Sep28
A Bridge To The Future?
on September 28, 2012 at 2:08 pmPosted In: Business, Economics, History, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Technology and Society
No, a bridge back to 1933.
It’s a never ending source of hilarity and irony that these people fashion themselves to be “progressive.”
The “progressive” label wasn’t even new in 1912 — and progressivism hasn’t matured since then.
You know who else liked 1933? HITLER!
Why can’t we have both? Self driving cars and high speed rail? California is also one of the first states to enact legislation to allow self driving cars. Rails will always be more energetically efficient than road vehicles just like barges are more efficient than rail. In some places high speed rail makes sense. California would be one of them if it wasn’t for the BANANA people.
How much value does high speed rail add, given self-driving cars and airports? It takes a long time to build, it would require the destruction of millions of dollars of property if it is actually run into a city (and the devaluation of tens of millions more, since high speed rail lines aren’t particularly nice to live next to). The cities in the Bay Area wouldn’t be too happy at having to put up with a high speed rail line but not get the benefit of a high speed rail terminal, but putting a terminal in every politically connected city would slow the train down to CalTrain speeds.
If high speed rail made economic sense you could find private party investors interested in building and operating it.
Pretty hard for high speed rail to be constructed privately, just as it’s pretty hard for interstates and freeways to be constructed privately. You need to grab a lot of land in a straight line, some of it with buildings and houses already on it. This is hard enough in the country, but nearly impossible as you get close to a city. I’m not saying it can’t be done, but it’s expensive, long range, risky, and really easy for interested people to block.
“Rails will always be more energetically efficient than road vehicles just like barges are more efficient than rail.”
Last time I was in England, the cost of two rail tickets between the airport and my parents’ house was about the same as hiring a car and driving there and back. If there had been four of us there would have been no contest.
And that’s crappy old slow-speed rail vs gasoline taxed over $4 a gallon. I’d hate to think what a ticket on a real high-speed rail would cost.
The problem is that in some areas of life, a significant number of Republican politicians want to go back not to 1933 but to maybe 1885. And the American public knows that, which is why the Democrats get away with their economic fascism.
If the GOP wasn’t being held in a stranglehold by the Moral Minority, it would be doing a great deal better in the polls. (As an example, even if pr0n is legal you don’t have to watch it, so why shouldn’t those who want to be allowed to?)
Name names or prepare to be insulted to within an inch of your life.
1933? I think most progressives would like to go back to 1733. That awful Industrial Revolution hadn’t happened yet, people knew their place, and Mercantilism with vestiges of feudalism reigned supreme. That troublemakers Adam Smith and Thomas Paine hadn’t arrived on the scene to get people to start questioning their betters. 1133. To quote Nathaniel Branden (as I did on another thread yesterday): “Scratch a collectivist and you usually find a Mediaevalist.”
“‘ . . . a significant number of Republican politicians want to go back not to 1933 but to maybe 1885.’”
“Name names or prepare to be insulted to within an inch of your life.”
Indeed, McGeehee. Did he take a poll or something?
Fletch appears to think so-cons only care about putting clothes on the Venus de Milo.
It doesn’t seem to occur to anyone to notice that most of the people in this country who want smaller government care at least as much about the immorality of wealth redistribution as about the danger of eventually running out of other people’s money.
Barney Frank, Al Sharpton, and Nancy Pelosi might not be terribly fond of 1733, for various reasons.
1885 was a great year. Winchester introduced the falling block single-shot rifles that John Browning designed, and he was finishing up his lever action.
Good times.
One side thinks it’s immoral to lie, cheat, steal, rape, murder, riot, report dishonestly, or destroy property.
And yes, that group doesn’t seem to be plurality.
This may be the first election since 1928 that the Dems won’t be running against Herbert Hoover. Not just because Hoover was a better manager of the economy than the Campaigner-in-Chief has been, but because to the products of the NEA, the only Hoover they know about is the guy who sold vacuum cleaners dressed up as a woman.
If the GOP wasn’t being held in a stranglehold by the Moral Minority
This from the side which is more than happy to enforce blasphemy laws as long as the religion isn’t any kind of Christianity, and who want to micromanage our eating habits.
McGehee, the point is not about American conservatives only wanting to put clothes on the Venus de Milo – it’s that they want to do so at all.
I find it very odd that so many of those who want to keep government out of the boardroom think it’s perfectly OK for government to be firmly entrenched in the bedroom.
Three points that the Democrats like to use to vilify Republicans on are abortion, gay rights, and anti-science (particularly the teaching of evolution). So, let’s pretend that, for the duration of the fiscal emergency or ten years, whichever comes first, the So Cons agree to shut up about these and concentrate on a Fi Con agenda. Do you really think it would make any difference in how the Democrats demonize the Republicans? Do you think it would make much difference in how many people vote Republican (it would make a bit of difference, both positive and negative, but I’m not sure how many people who claim to be fiscally conservative and socially liberal would actually change their vote).