The automobile represents freedom.
You climb into a car and go, go, go, whenever and wherever you want. The car is modern man’s path to liberty.
Contrast cars with trains.
Railroads are an expression of the collective. Individual identity is erased. You are at the mercy of a state-controlled system that turns citizens into passive cogs, manipulated and at the mercy of government bureaucrats.
That’s why democrats/progressives/liberals/ (what are they calling themselves this week?) are obsessed with high-speed rail. The freedom of the road is repellent to big government fanatics. The ruling elite seek to regulate and control tobacco, food, calories, soda, education, light bulbs, toilets, health care, reproduction — your every cell. In short: liberty is constricted by any and all means.
And all in the name of an amorphous, preadolescent concept: Fairness.
And you better believe that the chattering elite are the ones who get to define what’s fair and what’s unfair. Funny how that always works out in their favor.
Nazis just adored trains. And hey, the Italian fascists boasted that Mussolini made the trains run on time. Though Italian trains were about as effective and efficient as the Italian army. Which is to say: Not.
At a certain point, one must acknowledge the convergent philosophies of post-modern liberals and iron-fist fascists. Both ideologies assert the power of the state as the final arbiter of human affairs. Hence, the government replaces G-d and family as the center of man’s universe. It’s no surprise that the formal title of the Nazi party was “The National Socialist German Workers’ Party.”
Robert J. Avrech
January 3, 2013
Hollywood: I Drive Therefore I am Free
[And what point will we “acknowledge the convergent philosophies of post-modern liberals and iron-fist fascists”? As a nation we clearly have not yet acknowledged it or else many who acknowledge it also welcome it. And I fear even if we were to acknowledge today it would already be too late.
We have some very rough times ahead of us.—Joe]
Having ridden good rail systems and sat in traffic jams, I’ll say that there are times when I prefer taking a train to driving. It’s nice to have the option if you’re free to make the choice.
I want options too. Some days, freedom is riding the train passing all the cars stuck in a traffic jam.
I like options too. I ride the bus to/from work nearly everyday. What I don’t like is public money being spent in such a fashion to force “what is best for everyone”. If the government must subsidize the buses/trains in order for them to be used then that means the public does not value those means of transportation as much as the existing alternatives (private cars, bicycles, walking, etc. If the government built roads are at max capacity then the government should expand the capacity of the roads. It should not subsidize or build train and bus systems.