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For many voters, the recent presidential election was devastating. For others, it was exhilarating. For both, it was a reminder that the president is America’s chief executive and military commander in chief, not our ruler. I point this out not because Donald Trump will be sworn in as America’s 47th president but because that’s how America’s government was designed. The primary concern of the framers of the U.S. political system was not how to protect and extend democracy but how to prevent democratic tyranny. Their solution was a limited national government, defined by separation of powers and checks and balances among the legislative, executive and judicial branches — operating within a federal system. We already see this system at work as President-elect Trump faces resistance to some of his nominees for key government posts. Limiting government, particularly at the federal level, is a core American principle. When asked whether the Constitutional Convention would produce a monarchy or a republic, Benjamin Franklin famously responded, “A republic, if you can keep it!” In a republic, government is “by the people” and “for the people.” But this still begs the question of how government officials are selected and the scope of their power. Many leading political thinkers, from Plato to the present, have agreed on one thing: “democracy” is not the answer. By “democracy,” they meant rule by simple majorities. Alexis de Tocqueville, the 19th-century French author of “Democracy in America,” wrote that the most significant danger to America was the power of the majority, which, if given broad authority, would lead to a trampling of individual rights, what he called the “tyranny of the majority.” As James Madison, the father of the Constitution, put it, “Democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property.” Instead of (and in contrast to) a strictly democratic system of government, ours is defined by the protection of individual rights. People have not flocked to this country for hundreds of years to participate in democratic elections. There are many places where they can do that, often in a purer democratic form. Instead, they are attracted to America because our individual rights are protected by our political, legal and social institutions. The brilliance of the U.S. Constitution is that while allowing for rule by and for the people, it also incorporates a multitude of protections designed to prevent, or slow down, “the people” from turning into a mob, undermining justice and trampling on individual rights. During the recent presidential campaign, strong voices on the right and the left called for the abandonment of critical aspects of the Constitution (through various means), freeing their side to exercise near-unlimited power if elected. John Rawls, one of the 20th century’s most significant political theorists, developed a concept called the “veil of ignorance.” The rules of society, Rawls declared, should be designed without knowing how or where you will fit in. You might want to be king, but if you create a kingdom, you don’t know in advance if you will be king or a peasant in that imaginary realm. Applying this framework prompts most people to favor systems that treat the least advantaged, the peasants, justly because they’re likely to be among them. Applying this to the government, imagine what type of system you would design if you knew that “your side” would be out of power for the foreseeable future. Be thankful that we have such a system. It’s why the Constitution doesn’t give the president unlimited power; there are all sorts of institutional hurdles to slow down ill-considered law-making, and it’s why the Senate historically has shied away from confirming federal judges on a purely partisan basis. The founders understood, as Henry David Thoreau would repeat and emphasize in his famous 1849 essay “On the Duty of Civil Disobedience”: “That government is best which governs least.” Frederic J. Fransen is president of Huntington (W.Va.) Junior College and CEO of Certell Inc. He wrote this for InsideSources.com .Achieving academic excellence is not just about intellectual achievement but also about cultivating virtues that promote better humanity, said Director of National Institute of Technology, Tiruchi, G. Aghila, at the graduation day of Thiagarajar College of Engineering in Madurai on Saturday. An alumna of the college, Ms. Aghila said that she was a student of the first batch (Batch of 1988) of B.E. in Computer Science and Engineering (Honours). She told the graduands to remember that engineering was not just about solving technical problems. It was also about understanding the social, cultural and environmental context in which those problems existed. She advised the graduands to develop critical thinking, problem solving ability and creativity. She told them that research was the foundation of progress and commitment to research involved actively seeking new knowledge, exploring uncharted territories and contributing to the academic community by generating new ideas, theories and solutions. She urged them to think of becoming entrepreneurs and also emphasised on the importance of industry-institute collaboration and startup culture. She told them to have responsibility and accountability, be open minded and not to get disappointed when things were not working. She told the graduands that they should contribute towards nation building. TCE Chairman and Correspondent K. Hari Thiagarajan told the graduands to stay connected with their alma mater. Sharing time, energy and ideas with the college will in turn serve as a guiding light to future students, he said. He advised them to continue learning. “Once you stop learning you stop growing”, he told them adding that they should learn about the developing areas. TCE Principal L. Ashok Kumar told the graduands to be open to new experiences, continue learning and not to lose sight of their dreams. TCE Registrar S. Rajaram proposed a vote of thanks. A total of 1,046 graduands were conferred degrees at the graduation day. Published - November 30, 2024 08:43 pm IST Copy link Email Facebook Twitter Telegram LinkedIn WhatsApp RedditCar and Driver. The Gordon Murray Automotive (GMA) T.50 is not a world-beating numbers car. It does not boast the biggest engine. It does not make jaw-dropping horsepower or tractor-like torque. Its shift speeds will be limited by the skill of its driver, as will its lateral and launch results. None of this is by mistake. If Gordon Murray wanted to make a world-beating numbers car, he could have. He did it multiple times on the racetrack with Formula 1 designs for Brabham and McLaren that led to several constructors' and drivers' championships. He's also done it with a street machine. The naturally aspirated held a record for the world's fastest production car from 1993 until 2005, when the outran it—with the help of four turbochargers. Murray could have built his own big turbocharged, electrified, grippy aero machine and gone up against the s and s, but he wanted to make a driver's car. By his definition, that's a three-seater with a central driving position and a naturally aspirated V-12 like the F1, but this time lighter, more fuel efficient, and better balanced. "The brakes never worked really well," Murray tells us. "The air conditioning didn't work very well. The clutch needed adjusting regularly. The fuel tank needed changing every five years. From an aesthetic point of view, there were always a few things on the F1 that I really didn't like. I had a very low budget and a very short time [with it]. When I finished the tooling, I would have loved to have changed those things, but I couldn't. And every time I see an F1, it grates." Murray didn't sit and sulk about it. He founded a design and engineering firm in 2007 and developed an award-winning city-car prototype (the T.25). After a corporate restructuring, the sale of the Gordon Murray Technologies side of the business allowed GMA to fix all the flaws that had been bugging Murray about the F1. For the T.50, Murray thinned out the central spine, designed a more reliable fuel tank, upgraded the brakes to carbon-ceramic rotors, and commissioned a jewel of an engine from Cosworth Engineering [see "The Engine," below]. That engine alone is worth the car's $3.2 million asking price. Its revs zing so high, it'll knock satellites off course. It howls like a '90s Formula 1 car or an entire MotoGP field. During our ride, when we pulled off the road and popped the cover to the mid-mounted engine bay, I expected Marc Márquez to wheelie out, but all I could see was a glimpse of an orange Cosworth valve cover and a carbon-fiber plenum. Can you buy this car? Nope. GMA is only making 100, and they've all been sold out since it was announced in 2020. Did they let us drive it? They did not. The T.50 is in the United States under the "show or display" exemption that allows rare or historically important vehicles to be imported and driven a small number of miles every year. The lack of registration was GMA's reasoning for not handing us the keys. As a consolation prize, they sent four-time IndyCar champion Dario Franchitti—consultant during the car's development and GMA's executive director of product and brand—to be our wheelman. They at least let us test it, right? Nah, Murray believes that performance numbers are a barstool braggart's approach to automobiles. "We're not in that bar conversation," says GMA CEO Phillip Lee. "Why are you chasing top speed anyway? I mean, there are only so many times you can feel sick in a car. You can go to a theme park for those sorts of things. You want to be engaged with the car. You want to keep getting in it." I did want to get in it, Phil—that's what I'm mad about! But if you have to play co-driver, there are worse scenarios than one involving Franchitti, a California mountain road, and a 661-hp car about the size of a Porsche Cayman that weighs an estimated 2400 pounds. When Franchitti flicked up the red cover and hit the start button, there was fan whir and the hum of the 48-volt integrated starter-generator. A second later, the 4.0-liter V-12 came in with a thump like a sonic boom, and then Franchitti was on the gas, punching it through the gears, while the tach needle climbed as if a bear were chasing it. He passed a slow-moving van on an uphill section in fifth gear just to prove the V-12's grunt isn't only in the upper register. The T.50 makes 353 pound-feet of torque at 8000 rpm, but variable valve timing makes it possible to access 71 percent of the max torque at just 2500 rpm. Clear of the van, he dropped to third and gunned it, blurring the scenery like a left-hander's calligraphy. Off the gas, he turned to me and grinned. "We just barely got past 9000 rpm," he said. Later, on a longer straight, we tapped the 12,100-rpm redline. I'm surprised it didn't trigger a landslide. A recurring theme while Franchitti was driving was the idea of perfect balance. GMA claims the car gets good mileage because the engine is small. The engine can be small because the car is light. The car can ride on narrow tires and a soft suspension because, unlike most modern supercars, it doesn't have a huge amount of downforce. It doesn't need huge downforce because it doesn't have an insane amount of horsepower. The T.50 doesn't need insane power because the car is light. And so the circle goes. Speaking of circles, one of the most noticeable design elements on the T.50 is the fan set like a rocket thruster in the center of the rear panel. "It doesn't suck the car to the ground," Franchitti remarks, anticipating my Brabham/Chaparral questions. "It's not like the old Brabham BT46. What it does is allow for a more aggressive diffuser angle without stalling the air under the car." The fan has a couple of mode options, the main one being an automatic setting that kicks it on at speed and during braking, where Franchitti says it makes a noticeable difference in stability. Under sustained high speeds, it creates a virtual long tail for better highway mileage. With the fan on and the optional tall overdrive sixth gear, the T.50 is surprisingly economical. "I'm not sure what the official number is," Franchitti says. "It's bloody good. I've had it over 30 mpg." There is a filter before the fan blades, so T.50 drivers won't be spitting chewed-up grasshoppers at the cars behind them. It does spit fire out the Inconel and titanium exhaust, though, so don't follow too closely. The T.50 has a relatively small footprint, and Franchitti moved the car around in the lane to showcase how its narrow track offers multiple entry and exit angles. "It's not like a wide body on massive tires, all he says, mimicking the repetitive thump of running up against the centerline reflectors. "The thing about this car is that you keep getting better at it," he says. "You learn with it." A mash-up of carbon fiber and aluminum forms the T.50's central tub. Beneath it are aluminum control arms with pushrods working inboard springs and dampers. The chassis—like every other component on the car, from the titanium and aluminum pedals to the machined Brembo brake calipers—has had the fat carved away like a brisket trimmed by an overzealous chef. The windshield is the thinnest glass that can pass muster. GMA even laid the evening-blue paint on the car with a light touch and optimized its weight with a bare minimum of metal flake to achieve a low-mass glitter. One compromise was made in the use of glass in the roof, but GMA offers a solid top for those who can't bear a twitch up the scale. A clear roof is worth the weight, though, because it turns the cabin from austere to airy. Even the passengers get an unobstructed view, like a co-pilot in a helicopter. There is just enough electronic assistance in the T.50 to keep it from scaring beginners. But skilled drivers can click off the stability control and rev matching, switch the throttle mapping to Sport (which gives you all the revs all the time), and experience it with no interference. The steering only engages assist at speeds under 10 mph, but because the car is so light and the tires are narrow (235/35ZR-19 Michelin Pilot Sport 4S in the front and 295/30ZR-20s in the rear), Franchitti says the effort is entertaining, not overwhelming. Murray's use of carbon-ceramic rotors makes good on a promise to improve on the F1, which was notoriously squeaky and required a heavy foot. Franchitti describes the T.50 pedals as light and immediate, with the clutch effort matched to the throttle and the brake in line for a quick blip. As a passenger, I can vouch for the comfort and usability of the T.50. It sits high, so there's no need for a heavy nose lift to clear speed bumps. Entry is a bit like getting to your theater seat, a lot of scooting over into place, but once you're inside, the seats are at a comfortable angle, with space around the driver and passengers. The right-hand rider gets less room, having to give up some space to the console and six-speed shifter. This is not a car for grabbing dinner on the go, but it would be a great weekend-getaway machine. There is room for luggage in pods on either side of the engine and a custom set to fill them. The interior is about sensation more than looks. There's a pop of red on the start-button cover, the reverse lockout, and a little leather stripe up the faux suede of the center seat, but the prettiest thing in the cabin is the open side of the console, where the shifter linkage is on display. From a tactile perspective, it's gorgeous. The switches and buttons click with authority. Franchitti says he once came into the office to find Murray surrounded by possible switchgear, twisting each until he found the best feel. Every detail on the T.50 is like this, tweaked and tuned to Murray's idea of perfection. And most perfect might be more bragworthy than the biggest numbers. The star of the T.50 show is the naturally aspirated 4.0-liter 12-cylinder. The 392-pound V-12 winds up to 12,100 rpm, producing 661 horsepower at 11,000 rpm, 353 pound-feet of torque at 8000 rpm, and 251 pound-feet at 2500 rpm. Interestingly, GMA approved engine supplier Cosworth to build a 65-degree V-12 rather than use the perfectly balanced 60-degree layout. Why? Strictly for optimizing the packaging of the 12 port injectors in the valley of the V. With an 81.5-mm bore and a 63.8-mm stroke, the aluminum block houses a delicate-looking polished crankshaft. "With a 65-degree angle, you don't have the vibrations that require large counterweights," Gordon Murray says. The crank, which is cut from a steel billet, weighs just 29 pounds and sits 3.3 inches from the lower crankcase, keeping the center of gravity and rotating mass low. The short-skirt pistons provide a 14.0:1 compression ratio and are forged from a metal matrix composite that Murray describes as "ceramic inside the aluminum from a molecular point of view." They swing on titanium connecting rods in plasma-coated bores. The valves are hollowed titanium. Chains and 12,000-plus rpm are not besties, so Cosworth employed a geartrain that links the crankshaft and valvetrain. Double overhead camshafts, gun drilled to shave weight and hydraulically damped to prevent torsional vibration, operate the titanium valves via finger followers. For the variable valve timing, which gives the V-12 its low-end torque, Cosworth developed its own actuators, as nothing off the shelf could handle 6000 rpm (cams spin half as fast as cranks). The high revs caused problems in designing the 48-volt integrated starter-generator (ISG), which had to handle quick revs and changes in electrical load. The ISG runs at twice the engine speed, spinning the crankshaft only when it's in starter mode and then feeding the batteries that run the electrical components, including the rear fan's 11-hp motor. Xtrac developed the six-speed manual gearbox, which, together with the V-12, forms a semi-stressed component of the chassis. Each handbuilt V-12 takes approximately 140 hours to complete. While all the T.50 models are sold out, there are plans for variants of the V-12 in future GMA models, including the more conventional two-seat T.33. "Murray has filing cabinets absolutely full of ideas," Dario Franchitti says.