“It’s for the Children” And “It’s for the Environment”… Equals in Untruth

About everybody on the planet, seemingly, has picked up on this story within the last few days of the kid who went ahead and put together a dream truck, only to see the environmentalist fascist crowd in his neighborhood decide that he wasn’t being environmentally friendly.  I’ll link Joyner, here, because it’s handy… and he in turn quotes the WaPo:

On a narrow, leafy street in Northwest Washington, where Prius hybrid cars and Volvos are the norm, one man bought a flashy gray Hummer that was too massive to fit in his garage. So he parked the seven-foot-tall behemoth on the street in front of his house and smiled politely when his eco-friendly neighbors looked on in disapproval at his “dream car.” It lasted five days on the street before two masked men took a bat to every window, a knife to each 38-inch tire and scratched into the body: “FOR THE ENVIRON.”

[…]

He bought the used 2005 vehicle a month ago from a dentist in Fairfax County and left it in a shop for several weeks so it could be outfitted to his specifications — new, bigger tires and a “lift kit,” meaning it would be higher off the ground. Groves, who grew up in the District and works in marketing for a local radio station, said he wanted the car in part because he is starting a company, Washington Sports Marketing, that is “image-based.”

He said he wants to get it towed and repaired but fears extremists might not be done making an example of him. “I’m worried about what I do now,” he said. “If I get it fixed, do I put it back in the same spot three weeks from now?”

Suber suggests:

These cretins are dangerous persons who are using environmentalism as an excuse to terrorize a man.

Put them in Palestine and they throw concrete blocks (“rocks” as the media call them) at Israeli soldiers. Put them in Germany in the 1930s and they lead the charge for on Krystallnacht. They were the Midnight Riders in she[e]ts burning crosses in the South during Reconstruction.

James himself points out that:

Unfortunately, while the vast majority of people would eschew violence, far too many are willing to smirk at it if it’s directed against those they dislike.

Yeah, well, brown shirts are like that.  And in reality, that’s what we’re dealing with here. Class envy tied to a brownshirt mentality. If you think I’m kidding, take a look at some of the other comments that James quotes.
I drive the Buick version of the Trailblazer, these days… a Rainier. Here’s a few more pics, if you like. I get around 16mp around town, 21-22 on the highway. Not too shabby, for a 300hp rig, actually. In the seventies, this would have been considered a small vehicle.
And guess what? The H3 uses the same Atlas engine, and gets about the same MPG…. within a few tenths of an MPG.

Am I now to fear that some bozo’s going to wreck my vehicle because he thinks I should be driving a Yugo? It’s probably not likely, because it’s not as visible a vehicle.  Not as “in your face”.  But if this was for the environment, if all this destruction, all this anger was because of the environment, wouldn’t my truck be a target as well?  That it is not, suggests that the environment is not the issue for these morons.

Perhaps if we look closely, we’ll find some similar holes in the remaining arguemnts by these supposed ‘eco-warriors’… Let’s examine some of the standard anti-SUV arguments:

SUV’s support terrorists

While this would be true if we were actually getting a significant portion of our oil from the Middle East, we’re not. Iraq, for example, only accounts for around 9% of our consumption, under the normal conditions we’ve not had for some 10 years now.
Let’s also consider the idea that all automobiles burn fuel, and often at as high a rate as SUV’s, the whining not withstanding. Looking even closer, let’s say that the SUV uses 20 gal per week, on average. Meanwhile the driver of the average car gets a little better, burning perhaps 8 gallons per week less. Are the folks at the Detroit project telling us that it’s just the money for that eight gallons that funds terrorism, and the rest are OK?

So, by those lights, shouldn’t that be ANYTHING that burns gas or uses oil contributes? Why just SUV’s? Should we be shutting down NASCAR and NHRA competitions because they’re anti-American? Do we all become Amish to satisfy these people? The question becomes, of course, at what point does this Liber-Lieâ„¢ get to absurd levels?

And I’m not even going to get into Al Gore and his jet collection.  His SUV’s. And so on.

SUV’s Pollute

Again, comes the question about ALL autos. The fact is, the pollution from such vehicles are no worse than the vast majority on the road today, Including the mini-coffins the left would have us driving.

There’s no real need for the SUV

I’m forced to agree with Charles Galbach, who speaks to these points better than I:

“In the first place, the purchase of SUV’s by businesses was the result of your close buddies, the tax lawyers and their cohorts in the not that long ago Democratically controlled congress which permitted or encouraged a windfall tax deduction for SUV’s, posing as “trucks”. Since the Republicans have a history of trying to bottle up lawyers, including tax lawyers, where they belong and also have a history of opposing business taxes rather than the Democrat method of manufacturing loopholes, it had to be the Democrats who conjured up this ruse. It obviously backfired with unintended consequences.

Secondly, it was the Democrats who forced the auto industry into creating vehicles that couldn’t hold even 2 adults and 2 children without them being squashed inside a thimble sized vehicle. These same vehicles are underpowered and therefore unsafe on any highway at any speed. They qualify for no more than zipping around an area no bigger than your typical gated community – a role better served by the usual golf cart.

Everyone, except the rabid few enviro-whackos can see this. As a result, we see mom driving around in an oversized vehicle which is the only one that can hold her kids and a couple friends on a trip to soccer practice – or grandma driving around in an oversized vehicle which is about the only thing safe enough for her to drive on her daily errands.”

To this excellent commentary, I would add one more point: Like millions of Americans, I tow frequently enough to make a truck an economical choice.

Cars have been so downsized that towing with anything less is simply unsafe if not impossible. As an example, I will never forget the sight a few years ago while in Bay of Fundy, New Brunswick, the sight of an obviously honeymooning couple using a Dodge Neon to tow a fairly small sized popup camper. We were at a parking spot along the ocean, near a popular eating spot. There’s a sizeable hill out front. When he pulled in, I could smell his brakes burning, from trying to get down the hill without smacking something or someone. They ate, and left. Well, they tried to…. They got stuck going back up that same hill… the car had all it could do to hold the trailer against the hill… and the trailer only weighed a couple thousand lbs.!

You do NOT want people and equipment like this next to you on the highway. But just think of all the gas he’s saving, right up to the part where they both die horribly because he can’t control the thing.

If higher MPG’s is the desired goal, fine, go after it. Meantime, leave me something that actually works. Create something that can tow 6000lbs, without getting into trouble, is safe in an accident situation, and yet gets 45mpg, and is at a reasonable initial cost, and is as dependable as our current modes of transport, and I’ll buy it.

Meantime, leave me the beep alone.

Which leads me, finally, to a personal comment, to those of you who think small cars are “safe”.

I hesitate to say this.
Twice now, I’ve been at the scene of an accident… once where I knew the victims personally, and once where I happened upon an accident before the police arrived. Both fatal accidents, both one car accidents, and both situations where the person would have lived had they had something better than a Ford Fiesta in one case, or a Prius, in the other. In both cases, they valued a gallon of gas over their own lives, and paid the price…. And I’m left with the horrible memory of those two incidents.

I will never drive such a vehicle, and I don’t give a hot crap WHAT kind of gas numbers it turns in.

SUV’s Aren’t safe in accdients, having higher accident death rates.

NHTSA figures report that 64% of SUV deaths are blamed on lack of seatbelts, not of vehicle design. And of those, a sizable number are related to tire failures, which in turn are caused by lack of tire maintenance… simply keeping the tires up to pressure, and THAT in fairly isolated cases. When those incidents are factored out, the death rates in SUV’s are actually LOWER than for the kind of tincans the left would have us in. Much lower.

Sorry, but from any angle… ANY angle…this anti-SUV argument doesn’t hold up. Since all these arguments are so easily defeated, it strikes me that what we’re seeing is more a political ploy, than anything else. An excuse for a bigger attack. An infamous socialist (is there any other kind) Adolf Hitler, had the Jews as an excuse for his attacks. The socialists of today have the SUV as their excuse. I refuse to be a victim as they were, for the purpose of someone’s political ploy for power.

Billy points up (Very well) that the objections to such vehicles are superficial and come from dubious sources. That’s pretty much the same point I brought up back in 2002, while camping:

Liberal idiocy, which as usual, is disguised as ‘caring and sharing’, and anyone opposing them of course, is ‘greed’. There is perhaps no place where the standard liberal arguments take on more of a quality of utter stupidity, than with regards to the subject of transportation in America. I ran into this in all it’s glory, at a gas station on the way up here to my little vacation spot.

To put this story into perspective allow me to show you my rig: I drive a 1995 Chevy Astro conversion, with a 4.3L V6, which usually gets around 23-24 mpg on the highway, after I did some minor mods to it. (even stock, Chevy reports the unit gets around 21 mpg on the highway.)

It’s rather comfortable, having powered velour seats, wood paneling, a TV/VCR combo, which feeds up to four sets of headphones for the kids, two AM/FM/ Cassette Stereo units, one which feeds the afore- mentioned kid headphones. Makes longer hauls much easier on the driver, I can tell you. It’ll seat 7, for short trips, four for longer runs. It has a seat in the back that with the touch of a power button, folds into a bed. Curtains in the windows. Twin A/C units, twin heaters. Direct and indirect lighting, as well as reading lights at every passenger position. For those of you who know about such things, this van is set on an S-10 frame. It’s a really great over-the-road road rig, and already has well over 100,000 miles on it, 30k of it this year so far, with two additional long-haul trips planned before camping season ends in October. OK, that’s the truck.

Trailing along behind is one of the smallest pop-up trailers on the road… around an 8 foot box, weighing, when fully loaded, around 1500lbs. Sleeps five people, if they’re really friendly. This is not a 10,000lb 5th wheel…

So, keep these specs in mind as we proceed here. The importance of them will become apparent.

I left town with less than a full tank, so at around 150 miles out, upon finding some fuel priced $1.27/gal vs the $1.55 I usually pay, I decided it’d be worthwhile to fill the rest of the 27 gallon tank, which when topped usually takes around 32 gallons total. Must be a monster amount of a feed pipe on this thing. It’s one nice thing about having a good sized tank; when you find it cheap, you can load up, and roll past the $1.55/gal places.

Anyway, I pulled in, and proceeded to load up, when a rather nice looking blonde in a Camry Solaria came in for a little liquid motion. She squirted around 5 dollars worth into her car, and then looked at the amount the van had taken on. Her eyes bugged a little, as she motioned toward my pump, and her face got a little red.

“Don’t you know how much gas those SUV‘s waste?” Once I stopped laughing, I pointed out that strictly speaking mine was not an SUV. I further pointed out that the car she was driving had only a slighly smaller engine than the one in my van… her 3100cc vs my 4300cc, and that in fact her car according to the EPA, only gets around 25mpg on the road and averages around 19mpg.

(OK truth to tell, I was a little off, as it turns out, the site http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/findacar.htm lists it as 19 and 27.. Not bad, for off the top of my head, and still not as good as my much larger Astro.)

How, I asked her, can she drive such an inefficient mode of transportation? Of course, she went ballistic, and then lacking something better to say, apparently, she pulled out the same defense all liberals do when the tripe they’ve been force-fed is challenged by someone with actual facts: She call me a liar. I’ve come to understand you’re hitting a truth they can’t argue with when they do that. I suppose there are a few who will see themselves here.

She then flamed me about the amount of space being wasted, and did I really need to have all that space, did I have to drive something so large. I reminded her it was in fact a mini-van, and would she like to look inside and point out to me what space got wasted, between my wife, my two boys, the dog and our luggage. She declined, spouting some more crap which I didn’t even bother listening to. She then fumed off, ripping a little environmentally friendly rubber as she went out into the street in front of an oncoming tractor trailer, who had tolock up all 24 wheels to miss making environmentally friendly liberal/riceball pancakes out of it all.

I filled the remainder of the tank, got some coffee, and continued on my way, fully expecting to see her again along the road. I never did. As I drove up to the campsite, perhaps 300 miles distant, I began to wonder a bit at the encounter at the pump. It seems to me that many encounters in various political discussion venues are rather like this one. The liberal attacker being gleefully ignorant of the real world, and calling anyone who disagrees with them (all together now) a liar.

How does all of this tie in with the stated topic? Well, rather simply, really. I submit to you that the biggest enemy of America today is not Bin Laden or any of his bloodthirsty idiots. Our biggest enemy is the willful, nay, GLEEFUL idiocy of the left, of which I was treated to a glowing example that afternoon.

What amounts to is, they are trying to impose their values on the rest of us.  Just like the brown shirts.  Billy makes this point whether nicely, addressing Saint Andrew the incontinent:

“Enviro-activists go all terrorist on us. The Washington Post story is here. I have to say that while I completely abhor the violence, I don’t abhor the sentiment. Parking a 7-foot high Hummer in your neighborhood is about as irritating as watching one careen down the small streets of Provincetown. We have to create a social stigma toward people totally contemptuous of the environment.”

That’s pretty funny, faggot.

Get it, Andrew?  That’s about as deep as you creeps are going with all this.  If you get to go around tagging people with attributes that they haven’t earned, then watch out, kid.  You say it’s “totally contemptuous of the environment” but, then, a squeaky import petunia who doesn’t value an American-sized machine for personally transporting himself on the scale of this continent might be expected to start getting the sniffs about it every once in a while.

See how easy it is to sneer like that at other peoples’ values?

Why don’t you just shut up and stay out of it?

Because if he does, Billy, he and his ilk won’t get the power they’re after.

That’s what this is really about.  It’s not about the environment, it’s not about the politics of oil, its most certainly not about the practicality of the machines, since they have no logical means by which to judge, it’s about power. political power.  The ability to impose their own morality.

And isn’t that interesting, that this should come up with Sullivan?

I mean, first of all, I must admit to a certain level of amusement, when people like Sullivan start coughing up accusations about how the Hummer, and other such vehicles, are a manhood extension… sought out only by those whose manhood needs the help. The cognitive dissonance in that accusation coming from the likes of Sullivan alone, is worthy of a full length column, by someone with far better writing and analytical skills than has Saint Andrew. Sigmund Freud himself could spend a bloody lifetime writing research papers on that moron. here somebody whose politics is wrapped around the idea of what the rest of society thinks of his sexual habits.  The irony of him making such a comment getting right by him doesn’t surprise me in the least… he hasn’t a hope in hell of understanding it.
In any event consider this in the context of your comments about Sullivan, Billy:
Not so very long ago the left in this country was all fired worried about those on the right moralizing about their sexual behavior. And that worrying goes on today. Witness the situation with Larry Flynt, just now. And of course, everything that comes from Sullivan’s keyboard.
And yet, what do we see the left doing with regards to transportation hear the United States? Overt moralizing. What are they calling for? Laws to match with their version of morality.

I suppose they figure it’s only valid when they do it.

Oh… And speaking of the cognitive dissonance of the left, I am reminded of the old joke about buttered toast always falling butter side down, and cats always landing on their feet.  If you were to take a piece of buttered toast and secure it to the back of a cat, you could toss the cat and the cat and the toast would rotate wildly approximately 3in. off the floor, thereby giving you a new power source.  So I envision the environ-wacko crowd over this one… Imagine with me, if you will, what happens, when as of next year, the H3 is available in a Hybrid. I’m willing to bet that the environ what goes eight nor it entirely.  Just as they have ignored the H1 Hummers that are currently getting around 24 to the gallon.

Getting serious, now… I will leave you with this thought; Not so long ago we were treated to endless months of additional power grabbing by various factions of the democratic party, under the guise of “it’s for the children”.  We are now seeing more of the same, with “it’s for the environment”.  Each are equally untrue.  Each have the same goal in mind, that which I stated earlier : political power.  Each will have the same result…

Does anybody truly think that even assuming they manage to cram all Americans into vehicles of the size and structural strength of an Altoids box, that they’re going to STOP there? and how many people are going to end up having to die along the way because of this nonsense?

The comparison that I made to brown shirts earlier is not an idle one.  The parallels between what laughingly passes for the environmental movement of today, and the NAZI movement of the late thirties and early forties, the Soviet Union before that and Marx and Engels are all there to see.  As I told a commenter elsewhere, this afternoon, The parallels are already there. I’m merely pointing them out. Failing to recognize those parallels, and react to them correctly, invites a repetition of the same problem.

The fact is, it’s already started up again.  Just ask the young man in northwest Washington DC.