that manufacturers now have to abide by are ridiculous and self-defeating. Better for the environment? Safer for us? How is it better for the environment if large machines that used to last, say, 25 years now have to be replaced after just eight or nine? Chuck the old ones into a landfill or recycle them, doesn’t matter. New ones have to be manufactured to replace them. And that uses lots of energy and produces plenty of carbon emissions -- and sales. And that is, presumably, not better for the environment.

Safer for us? In days of yore, if you had a fender-bender in a big ‘ol American sedan, you just pounded the dent out and went on your merry way. Might not have even knocked the coffee cup off the dashboard. Today? Because of fleetwide Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards, “sedans” are much smaller and lighter … and more dangerous in serious accidents.

Moreover, the same fender-bender referenced earlier costs you many thousands of dollars due to the integration of computers, sensors and cameras in your plastic molded bumper and elsewhere. Those same computers, cameras, and sensors were supposed to dramatically reduce accidents, or so we were told. But both the frequency and severity of automotive insurance claims have increased lately.

Nothing lasts forever. The Romans discovered that the hard way. But even our Constitutionally guaranteed freedoms, which have lasted for 237 years thus far, are in danger of passing into history. Ronald Reagan warned us that this could happen, stating: “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction.”

If we aren’t vigilant and courageous in the very near term, there will soon come a day when we sadly realize that our freedoms will not outlast the washing machine we purchased last week.

Image: Pixabay / Pixabay License