“Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn’t matter to me.… Going to bed at night saying we’ve done something wonderful—that’s what matters to me.”

R.I.P Steve Jobs. He was the patron saint of entrepreneurs. Newton once reflected that if his vision extended farther than others’ it was because he stood upon the shoulders of giants. One of the giants has left this iWorld a much more interesting place.

Others will write volumes on this incredible man’s achievements.  I do not possess the eloquence to encapsulate so amazing a life nor his impact on the way we live today and will in the future.  All I can say from a personal standpoint is that Steve Jobs, through Apple and Pixar, represented to me what possibilities exist in this great country when brilliance, vision, chutzpah and a whole lot of confidence in one’s own assessment of what the public desires combine into one formidable force.  (Oh, and as the Occupy Wall Street mob might want to remember as they tweet on their Apple, Inc. iPhones and iBooks, Jobs’ start-up also demonstrates how vital unfettered investment capital from the private sector is to finance said vision—in this case, $250,000 in1977 dollars from Mike Markkula, whom I imagine today would be classified by these same protestors as an “evil millionaire”.)

As the days pass the pantheon of memories of Mr. Jobs’ legacy will also include, rightfully, some failures as well as his many undeniable successes.  Eli Lehrer at the Heartland Institute points out a few: The Apple III was bug-infested.  The Lisa was prohibitively expensive.  The Apple G4 Cube sold poorly and he never made a mark in the applications software arena.

Still, as any creative person knows, and certainly those in business will tell you,  the road to ultimate success is often paved by initial failures, so long as they are viewed for what they are: a treasure trove of valuable lessons.

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Two names loom large in this week’s news. Two names that ordinarily we wouldn’t think about together.

But, in the great struggle now unfolding before us for our nation’s future, it seems to me these two quintessential Americans are worth thinking about in light of each other.

One is Steve Jobs.

The other is Dr Martin Luther King, Jr.

Jobs, of course, is in the headlines because of his decision to step down and retire from Apple Computer, the company he co-founded, from which he later got fired, and to which he subsequently returned and resurrected.

Dr. King is in the news because of the opening of the King monument in Washington, D.C.

Other than being in the news at the same time, why might we think of these two very different Americans together?

I think they are icons of two essential but different and opposing aspects of American life. One is the individual and the other is our social reality.

It’s these two aspects of American life, the dignity and potential of individuals living free, and the social reality, the rules by which we all agree to live and to which we all submit, that has always caused tension in American life. And this tension is becoming particularly acute today.

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As many thrills as he sends up Chris Matthews’ leg and despite his ability to walk on water, Barack Obama like all legislators cannot create jobs.  All any politician can do is take resources from the private sector and allocate them according to his or her own fancy, often towards favored constituencies, at a prohibitive and wasteful cost.

Instead of letting individuals determine how best to allocate land, labor and capital based upon their own subjective values and aspirations, the government in its self-attributed divine wisdom believes it is morally right for it to squander other people’s money.  Apparently, we are not ourselves capable of deciding how to dispense with our property, and deal with the consequences of such actions good or bad.

Then again, in our “social”ist democracy we feel it proper that government take care of our health and our retirement under the auspice of the “public good.”  So what of a little more state paternalism?  To that I say, the so-called public good is a public bad because when the collective supplants the individual, society fails.  If people would rather have the government take care of such things then take care of them themselves, then the best we can hope for is that the government not monopolize such goods and services but allow for unobstructed private competition.

In any event, to ascribe the word “sector” to the limitless Unconstitutional and unnecessary public “businesses” is pure subterfuge.  The plunder sector is the only accurate title for what the government does outside its strict Constitutional scope.

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After three weeks, most Americans still do not understand all of the behind-closed-door deals that had to be cut on the $965 Billion dollar bailout of Greece.  It’s yet another complicated deal, with little transparency to let non-governmental folks understand the specifics.

But, I do understand the power of a dream that can inspire a new generation.  And I know that Obama just killed that dream.

Obama’s decision to expand bailouts to include Greece coincided with a Senate hearing on another decision Obama  made to cut funding for a government space travel program, killing the dream of a permanent station on the Moon or a landing on Mars.

As an unintended, but cruel, joke,  Obama’s decision to retreat from space exploration has been pushed as an example of  the President’s fiscal discipline.  No doubt, Obama was hoping that such cuts would mask the fact that  he has endorsed the greatest deficits spending in the history of the United States.

But, as with many of Obama’s posturings, fiscal discipline was a canard.  Obama’s decision to cut NASA’s space travel wasn’t fiscally disciplined, it was just ill-informed.

Let’s take another look  at these two decisions.

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A study released Tuesday by the American Consumer Institute contains some bad news for proponents of net neutrality. Whereas advocates of “open internet” rules often argue that the institution of the policy is necessary to preserve innovation and would benefit consumers, the study finds that “new Internet regulations, including those now under consideration by the FCC, would restrict technology advances, innovation and job growth.”

The study further notes that “broadband network providers are a leading source of both innovation and new investment in Internet infrastructures.” Innovation and investment are often seen by tech policy observers as integral efforts that will help ensure that a broader base of consumers benefits from high-quality broadband service.

Study co-author Larry F. Darby explicitly tied proposed net neutrality regulations to a likely diminution in “motive” that would, under present circumstances, propel Internet companies to innovate and invest. Said Darby, “All indications are that these well intended regulations would dampen both incentives and opportunities for firms in the Internet ecosystem to continue to invest and to embed new technologies in core networks on which downstream applications and content providers depend.”

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