Maybe I didn't make myself clear enough, or maybe this is a California thing, but there is a definite effort on the part of the Left out here to make it more difficult to use cars and force people into collectivized transportation. This might have something to do with my attitude.

Of course a lot of people ride buses who would have difficulty getting around otherwise. Hell, I didn't even OWN a car until I was out of college, so I certainly did. Also rode a bike and walked.

I have no major objections to a city running bus lines, although being government operations they tend to become classic money ratholes (and a bus line is nowhere near the monstrous rathole one of our famous California multibillion dollar light rail systems are). Who knows, run like a private business without the cost overruns and featherbedding, maybe they would break even.

I do object to some holier-than-thou smartass telling me to get out of my car and get on a bus or carpool. And when I don't, I particularly object to them trying to make it stick with various stupid laws including "commuter lanes," or more recently, attempting to divert most of our gas taxes from highways into favorite transit projects. Oh, they say it's because of the pollution, but if you talk to one of them for a while, you'd see it's simply that they hate individual cars. I will be interested in seeing the proof of this when fuel cell cars and the like become more common. I predict their real motives will start to become more obvious when the anti-auto crowd STILL tries to get you into those mass transit boxcars.

As Bowser says, "Gotta force you. You'd never do it voluntarily."

I wonder that it never occurs to anyone WHY someone might choose to sit in traffic for hours instead of take a bus. Ever bother to ASK them? Naturally, a liberal would automatically assume it's because they don't know any better. Maybe they prefer the freedom and flexibility? Maybe they'd rather sit and listen to music instead of being crammed into a cattle car? Who knows?

Meanwhile, a shiny new light rail system runs near my house. I rarely see more than one or two people in each car. There is also a regular commuter train running on normal tracks between San Jose and San Francisco. I have no idea how much money it loses, but it's got to be less than the high-tech wonders like light rail or Bart.

And, does it bother your libertarian soul to be driving over land which was taken away from people. They were compensated at whatever rate the State chose, but many didn't want to move and they owned their land.



I'll bet that doesn't even occur to you.



Of course it occurs to me. I've been studying the role of market forces in our society for most of my life, and I am well aware that our freeway society has been subsidized from almost day one. It is worth noting that if auto drivers had had to PAY for their roads, and had to do without the convenience of eminent domain, resulting in a process which would be much more slow and painstaking, the natural balance of trains vs. cars in our modern world might be considerably different.