U.S. Anti-Car Jihad Getting Warmed-Up?
The average U.S. consumer is done with SUVs and full-size pickups. Although the shift may have had something to do with safety concerns, political correctness and environmental awareness, probably not. The simple truth is that rising gas prices killed the genre faster than Old Sparky took out Pedro Medina. Of course, that hasn't stopped the left – right debates surrounding the private ownership of gas guzzlers, or, indeed, cars. We've been chronicling the UK's anti-car jihad for some time; recently highlighting their oppressive, CO2-based tax regimes ( which even have the left up in arms). The Huffington Post's Sean-Paul Kelley provides us with a U.S. equivalent of the UK hard-core anti-car elite, penning a dietribe against personal transportation. "To me a car is like a prison sentence," Kelley opines, before totting-up the cost of running a car. "Wouldn't you rather save $8,000 a year and only pay $2,000 a year in infrastructure taxes to ride the subway? Or an excellent bus system? And improve our national rail network? As a part of the bargain you would walk more, get exercise, be healthier and as another bonus spend more time in closer quarters with your fellow Americans, building communities, making new friends, the chance meetings of people reading the same book on the metro or bus?" Kelley cuts non-urban dwellers a bit of slack, but not much. Look for more of this in the days, weeks and years to come…
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"The anti-car Jihad should team up with the anti-ethanol Jihad we hear so much from lately. Sounds like a winning combination to me. Stop cars by reducing fuels available to power them. Can’t lose. Praise be to Allah!" That was unnecessary. :\
LeeS:
Also, today’s environmental movement has been adopted by the Marxists of the world. I wasn't aware that the "environmental movement" was a singular force, let alone that it was controlled by Marxists. (Oops, you meant these Marxists.) Can we stop with the silly name calling? I know this — try to take my car and force me to live in a high rise in a city and you will definitely find out what a real civil war is like. I will not go peacefully. I suspect that I would be one of a vast many in that action. I've no doubt that when the vast army of Skyscraper Revolutionaries descend upon the sleepy suburbs in a vast carpet of Priuses to drag your wailing children into their endless columns of high-tech elevators, you and your rag-tag band of freedom fighters traveling in 9-mpg Dodge R/Ts will successfully fend them off and ultimately prove triumphant. Unless you run out of gas first."we, as a society and a species, need to realize that we’ve been consuming above our 'means', and that the ability to go anywhere anytime is a 'privilege', not a right." That is a scary statement. How about this proposition: "we need to realize that we've been consuming more food than our "needs", and that eating what and how much is a "privilege", not a right. Sounds Orwellian to me.