"Individualism is neither a moral virtue nor a prop of democracy--it abets statism by atomizing society. It's no coincidence that the national highway system was dreamt up by the military and built by the Welfare State."

I bet that's what the anti-poo lobby said about the horse drawn wagon and the Santa Fe Trail.

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"the automobile is one of the two most liberating inventions of the past century,"

the automobile was invented in the 1880s.

The fact that you have a strong point about individualism doesn't negate the point that the automobile was (and remains) a liberating device.

Your view re: atomization doesn't argue for less individual freedom, but rather for individualism tempered by an enlightened view toward social cohesion.

Taxing autos so that they cover the cost they impose on society is probably a good idea, but placing undue burdens on them DOES make people less free.

your thesis explains why communist countries made everyone drive cars. guffaw.

Didn't the horse give people individual mobility?

Bruno;

Yes, liberty requires that people be less free.

"the automobile is one of the two most liberating inventions of the past century,"

Obviously, this is incorrect. The automobile is the most liberating invention since time began and even before that. Just the word, auto = self, mobile = movable. It’s freedom man!

No one is saying the obvious about the car burnings in France. The yoots are burning cars because they don’t have one and they know they’ll probably never have one. Our yoots steal them instead of burning them because they feel an entitlement to having one and a darn nice one at that.

Weston the Pedestrian would approve.

The two greatest inventions of our time:

The automobile, which allows us to go anywhere we want.

And the television, which means we don't.

(bon mot copyright Brit 2006 - but Juddians can feel free to pass it off as their own any time they like)

OJ

Not that I would want to limit your LIBERTY by restricting your FREEDOM to define English words to suit your whims.

Freedom
1. The condition of being FREE of restraints.
2. Liberty of the person from slavery, detention, or oppression.

Synonyms: liberty,

Liberty
1.The condition of being FREE from restriction or control.
2. FREEDOM from unjust or undue governmental control.

h:

America is premised on republican liberty, not modernist twaddle:

http://www.brothersjudd.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/reviews.detail/book_id/1385/

Freedom is not neat and clean, oj. Totalitarianism strives for neat and clean. The state and it's coercive powers becomes the agent and it's powers grow in direct proportion to it's failures. The mass production of the automobile was a revolutionary innovation which occured without the intervention of the state. The internal improvements it necessitated could only be done through the power of the federal government. The interstate system was created in the name of national defense as much as commerce and trade while bringing the regions closer.

Your fixation on the automobile and the interstate highway system is strange, romantic. Completely in character.

Freedom, just like totalitarianism, is neat and clean. Liberty is messy.

Keep going, wild man, you've almost got it...there it is! Freedom is totalitarianism.

freedom leads to totalitarianism.

'Democracy' leads to totalitarianism. Ordered liberty built on a foundation of law within a republican, constitutional system offers some protection.

against freedom.

Against people who don't have much use for freedom *cough* *cough*

joe:

Exactlty. Republics are a compromise between the destructive inpulses towards total freedom and total security.

Semantics aside, we can go anywhere we want, that we don't go anywhere is besides the point.

As ever and always, you're forgetting the destructive impulse towards total power. Intellectuals always do -- they're loath to limit themselves. Heaven forfend you should shelve your theories, and just admit you hate cars for the fun of it.

License.

Yes, intellectual license.

joe:

Liberty only requires that all be limited equally, as all will pay the higher gas taxes.

If liberty requires that all be limited equally, and you get to live with the satisfaction of seeing your little schemes enacted, and other people get to live with your collar on their neck, well, that's not really that equal, is it? Now, as schemes go, $3 a gallon gas isn't that destructive, but that's also not the point; the point is that you've got pupils the size of dimes, and no inclination to stop at $3 a gallon gas.

our schemes, our necks.

Your scheme, my neck. There is no "our" here.

All laws and regulations are ours--that's how America works. You don't have to like them all.

Nor do I expect to. But the temptation and the test for a governing class, and you are, is what it does with that goodwill -- that sense that "all laws and regulations are ours." You're busy pissing it away on your own obsessions, in this instance your loathing for cars. Lefty intellectuals are notorious for falling into that trap.

I can't understand why everyone swarms Orrin on this one. He is obviously right. My goodness, all, a car is a mess of metal that allows you to get from point A to point B under certain agreeable or not-so-agreeable conditions. How is that anymore key to liberty than my barbeque?

One of the appeals of the left, especially to the young, is their superficial critique of the middle-class, materialist lifestyle and conspicuous consumption. It presents as a kind of faux-spiritualism that appears to transcend materialism at first, but ends up embracing that very thing in extreme and lethal ways. It resonates with many because it appeals to universal transcendent urges and impulses. If we on our side are going to respond with nothing better than odes to cars or MacDonalds or deoderant, the battle is lost.

Cars are cool, cars are neat, cars are necessary, cars are efficient, cars are a pain in the butt. But, please, cars are not an expression of freedom or any other of our most cherished values.

I can't understand why everyone swarms Orrin on this one. He is obviously right. My goodness, all, a car is a mess of metal that allows you to get from point A to point B under certain agreeable or not-so-agreeable conditions. How is that anymore key to liberty than my barbeque?

One of the appeals of the left, especially to the young, is their superficial critique of the middle-class, materialist lifestyle and conspicuous consumption. It presents as a kind of faux-spiritualism that appears to transcend materialism at first, but ends up embracing that very thing in extreme and lethal ways. It resonates with many because it appeals to universal transcendent urges and impulses. If we on our side are going to respond with nothing better than odes to cars or MacDonalds or deoderant, the battle is lost.

Cars are cool, cars are neat, cars are necessary, cars are efficient, cars are a pain in the butt. But, please, cars are not an expression of freedom or any other of our most cherished values.

A car may be only a hunk of metal, but then a heart or a brain is only a hunk of protoplasm, but try living without them.

Peter,

Yes cars are metal and that is quite the point. I can be sure in saying - you personally, have no complete idea in what ways higher gas taxes will limit our economy. We have had enough of this particular kind of foolishness from the left, why mimic them?

Perry:

In order to reduce our consumption of gasoline.

joe:

Yes, if we choose to leave taxes where they are they are likewise ours.

Perry:

I'll listen to any argument as to why gas taxes or decreased gas consumption is a bad economic idea. For example, I'm not sure how Orrin would square an attack on automobile use with encouraging home ownership. My problem is the car as an expression of liberty--some sacred trust our politicians are bound to secure at current levels of consumption. Or the notion that the nation is cracking because we have to start reining in car use or rely more on public transport or-gasp-walking. Is the automobile somehow excempt from notions of excess?

The freeway system was created in Germany prior to WW2. Eisenhower saw it and was impressed. As a young Lt. he drove a convoy of trucks across the US on a mission to see if the military could effect large scale movement across the country in its defense. Even in the 1920 -30's cross country travel was more of a dream than a reality. It took 90 days or more.

Automobiles were concepted in the mid 1800's and created in the 1880's.

If you really wanted a fair system of fuel pricing, try pricing fuel based on BTU's per standard volume. Gasoline has less energy that diesel, etc, etc.

If you want a fair system of taxation for use of the roads, the tax would be based on miles driven and vehicle weight and vehicle purpose.

Use fees...hmmmmm. people would drive less and consume less fuel if the pain of driving was hitting the pocket books.

Eliminate all fuel taxes, and just charge useage fees on miles driven.

And if you really wanted to reduce fuel consumption, every product produced would have an energy to create value associated with it, and a tax would be applied for total energy used to create.

If this were the case, alot of folks would be looking at solar energy, energy regeneration, and of course would be burning wood, as it grows naturally in the sun, and would have no fossil fuel tax applied to it.

Of course, we could all go back to cars like the stanley steamer..just a wood burning version as opposed to a coke ( coal based fuel ) water mixture that created acetylene to burn in the burner.