Termyn8or
Posts: 18681
Joined: 11/12/2005
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We consume too much. We use too much oil. There are too many cars on the road.
The government while conceeding that travel is a right, to do it on the public roads in a vehicle is a priveledge. I am not here to argue that point, but as such, they have increased the cost of driving to astronomical levels.
While their impetus for doing this was greed, there is an unintended positive side effect. There is a growing contingent of the population that simply does not drive anymore.
Well, let's treat these suppositions of mine as fact OK ? Just for now, in fact since this is the official whips and chains debating society here, someone probably will challenge something, but you can't yet as I have not yet hit the "send" button. (HEHEHE)
You have the right to travel. The government is supposed to defend your rights. The government goes out of it's way to trample some rights while foisting ridiculous policies on the public, ostensibly to protect those rights.
So why don't they do something FOR us ?
Make public transportation free. In the whole US.
You know how I am. I don't even want to pay taxes, I do not plan on ever collecting SS or anything. I have never beenon nor I will ever be on welfare. I took UI in the past but I paid into it. Of course I did otherwise I would not have gotten it. I want the government gone, and if I had one iota of confidence in the American public I would favor anarchy. But I don't because I am familiar with reality.
The greed and waste in government is great, if even ΒΌ of it were eliminated they could pay every bus driver and fuel every bus in this country. They could double the number of bus lines, improve public transpotation drastically in areas where it is needy.
Now everyone can get where they want to go for nothing.
There is a cost to taxpayers but remember that reality problem. When they lose money it costs us, when they make money it costs us, so what's the difference ?
Think about this. There are effects that would be seen as negative, but that is only in the short term. For example the entire auto industry would have to downsize. With this comes commensurate losses in other businesses. However in the long run it would be a positive influence on the human condition. But people don't think that way.
People need to think about next month's mortgage payment etc., not what happens ten years down the road. That's what debt does to you. You have no choice.
Driving would become a luxury. Fewer cars built and sold, but what does that mean ?
Some people say a new car is a hundred bucks worth of glass and steel and the rest plastic. An exageration of course, but I think the statement has some roots.
But what does it take to make plastic ? Oil. Even the steel and glass take an enormous amount of energy to produce.
I love talking to old people. Dad told me about when he was a "kid", which means 20. There were car lots that had jumkers for $35. You save up your money and you buy one. Then you go to the DMV and pay the $7 and you got plates. If you had a license you'd be legal. Insurance ? Hell back then you hit somebody's car and if you had ten bucks in your pocket you could dispense with all the drama and settle it right then and there.
Up until the fifties there were states that did not require a driver's license. Up until the nineties one state did not require proof of residency to get plates. Yup a buddy o mine used to drive to Oregon every other year to get plates. "Howdy Jim, that'll be $12", "It went up ?". I am not kidding, he lived in Cleveland for 20 years running Oregon plates.
But things have tightened up, and part of it is driven by greed, but I must admit that part of it is driven by the natural progression of things. We have too many plastic cars on the road. Something that would cause little or no damage in the past can total a car now. But the fact is we still have too many cars. The roads are too crowded.
Driving might become a luxury, and indeed it was in the past. Neither one of my Grandmothers ever drove a car, not once, and had no interest in it. My Father had to teach my Mother how to drive. In fact my one Grandmother called cars "machines".
How times have changed. Thing is, can we go back to a life like that ? Do we want to ? Are we going to be forced to ?
I say if natural factors are going to force you to do something it is better to do it sooner than later, before the crisis is imminent. But are you allowed to think that way ?
Many are not. Consider this; you have a good job thirty miles away and a house payment of two grand a month. What choices do you have.
I was mailed by a CM member chiding me for scaring people away from Ron Paul with stories of doom and gloom. They were not nasty or anything, I responded, whatever. But the way I responded was this : If we are headed for an economic downturn, isn't it better to tighten up a few notches on the belt sooner than to wait until the shit really hits the fan ? That is not verbatim, but it is the same thing.
Tell you this, I haven't crunched the numbers, but I can almost say for sure that the money spent on the debacle in the middle east could have been used to support a national transportation system that works and is free for all to use. If administered properly it could work.
Of course if we could get that we would already have it.
T
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Termyspective #1, energy cost - 
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