From Veeduber@aol.com  Tue Oct 24 15:01:35 1995
msgnum: msg18287
Date: Tue, 24 Oct 1995 15:58:45 -0400
From: Veeduber_at_aol_dot_com
Subject: The Forever Car (or Bus)


                  The Forever Car

A recent thread (Methyl Hydrate) about fueling your car with
alcohol to squeak by an emissions test touched on the morality of
violating the spirit of a law intended to provide a healthier
environment.  The comments circled the mountain but failed to
climb it.  The real question has to do with the fact that
transportation is a necessity of modern-day life and the role
government plays in supporting that collective need.  But before
we can appreciate the 'morality' of something as arcane as
gasoline versus alcohol we need to understand the fundamental
basis for governments, for without that understanding the
question of morality with regard to observing a rule imposed by
government can have no foundation.

Governments don't form themselves, they are formed by people in
order to gain some advantage, usually to enhance their welfare by
forming a group large enough to accomplish collectively what they
can not achieve on an individual basis, such as defending their
homes.  The paradox of government is that the individual must
always give up certain personal freedoms in order to enjoy the
collective benefits.

The sad thing about governments is that in every single case,
government formed by the people eventually becomes so large
it begins to prey upon the people who created it.  Instead of
being the servant of the people, it becomes their adversary.  Our
founding fathers recognized this flaw and tried to insure against
it by stressing certain 'inalienable' rights, all of which have
been abridged by our government whenever it feels threatened.  

The fact remains that we can not earn our livings nor enjoy our
'inalienable' rights without access to transportation, it is a
collective need.  In recognition of that fact we have used
governmental powers to foster transportation, from the earliest
canals to the latest space flights.  Public transportation was
very much a part of the overall plan, up until the end of World
War II.

When I was a boy the light-rail system of southern California was
one of the finest in the world.  You could travel by streetcar
from Riverside, California to Newport Beach, a distance of nearly
a hundred miles for about seventy cents and every metropolitan
area enjoyed the use of a similar system.  The corruption that
lead to the demise of that magnificent rail car systems is a
matter of public record and serves as an object lesson for anyone
foolish enough to trust an elected official.  Or the morality of
large corporations.  Even more chilling is that having
successfully raped the southern California light rail system, the
same corporations and agencies repeated the process all across
the country.  Government and industry acted in concert to destroy
an invaluable public asset, replacing it with a few buses and the
concept of 'personal' transportation.  Their motive was greed. 
Public outcry lead to investigations and even a few trials in
which corporations and government officials were found guilty of
a variety of crimes.  Their typical punishment was a warning, the
maximum fine $5,000.  What was good for General Motors was good
for America.  And to hell with the Americans.

In the nearly two generations since that time the public has been
carefully trained to respond to the Pavlovian need for 'personal'
transportation, squeezed into a succession of smaller and smaller
boxes-on-wheels, brainwashed into believing they are doing the
right thing.  Today, the average American driver is firmly
convinced that miles-per-gallon is the major factor in the cost
of getting from here to there.

It's all bullshit.  Very carefully thought-out bullshit.

Personal transportation is a luxury, the cost rapidly approaching
one dollar per mile.  The major portion of that cost is spent
buying your box-on-wheels, financing the money used to buy it,
for insurance, licensing fees and other taxes.  Fuel, oil, tires
and maintenance makes up only about eight percent of the cost of
personal transportation.  Miles per gallon -- and emission
standards -- are a bureaucratic joke.

Why are the costs so high?  Partly to justify the mega-agencies
who have 'rediscovered' the need for public transportation, who
can only justify their billion-dollar budgets by comparison with
the cost of personal transportation.  ("See?  Three bucks to ride
the BART is cheaper than driving your own car!  Are we great or
what!")  The unfaithful stewards who have screwed the American
public for so many years are haunted by the thought of old
Volkswagens that cost only pennies per mile to run and seem to
last forever, or by anyone bright enough to keep their car for
five or ten years.  Fortunately for them, most Americans aren't
very bright and our concept of history involves what we had for
breakfast. 

The dollar-per-mile cost of personal transportation is nothing
more than a monstrous scam.  Car manufacturers, banks, insurance
companies and the legions of politicians they have bribed are all
parties to this scam.  And you are the scam-ee.  (Okay, it wasn't
a bribe it was a 'political contribution.'   If you're addicted
to a diet of bullshit perhaps calling it chocolate pudding will
make it taste better.)

Want to guess what happens if you drop out of the dollar-per-mile
cycle?  What happens if you keep your vehicle longer than three
or four years?  Economic disaster, at least for the current crop
of bean-counters.  According to Consumer's Union, people who
drove the same car for ten years or more realized a 'hidden'
income large enough to buy a new home.  In the 'worst' case their
hidden income was large enough to buy a new home and put two kids
through college.  This news did not play well in Detroit.  Or
Washington.

John Muir of "...Compleate Idiot" fame awakened me to the Forever
Car theme more than twenty-five years ago.  The intervening
quarter-century has seen no change in the personal transportation
scam or the fundamental ignorance of our society.  Nor in the
arguments such things engender.  Most discussions about the
benefits of keeping a car forever are quickly side-tracked by
bean-counters who attack the figures, show them to be fallacious
in a particular case and plaster that conclusion across the
entire argument.  The deeper implications are never discussed and
the typical car owner, bombarded with a constant barrage of slick
propaganda, chooses the easy way out:  they buy a new car every
few years and dive back into the tube.

Want cleaner air?  Get rid of the cars.  Emission standards are
akin to trying to cure cancer with aspirin.  Want to drive for a
penny a mile, own a nice home and put your kids through college? 
Keep your car forever.

Now, did someone mention morality?
  
-Bob