Liberals are Now a "Threat to the Car" says Terry Jeffrey

After reading Terry Jeffrey’s pointless “The Threat to the Car,” I was struck by the pettiness of conservative outrage. There are so many silly assumptions about the liberal agenda, that one might suspect the writer of putting together a tongue and cheek parody, and passing it off as a serious comment on society.

Here’s just a small sampling of “down the rabbit hole” politics:

Recent evidence that automobile use is declining in America and that some Americans are making significant -and in some cases not readily reversible -changes in their lives because of escalating gas prices should be worrisome signs for those who love liberty. No device is more in keeping with the American spirit than the automobile. Privately owned cars and trucks allow us to go where we want, when we want. They are freedom machines.

Still, some liberals would like to use government to force Americans out of their cars. They believe in socialized transportation, not free-market transportation.

In a free-market transportation system, a person purchases his own vehicle with his own money, buys his own gas with his own money and can drive his vehicle anywhere there is a road…In a socialist transportation system, the government takes the taxpayers' money and purchases vehicles --often buses or trains…In a free-market transportation system, a person travels solely in the company of people with whom he has freely chosen to travel.

In a socialist transportation system, a person may be compelled to travel in the company of people he does not know and who could even be a danger to him.

I have no doubt that most Americans…have recognized efforts by various levels of government to induce them to stop, or limit, their driving and…submit to the socialist transportation system...placing constraints on parking availability..certain lanes of the highway...to carpool or ride a bus.

We should drill our own oil -- now. And, when the supply naturally diminishes to where prices drive the market elsewhere, American entrepreneurs must create another fuel whose production the government cannot readily curtail, and that keeps Americans driving where they want to, when they want to, in privately owned cars.

Typical conservative: short term solutions like more drilling, than letting that run out before creating another fuel that can’t be curtailed. This is disaster management. Spend money only on emergencies as they occur, never planning ahead. Public transportation is voluntary, just another option, or right that citizens have to choose what’s best for them. How hard it that to figure out?

I’ve included this valid reader Comment:

Either we subsidize transit or we make car drivers pay 100% of road costs, starting with fitting each car with a transponder that records how many miles you drove, which roads you used and assessed a fee to base on your driving record to defray road costs. Something tells me most people won’t go for that solution.

The transponder idea is being considered in a number of states. I’m not sure how far the idea will ever get, but it’s out there.