The title of this post is not a joke (although I wish it were). It is a direct quote from a comment I read a couple of days ago on a Washington Post article entitled “Has the passion gone out of America’s fabled love affair with the automobile?”
This article is one of a spate of musings about why our youth are not interested in cars. It pits young against old, with the elders representing an era filled with muscle cars, wasted gas and endless generation of pollution.
One unusual twist on this article is that it mentions a middle-aged couple who has discovered public transportation, bicycling as a form transportation — and shares one car between them:
““When I was 16, if you didn’t have a car you couldn’t get to your job,” said Jeff Lemieux, 49, who grew up in Springfield, Mo., and had an awakening when he moved to take a job in Washington 25 years ago.
“‘We were introduced to public transportation for the first time,” said Lemieux, who lives in Greenbelt and bikes to work in the District. “Now my wife and I share one car, and we probably ride our bikes 10 times as many miles as we drive our car.’”
As usual, the article didn’t become entertaining until I scrolled down to the comment section. There I found one of the most pro-car, anti-public transportation comments I’d ever seen. It is so astonishing that I thought I’d quote it below, despite the screenshot of it plastered at the top of this post.
“Dan78
5/22/2012 10:28 AM EDT
Americans (patriotic ones from the Real America, anyway) so-called love affair with the car is a byproduct of our love of freedom, liberty, limited government, privacy, Constitutional principles, and economic growth. Obviously, big-city liberals don’t get this. Driving a car means that you’re in control of your own destiny—you set the schedule, the route, the destination. Trains and buses are government control and a form of slavery (please read Friedrich von Hayek’s “The Road to Serfdom”—although he wasn’t American, he had many good ideas). The government bureaucrat decides where and when you’ll travel. It’s inherently anti-freedom, and a taxpayer boondoggle money loser that benefits the indigent, counterculture hipsters, illegals, and unions. Driving a car also allows you to not interact with people you’d rather not (the throngs of homeless, criminals, and crazies that seem to teem over most large urbanized areas).
Suburbia isn’t going anywhere, folks. It’s where the economic growth is. It also fits our Jeffersonian ideal much better than Euro-style big cities where people are crammed in like rabbits in a hutch. We like our fresh air, greenery, safety, comfort, space, and privacy here in the States. I know non-Americans have a hard time understanding this. Our priority is not being able to walk to the corner to get a loaf of bread, however charmingly 19th century this may be. Read Joel Kotkin, Randal O’Toole, and Wendell Cox to see how cities will continue to die off and the ‘burbs will continue to grow.
Oh, and bikes are kids’ toys—suitable only for trust-fund college kids who live on campus. This isn’t Europe where we all live 2,3 km from our jobs. America is a big place and we need our cars. And you can’t get any respect on a bike. One of the reasons cars remain popular is the power issue. There’s just something about that fossil-fuel burning engine and all those horses under the hood. You ain’t gonna get that on a Huffy. (And for the guys out there, it ain’t gonna get you a date, either). As for the Prius or Smart Car, let’s see how well those hold up in a highway collision with a F250.”
Our friend (nemesis) Dan78 feels compelled to equate our love affair with the car to a “byproduct of our love of freedom, liberty, limited government, privacy, Constitutional principles, and economic growth.” I was with him until I reached the “economic growth” part.
He appears to have thrown this in as an afterthought to “prove” a connection between his limited government views and economic prosperity. In his world view this correlation is proof of his patriotism and “Real American” status.
No anti-government rant would be complete without a little “big-city liberals” bashing, so he obliges in order to set up his next big idea that “Driving a car means that you’re in control of your own destiny—you set the schedule, the route, the destination.” This sounds good on paper, but what he left out is the road closures, construction delays and heavy traffic which will force one to either take a circuitous route or sit at a dead standstill in traffic.
At that point, I was about to stop reading when I came across the main point of his rant:
“Trains and buses are government control and a form of slavery (please read Friedrich von Hayek’s “The Road to Serfdom”—although he wasn’t American, he had many good ideas). The government bureaucrat decides where and when you’ll travel. It’s inherently anti-freedom, and a taxpayer boondoggle money loser that benefits the indigent, counterculture hipsters, illegals, and unions.”
This concept is news to me. I have ridden public transportation for years and never considered myself a slave. Conversely, on public transportation, I have felt free from the burden of walking, biking or driving when I was tired and needed to get somewhere. I have also felt free to read or work on my laptop while someone else was doing the driving. I’ve always seen this scenario as akin to having a chauffeur.
I’ve also never regarded a bus or train as related to a government bureaucrat. Many bus and train services are privately run, as are airlines. I don’t see this commenter claiming that taking a plane is “slavery,” even though it meets all of his criteria for traveling with riffraff and having someone else set your schedule and route.
“Our priority is not being able to walk to the corner to get a loaf of bread, however charmingly 19th century this may be.”
How much do you want to bet that this guy drives his car across the street to buy a loaf of bread? Walking would be too 19th century, so it’s imperative to maintain one’s Real American status by wasting gas to promote the sedentary lifestyle of the “cars give us freedom” contingent.
No pro-car, anti-government, anti-liberal rant would be complete without a bit of bicycle bashing.
“Oh, and bikes are kids’ toys—suitable only for trust-fund college kids who live on campus. This isn’t Europe where we all live 2,3 km from our jobs. America is a big place and we need our cars. And you can’t get any respect on a bike. One of the reasons cars remain popular is the power issue. There’s just something about that fossil-fuel burning engine and all those horses under the hood. You ain’t gonna get that on a Huffy. (And for the guys out there, it ain’t gonna get you a date, either).”
The bikes are kids’ toys part is cliché; why he sees bikes as suitable only for trust fund college kids (why would college kids need a trust fund to ride a bike?) and no other type of kid or adult is a mystery. Wouldn’t the trust fund kids be the epitome of his small government, self-reliance mantra? If so, they don’t belong on bikes, they should be driving cars to show how well they control their own destiny.
His only valid observation is the cars and power issue. Owning a car is a power issue. That’s why bicyclists can’t get any respect in our society. However, in the future, power may not be defined as horses under the hood, but rather by strength in numbers. Larger numbers of bicycles on the road will give cyclists clout. And clout leads to respect.
Such a rant would not be thoroughly done without equating cars to machismo: “And for the guys out there, it ain’t gonna get you a date, either.” A comment like this may have been true in the past. Still, as more women take to bicycling, male cyclists will be seen in a different light. They will be seen as sharing a common interest and possibly valued for traits like being fit, environmentally conscious and willing to do something which is off the beaten path.
As any cyclist will tell you: there is no freedom like riding a bike. Driving can’t compare. Drivers are slaves to traffic jams, gas prices, rising insurance costs, and government regulation of their licenses and auto registration. A car doesn’t give you freedom; it ties you down. If you want to be free, open your mind to new ways of traveling, such as walking, biking or riding public transportation. Who knows? If you do these things long enough, you may ultimately become a “Real American” in a modernized form.
