Tag: roads

Perfection is Not an Option

Kent McManigal

I don’t expect perfection.

Not from people, places, situations, or… whatever else there is.

You are going to have no real choice but to drive on some government roads. You are going to have no choice but to use some things government paid for with money it stole. You can barter and use silver for some trades, but fiat “money” is unavoidable. You may benefit in some roundabout way from government’s unethical (and evil) actions which you oppose. That’s reality.

You don’t have to like it. You aren’t condoning theft or government by using those things. Feel free to speak the truth about government roads even as you are driving on one. That’s not hypocritical, it’s just how things are. You make the best of what you’ve got.

I understand that some people view a government “job” the same way– even though I strongly disagree. Still, as long as someone isn’t actively promoting government supremacy or power, I will cut them some slack. A government-employed librarian is still better than a politician, a government-employed school “teacher”, a member of the military, or a cop. Or, at least preferable in my view, since they aren’t promoting government supremacy nor imposing government at the point of a gun.

But no one is perfect or pure.

To condemn yourself because you aren’t perfect isn’t healthy.

To condemn everyone else because of this reality isn’t helpful. You’re not helping those you condemn, nor are you helping yourself. You certainly aren’t helping society (the interactions between individuals) nor the “cause” of liberty. Demanding the impossible from others (and, yes, in the present reality, it is impossible) causes harm.

What I do expect is that people do the best they can with the cards they’ve been dealt. Recognize that you have no right to archate, and if you feel you “must” anyway, accept the consequences of doing what you don’t have a right to do.

This perfectionist viewpoint causes harm to those who hold and promote it.

This unpleasant reality is no justification for giving up and saying that because no one else lives up to your vision of perfection, you might as well embrace the state and use it against others. This is a destructive mindset. It gives off a foul odor. It looks and smells like hypocrisy to me.

Open This Content

The Government Should Start Planning to Spend Less, Not More, on “Infrastructure”

Thomas L. Knapp

At the end of April, President Trump met with Democratic congressional leaders at the White House. Instead of the backbiting that usually precedes and follows such meetings, what emerged was  tentative agreement on cooperation toward “a $2 trillion infrastructure plan to upgrade the nation’s highways, railroads, bridges and broadband.”

Responses on the Republican side range from tepid (acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney objects on both fiscal and political grounds, not seeing a “win” for Trump before the end of a second term) to enthusiastic (US Representative Chris Collins, R-NY, calls for doubling federal gas taxes and airline passenger fees to cover the cost).

But there’s a huge blind spot in this infrastructure vision that comes before, and heavily impacts, calculating the costs. The plan is a 20th century solution to problems that the 21st century market is already solving.

It’s true, as Collins points out, that the federal gas tax hasn’t been raised in more than 25 years — and that, contrary to popular perception, its revenues come nowhere close to covering highway construction and maintenance costs.

But it’s also true that gasoline is on its way out. Timeline estimates vary, but it’s reasonable to predict that by 2030 the vast majority of vehicles on American roads will be electric. Gasoline will become a minor player, then a novelty, then a rarity, all while politicians are counting on it to pay for their big plans.

The good news is that their plans don’t need to be nearly as big, because in the future we’re going to see a lot less traffic.

More people are working from home (the number more than doubled between 2005 and 2015; it’s going to keep growing).

More people are ordering more of what they buy online.  That’s fewer people on the road for shopping — one van delivering stuff to ten households instead of ten cars heading for the supermarket or mall. That trend isn’t going to suddenly reverse itself.

More people are  seeking entertainment at home instead of out. Movie ticket sales peaked in 2002; they’re now back to 1995 levels.

Ridesharing means fewer cars filling downtown garages. As it combines with self-driving cars,  many urban and suburban households will decide they don’t need car and insurance payments. They’ll summon rideshares or rent cars when really necessary.  They’ll walk, bike, or take mass transit when their destinations are conveniently nearby.

On the cargo side, major players are already working on self-driving, electric “18-wheelers.” Fewer will be needed since they can run 24/7 (human drivers work limited hours). Fewer trucks overall and more even time distribution means less congestion.

Aerial drones are taking their first steps into home delivery right now. Amazon may never achieve its dream of blimp warehouses with line of sight drone delivery to every home for 100 miles around, but we’ll certainly see SOME reductions in road traffic.

It’s time to start thinking about fewer roads and bridges, not more.  And about having government hand those roads and bridges over to the same market that’s making them less necessary.

Open This Content

Cops Are Always DWI

Kent McManigal

There is no such thing as a police officer driving without being impaired. Not ever.

They are always under the influence of their imagined “authority“. It’s a powerful drug and it causes them to drive erratically. Their permanent condition of intoxication kills innocent people– and some of the guilty cops, too.

It causes them to engage in high-speed chases. But when the cop kills innocent people he and his gang– The Blue Line Gang– will blame the person they were chasing. This is a filthy lie.

It causes them to make U-turns in unsafe conditions– one of the local cops wrecked the cop car he drives (pictured above before the wreck) and seriously injured a random motorist a year or so back by doing just this in order to catch someone “speeding” a little– something much less dangerous than what the cop did.

It causes them to believe they can text, make phone calls, and use their onboard computer terminals (to try to find reasons to stop and molest other motorists) more safely than lesser people like us. They can’t. Their “training” doesn’t make them superhuman.

Every cop is a junkie. No cop should be behind the wheel of a car under any circumstances. Never. But most certainly never under the excuse of “policing traffic”. They are worse than any problem they pretend to fight. They are dangerous hypocrites. Get them off the roads, and keep them off the roads.

Open This Content

When Will the Media Admit …

Kilgore Forelle

Nobody asked but …

Some wishful thinker the other day, on Facebook, wondered in a post “When will the media admit … [blah blah blah]?”  The answer is … NEVER.  “The media” is not a sentient being.  In fact, the media can be relied upon to go for the lowest common denominator.  It is the height of foolishness to expect any such formless blob to save us from another formless blob, politics.  In another column, I stated my belief that out of 45 instances of POTUS, we have had exactly 0 (zero) who could be counted a success.  As impossible as it would be to have an admirable POTUS, it is even more impossible that the ink-stained wretches would save us from a single bad president.

The current installment of POTUS is merely a continuation of a long line of jackasses.  This is a situation that is entirely consistent with the statist glories of every other civilization that has risen and fallen (taking their roads with them).  Checks and balances — Phooey!  Rather than checks and balances, the inevitable force is impermanence.  And the politicians and the pundits are the agents of social erosion.

— Kilgore Forelle

Open This Content

Which “Minarchy”?

Kent McManigal

I understand the appeal of minarchy. After all, it’s where I came from; what I used to advocate. Even though I knew I was an anarchist personally, I used to imagine minarchy as the most practical way to be as liberated as possible.

But minarchy– keeping a little bit of cancer around and under control to prevent a different cancer from getting a foothold– is an unsustainable Utopian fantasy. Much more so than anarchy could ever be.

And, it’s confused.

As a minarchist, which “minimal government” would you pick? Only things such as government fire protection, government policing, military, government-controlled roads, and government courts? Other minarchists might have other preferences. Some would include “securing the borders” or other Big Government welfare programs. Any version includes the “taxation” to pay for it all, along with the bureaucracy to collect and distribute the money and find and punish the opt-outs.

Does every minarchist get to impose the particular flavor of “minimal government” they want? If so, it is no longer “minimal”.

Do you use v*ting to decide which bits of government you get to impose on me? Then it’s mob rule– “might (through superior numbers) makes right”.

Through v*ting and “taxation” you’ve cut the brake line on anything holding back government growth.

As I say, I understand, but a “little bit of statism” is still evil.

Open This Content

Lies of Omission

Kent McManigal

There is a disturbing trend in government schools and other youth indoctrination institutions to teach kids how to survive an unwelcome encounter with a cop. (And notice that comments are disabled on the video example– truth offends these monsters. And the number of downvotes is also hidden from view.)

This “information” is, unfortunately, helpful. But it stops short.

You don’t teach kids how to survive encounters with fast food counterpersons. Or even with other government employees like theft-funded librarians. Only cops.

Teaching kids how to survive encounters with cops is incomplete without the information that the cops are bad guys committing acts of enforcement– krimes.

I know that since government indoctrination camps, kinderprisons, are on the same team as the badged vermin that’s not going to happen. But by excluding that bit of reality, kids are being lied to. They are being trained that if they don’t survive a roadside molestation it’s their own fault for making the bad guy feel unsafe. The problem is giving the power of life and death to unaccountable paid cowards, not how compliant and nonthreatening you make yourself appear to those parasites. Never a hint that the bad guy is a bad guy.

Lies of omission are still lies.

Open This Content