Americans Are Busy Buying Lots of Cars and Guns

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MiddlePerson on December 4, 2015 at 1:27 PM

Charles, do you own a car?

raindrop on December 4, 2015 at 1:34 PM

the problem is that cars, like guns, are super useful and lots of fun. hard to give that up unless you're forced to. eventually we will, but the frog will be boiled by that time.

or more precisely, there won't be oxygen left to breathe.

@2: I presume his wife does to ferry their kid about, but every time I see him anywhere, he's shown up on foot. are you going for a "let he who is without sin cast the 1st stone" zinger?

Max Solomon on December 4, 2015 at 1:45 PM

Today's reactionaries seem to have convinced themselves that they have the perfect zinger to shut down any discussion for the need to ever change anything: have you ever done it? Cars, paying a higher minimum wage, owning anything made from petroleum, giving any shelter to the homeless -- they seem to think that nobody is allowed to point out that shit's not working unless they're a hairshirt ascetic who lives a saintly life modeled on an idealized future.

They think they can scare ordinary people away from supporting any kind of change to the status quo by telling them they're required to essentially unplug themselves from our present social and economic system before they are allowed to have an opinion or make a factual observation.

The reason you become a smartass South Park brand of conservative is that you simply refuse to be asked to change. You refuse to ever get off your ass and do anything. Their mistake is thinking the rest of the world is made up of people just as inert, who will turn their backs on anything that ever asks them to do one fucking thing.

Hardly anybody actually listens to these guys but that doesn't stop them. They just react to everything the same way and never pay attention to the results. In other words, Raindrop's account could be replaced with a very short shell script.

Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn on December 4, 2015 at 2:05 PM

@2, i do not know how to drive.

Charles Mudede on December 4, 2015 at 2:40 PM Stranger Staff

@1 Very few people will bike every day, no matter what. Not in the rain and on the hills of Seattle. And taking away traffic lanes to create the illusion of bike safety will only make congestion (and pollution) worse. I would guess you'd save many more lives by enforcing drunk driving laws than by building protected bike lanes. And you'd get far more people out of their cars with a big investment in transit.

For the record, I bike, ride the bus and drive. My kid walks to school whenever possible. We carpool with other families to sports practices and games. I'm for bike infrastructure that doesn't make the other options worse, We need all of them.

AceRedgate on December 4, 2015 at 2:55 PM

@7 I didn't say anything about bike lanes, it's telling (that you are biased) that you brought them up.

You are also just wrong.

"Taking away traffic lanes to create to create the illusion..."

First, you are using a weak argument that assumes your position is correct "the illusion."
Second, road diets have been PROVEN effective right here in Seattle at reducing speeds, increasing safety, with no negative impact to capacity or travel times.

"Designed and implemented in six months, this project has successfully improved safety along the NE 75th Street corridor. Highlights from our before and after study include:

Collisions reduced by 45 percent
Speeds reduced 9 percent eastbound and 11 percent westbound
Top end speeders (10+ mph over the posted speed limit) reduced 75 percent eastbound and 79 percent westbound
Traffic volumes increased 3 percent
Travel times unchanged"
http://www.seattle.gov/transportation/ne…

"I would guess you'd save many more lives by enforcing drunk driving laws than by building protected bike lanes."

This is a non sequitur and a false choice. You could save more lives by aggressively fighting malaria in third world countries than enforcing drunk driving laws but that is a dumb thing to say because one does not preclude the other. Same with your "big investment in transit." You won't find any arguments from me against increased transit investment.

For the record I also bike, ride the (light rail), and drive.

MiddlePerson on December 4, 2015 at 4:05 PM

Great post. Throw in the word "terror" and you capture the state of America in the year 2015. Or just about any post-WWII year.

There's another equally pressing reason, besides climate change, that humanity needs to wean itself off fossil fuels. Because we're running out of the stuff. The fact that the hard-to-reach fuels like the tar sands are entering the equation is because the easy-to-reach fuels are dwindling. Now, dwindling how fast? Fast enough for us to worry about it for the next quarter? Maybe more like the next quarter-century. I've lost track of whether we've reached global peak oil.

To state the obvious, in the long course of the existence of homo sapiens, the period when we could casually make trips across the planet in a matter of hours will prove to be but a blip. My fear is that the period when this planet could sustain billions of us will also prove to be but a blip.

I share Mr. Mudede's pessimism on the "think globally" front. By the same token, on the "act locally" side, I'm an optimist. Our region has some momentum going in shifting towards a lower-carbon way of life, and (much to the chagrin of the status quo crowd) doing so is entirely in our self-interest.

cressona on December 4, 2015 at 4:11 PM

Or maybe car sales are "booming" because the last time there was a car sales boom was before President Obama took office -- before Bush's Great Recession. Cars have a limited life span and the US fleet is aging. At least new cars will be more fuel efficient, or maybe even electric.

Cars, sadly, are still a necessity for many families -- especially lower income families -- to get to work. Those are the families who probably can't afford to live in the city centers where they work. Not everyone lives in a city or near public transit. Our own public transit system is miserable and hardly one you could depend on for everything -- especially commuting long distances.

Guns, though, are not a necessity. Gun sales are fueled by fear-mongering from the gun manufacturing political arm, the NRA. Those are selling because every time we have a massacre, they tell people Obama is going to take away their guns, so stock up!

Combining the two industries is provocative, but intellectually dishonest.

Simply Me on December 4, 2015 at 5:09 PM

@8 Wow. Full steam ahead with the ad hominems. The lack of civility from bike extremists is a big part of why people don't trust you. To clarify my point on drunk driving, the bike lanes on 75th were prompted by a horrendous drunk driving accident. Sadly, they will not prevent a similar tragedy. Another awful accident happened on 65th and Roosevelt and bike extremists want to use that as an excuse to clog traffic there with a protected bike lane. Getting drunks off the road is a far better solution.

You know what else would stop speeding? Traffic cops handing out tickets. Eliminating vehicle lanes absolutely increases congestion, travel times and pollution. There are smarter choices we could make.

AceRedgate on December 4, 2015 at 5:21 PM

@7 No wonder you always have a stick in your ass about cars.

Listen, the world is an economy, where costs and value live in equilibrium. Until the costs of global warming exceed the value of the lifestyle that consumerism creates, there is no impetus to change. The only (only) way to get your way is convince the developing world to cease the pursuit of fun, freedom and comfort we have – and they desire - so that some fish species doesn't mutate 100 years from now. Is that fatalistic, or just plain common sensical.

Hate to tell you Mudede: But living in America, and having all the comforts of a developed economy served up to you, and then complaining about climate change -- is nothing but "privilege" You're GUILTY – you classist!

Zoner on December 4, 2015 at 5:27 PM

Sigh, the guns news is really depressing.

Does anyone know why Seattle can't build a subway system? Is it cost? Many people drive because waiting for a bus in the rain in the winter can be miserable, especially when it's late. A subway like the Paris Metro would be warm, dry, always on time, and relieve most of our traffic problems - this last summer it was taking 95 minutes to get from SeaTac to downtown! . Why do we never consider a subway? Is the cost really prohibitive?

iseult on December 5, 2015 at 1:55 AM

i'll be in the market for a new car soon, and i'm actually happy about that. i can get rid of the old SUV that gets 20mpg and get something much more efficient. isn't that a step forward?

tainte on December 5, 2015 at 8:54 AM

@14: It is, I suggest a hybrid Land Rover.

raindrop on December 5, 2015 at 10:21 AM

Americans Are Busy Buying Lots of Cars and Guns

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