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July 15, 2008

Washington Elite: Still Exhibit 1 for Political Autism

 

 

President Bush in his speech today is calling on Americans to simply drive less.

 

While offering no magic wand of his own, the president suggested Americans find one and wave it in their own lives: make all that driving go away. Stop going to work, to school, to the doctor’s, to the grocery store (which is where the vast majority of gasoline is used up doing in this country). That’s the thing Bush and others refuse to get: most Americans use their vehicles simply to get from point A to point B and avoid driving anywhere they don’t have to. This is because the cost of wear and tear on cars was already enough to lead to some conservation, but even more so, the specter of fighting traffic, risk of wrecks, the tasks of parking, and so forth were natural deterrents to folks from hopping in their cars and cruising all day through their neighborhoods. Further, for poorer families, a car was already a major expense that forced them to do a difficult balancing act with food and gasoline, often at the expense of other essential things; yet, that car was their only lifeline to keep the rickety raft afloat. Now, for many Americans, it is beginning to sink, and President Bush and others simply say, “stop driving so much”. This is an insult to the intelligence and very lives of Americans simply trying to grab a few breaths of air above the water.

 

Bush champions himself as somehow more humanitarian because he is not demanding Americans conserve with rations and such as we saw in the 1970s. But simply telling Americans they should drive less and offering that as the singular, rather dauntingly unintelligent solution, is almost as bad. This, again, is more of the same liberal disconnect from Washington; they seem to genuinely believe that Americans simply hop in their cars just to drive around all day (perhaps in lieu of watching television or tossing the football around). This level of ignorance (for which President Bush is admittedly less deeply mired than most Democrats in Congress) is of course nearly as offensive as Marie Antoinette's famous “let them eat cake” proclamation. For most Americans to drive less, most Americans will have to cut out commutes to nearby colleges where they could have bettered their lives, skip necessary trips to the doctor or be unable to pay for the doctor because they are paying so much just to drive to work. For those barely getting by such as the sick and elderly, it can mean being unable to pay for food or choosing between a roof or a meal. Where are all the liberals who told us Republicans wanted to make the elderly choose between medication and food? All of a sudden when such a situation has become painfully real – and for so many – there is utter silence in the so-called center and on the left. Bush and the liberals are asking us to drive smaller less-safe cars, which inevitably will exact a heavy toll in human lives in the coming years, too. Sure, president Bush has decided to open up offshore drilling, but even he had to admit it should have been done seven years ago, if not 15. Though it is not lost how out of touch Congress is for presently refusing to remove its ban on such drilling (and what a political liability that is), Bush cannot honestly claim to be much better, since he was part of the problem; as he himself pointed out, it took awhile to get here.

 

Of course, just as the same folks have been fighting against a wall to block dangerous illegal aliens from entering the country bringing drugs and the most ghastly violence to almost every American, while this same effete making such decrees have deemed it "humanitarian" even as they live in safety behind the high walls and security perimeters of their mansions and state buildings, so too these same elite who are afforded unlimited transportation resources, food, medical care, and shelter, ask that we bear the risk and losses, doing without so they can experiment with policy choices only an idiot savant could love.

 

 

Posted by Martin at July 15, 2008 10:57 AM

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