Yes, dark ages indeed. We still have a high standard of living, good health care, etc but the constant lies and negative droning from the elites have convinced most Americans we are poor, sick, and miserable.
One scientific area that inspires many people is the space program. Space advocates like me are waiting for some kind of coherent new policy on that front but none has been announced yet. During the campaign he made all kinds of nice sounding promises about space (gee, what else is new!) but didn’t offer much of a real plan. The White House website was quick to trash Bush for breaking promises to New Orleans, but there is nothing on there about space. Time is a wasting. If they really want to inspire people and improve technology, the admin. would come up with a strong space policy. Instead, what we got during the campaign was that the big O was inspired and excited during the Apollo missions, 40 years ago! I thought we were supposed to look forward, not dwell on glories of the past.
I agree that the Space program is one of the few areas that promises to revolutionize mankind. Doubt that will happen though. Back in the late 60s, the Left discovered it could torpedo the Space program by asking: Why are we spending $$ up there, when we have needs down here? As if every dollar we spend on the Space program took a piece of bread out of a child’s mouth.
One way to rekindle the dwindling light of freedom in this country is rediscover the frontier and colonize the stars. The Left hates the thought of that—they would rather we be stuck on Earth forever. Humanity is at its best when we have a frontier to conquer. Without one, we will slowly devolve to Socialism. Space is a frontier without limits, however.