Breakout

Book excerpt: It is not between the Left and the Right, but between the past and the future. America is on the edge of a breakout. In fact, we are poised for one of the most spectacular leaps in human well-being in history. Pioneers of the future—innovators and entrepreneurs—are achieving breakthroughs in medicine, transportation, energy, education, and other fields that will make the world a dramatically different and better place. Unless the “prison guards” of the past stop them. Every American must choose a side. Will you be a champion of the future or a prisoner of the past? Every potential breakthrough has to get past a host of individuals and institutions whose power and comfort depend on the status quo. These prison guards of the past will strangle every innovation that threatens to change the way things have always been done—if we let them.