Maybe there's a market for magnetic ribbons that say "Support our decadent lifestyle"

I guess I'm dumb too, because I don't see anything stupid about this.

This article via Kaus breaks it all down. The most surprising part was how much Democrats enjoy Ferraris.

Well, I'm a libertarian, and fiscally conservative, unlike the twit currently in the White House, and I drive a Honda Insight hybrid. Lots of Democrats are assholes. Lots of Republicans are assholes, too. I have no idea of the politics of that woman, nor do I care. I care that many, many children will be in danger of being afflicted with asthma and bronchitis, among other ills, because of people who unnecessarily pollute the environment.

Todd -- do you not make the connection between what goes in that woman's tank and the reason we're fighting a "humanitarian" effort in the Middle East, and not in the Sudan?

Amy, why not post a picture of the huge polluting semi that delivers the makeup and clothes you wear?

If all we wanted was for oil to flow from Iraq, we wouldn't have opposed lifting the sanctions in the 90s when everyone else in the world wanted to (and when Clinton was in office). Oil makes Iraq more strategically important than it would be otherwise, but it's facile to try to reduce the rational for the war to taht alone.

Todd, I can't change how products arrive in America singlehandedly. What I can do -- think about living a life that pollutes as little as possible, by buying a hybrid car and reusable grocery bags so I won't have to waste paper and plastic every time I go to the store, I do. Moreover, I have made a big effort to reduce my consumption. I don't buy lots of clothes, and I tend to buy my clothes at used clothing stores or resale stores. The jacket I'm wearing today cost $20 -- it's an Adrienne Vitadini jacket from the 80s. The shoes I'm wearing, I got at the same resale store. I have learned from the French to buy one special piece of clothing every now and then, not lots of pieces of crap.

What do you drive, Todd? What do you do to make less of a "footprint" from the planet by being here? Or do you even consider that?

"If all we wanted was for oil to flow from Iraq"

It's not ALL we wanted. Just a very significant part of it.

LYT! I can't believe my eyes! You've felt the power of the Dark Side of the Force and joined us at last!

Yes Amy, I do consider that. Perhaps I can even pass your purity test (not that I'm worthy): I drive a 1996 Toyota Corolla, but I bicycle to work, I haven't bought any brand-new clothes in years, the shirt I'm wearing cost $2, not $20, I usually refuse a bag at the store, etc. I would drive a Prius, if I could afford it.

When you rant about the white trash driving a smoke spewing 1975 Pinto that pollutes 10 times more than a new SUV you'll pass mine.

Crid, before you get too excited, I think LYT might be referring to the "reconstruction racket" overall (a la Halliburton, Bechtel, Kellogg Brown & Root, SSA Marine, Rubicon International, Dyncorp, Erinys, Vinnell Corporation, Blackwater, et al)** -- all of whom make buttloads of cash for mostly non-Iraqi fatcats, through businesses that are not always directly related to oil.

** Chatterjee, P. Iraq, Inc: A Profitable Occupation. 2004. NY: Seven Stories Press.

Business! We went to war for the business of it!

If somebody can't afford a new car, that's one thing. Somebody who buys a Hummer isn't in the "can't afford it" category. By the way, I find the term "white trash" offensive. Don't you?

PS My friend Emmanuelle Richard looks chic in outfits that cost about $3, total, not including the shoes.

Damn, you got me there!

I'll send you a pic of me in my $2 shirt and you can tell me how chic I am.

Look, I'd rather live in a free society where people can do all kinds of things that I think are stupid and detrimental to society, than one that institutes some minorty's idea of what's correct (and, to be clear, I don't mean to suggest you would like that either).

I think big SUVs are ridiculous, but casting moral aspersions against people who choose to drive big dumb cars, for whatever reasons of their own, seems to me to be taking things a bit far. Celebrate diversity!

P.S. re: white trash. If you think that's offensive you should see what I originally wrote.

No, Todd...with a democratic society and the right to free speech comes the responsibility to exercise it to communicate what should be changed. It's people who speak out who make positive change in society. You have a lot of opinions, but many of them seem to be...well...underexamined.

I never suggested you shouldn't speak your mind - why would I visit your blog if I thought that? But you're taking a person - the SUV driver - who's actual contribution to the smog in LA is miniscule, tiny, and placing this moral guilt on them, and frankly portraying them as assholes who wreck the health of poor little kids. It's extreme and rather more underexamined than anything I've said here.

Ronald Bailey on SUVs:

http://reason.com/links/links011403.shtml

On the contrary, climatologists say that the air in Los Angeles has gone back to smog years thanks to SUVs. A Hummer driver, furthermore, endangers everyone else on the road by driving what they do. Furthermore, they're eating up more than their share of the pavement by being overweight.

You can't assume a Hummer driver is unsafe, simply because they drive a Hummer. That would depend on the individual driver's habits, and would be true regardless.

As for going back to the smog years, really?

http://www.arb.ca.gov/adam/php_files/aqdphp/graphtrendo3bb.php

(I love this shit)

I like Hummers. Every time I see someone in one, I don't have to question, "I wonder if that guy's an asshole?" It helps takes some of the guesswork out of deciding who to dislike.

Frank said:
I like Hummers. Every time I see someone in one, I don't have to question, "I wonder if that guy's an asshole?" It helps takes some of the guesswork out of deciding who to dislike.

Nothing like pre-judging someone based on their appearance. I think that's called 'discrimination' or something. And, since it's obviously a 'guy' who may or may not be an asshole, it smells of sexism too! Frank must be a neo-con.

Hold the phone!

Amy used to drive a, wait... wait for it... a Pink Rambler! That beast used to average 22-25 miles per poisonous, noxious, LEADED gasoline gallon. Thank Zeus she gave up that pig-polluter for her hybrid. I just wonder if her repentance can undo the damage her Ramblin' has already done.

Hi –



>>P.S. re: white trash. If you think that's offensive

>>you should see what I originally wrote.



The flamboyant British MP Boris Johnson is also the editor of The Spectator. When the Lynndie England (sp ?) pictures surfaced, he weighed in with a memorable turn of phrase: in his view all Americans were being shamed by "smirking jezebels from the Appalachians." The Sun tabloid simply called her the "trailer trash torturer".




L'Amerloque

FYI - I filled it with unleaded. And it often got zero miles per gallon, because it was constantly in a state of disrepair. See above about doing what you can afford.

PS The Rambler was the first car I ever owned.

http://dailykos.com/story/2005/3/12/9139/55927

According to the source of this poster's article, we are running out of oil. Ready for rationing yet?

moe

Thanks, Moe...I love these dimwits who think the supply is endless, and that it means nothing to pollute the air. I don't have a problem with some construction worker driving a big vehicle if he needs one to cart stuff around. But it's wrong for people who can afford a new vehcile to drive a huge, endangering, polluting one for no reason.

Hi Amy -



Grist to your mill this weekend on Yahoo (smile):



http://biz.yahoo.com/weekend/pumpbuster_1.html

L'Amerloque

Of course, my little Honda Insight comes in first!

Markets working their magic:

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=580&e=1&u=/nm/20050312/bs_nm/autos_suvs_dc

And then there's life working its magic. Yesterday, on a narrow part of my street, a tow truck driver had diagonaled into a too-small parking space in front of a car it was about to tow. The driver was still doing all the hooking up -- looked like it would be a while. In my little hybrid, I slipped through the space and zipped off to the bank to make the mail with my assistant's check. When I came back, there was a long line of SUVs and a couple of those HIDEOUS Cadillac "I'm Not Sure If I'm An SUV Or A Pickup, But I Shore Was Expensive"-mobiles backed up behind the tow truck. Hee hee!

Wow, there's almost too much to respond to.

1. "I care that many, many children will be in danger of being afflicted with asthma and bronchitis, among other ills, because of people who unnecessarily pollute the environment."

The reason asthma and allergies are so rampant is because our world is *too clean*.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/library/10/4/l_104_07.html

Our immune systems evolved to live in the presence of certain microorganisms. As we have gotten cleaner and cleaner (had anyone ever even heard of germophobia 10 years ago?), our bodies have come to mount unnecessary histamine responses, which lead to asthma.

And - if you *really* care about the children, you should be shouting about childhood obesity, which beats the crap out of asthma and bronchitis in terms of quality and duration of life problems *in every city in this country*. Parents who stuff ther kids with junkfood and don't encourage/force them to exercise are doing orders of magnitude more damage to our world than freaking SUV drivers.

2. "On the contrary, climatologists say that the air in Los Angeles has gone back to smog years thanks to SUVs."

Though, as Todd pointed out, this statement is specious, even if it's true, it has less to do with SUVs and more to do with the population explosion in SoCal.

http://www.limitstogrowth.org/WEB-text/unliveable-california.html

3. "Thanks, Moe...I love these dimwits who think the supply is endless, and that it means nothing to pollute the air."

Actually, ahem, the supply IS pretty much endless. The *cost*, however, of recovering the oil varies greatly depending upon where you drill. If the current supplies dry up, there will always be options. And when gas costs here what it costs in Europe, you'll see a dramatic reduction in traffic and SUVs. In a free market, these things work themselves out long before the Hybrid drivers make even the slightest dent.

The bottom line is that the single biggest solution to pollution is *telecommuting*. I drive an SUV, but I work from home, so my total miles per year are a fraction of most people I know. Therefore - my contribution to the pollution problem is far less than the ordinary person's.

I love this big blue marble, damnit.

Hi -



Apparently we'll have to think globally on all this. Kyoto ?



" ... He cites Los Angles as an example of a potential problem spot. The city has some of the worst ozone in the nation, and it's not clear how to make the air healthy. Los Angeles may get as much as 50 parts per billion of its ozone from overseas, on top of the ozone created by local vehicles. "



in

Air pollution from other countries drifts into USA

at



http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2005-03-13-pollution-_x.htm




L'Amerloque

I'm not sure why people hate Hummers; the folly is largest on the part of the buyer of the H2, who pays a premium for what is essentially a Yukon with less visibility.

Amy - and others - you are probably sensitized to the SUV issue because of their glitz, not their under-utilization. The Ford F150 is still a huge seller, and it's not like the bulk of those get their load beds dirty.

But some part of the protest is actually a manifestation of something Jeff Cooper calls, "polypragmatism": the rule of the busybody. Someone might be doing what they want instead of what others, who consider themselves to have moral high ground, want done. That's why there are so many laws in California, a supposedly "liberal" state, restricting or eliminating personal liberties.

Over here in the SouthEast, the "good ol' boys" are having trouble affording gas for their pickup trucks. This should be mirrored nationwide as people discover that no, it wasn't a good idea to buy a house 50 miles from work. This is already downsizing auto buying habits. Some of these people will find out that small cars are actually fun - I hope.

But why should anybody have the right to pollute everyone else's lungs? That's antilibertarian to the nth degree. Once you start endangering my health and welfare, you're in the wrong. Moreover, a responsible member of a democracy is an active participant. The people who started this country were major busybodies, as am I.

Clearly active participation is key - but where does it stop?

You can postulate that every activity your neighbors enjoy diminishes your opportunities, consumes resources you want or need, etc.

The pure and original concept of liberty is that you should be allowed to do anything - anything whatsoever - so long as it does not deprive or injure another person.

This is practically impossible - even setting aside for the moment the "victim mentality", where people are urged to seek the intervention of a third party to settle a real or imaginary slight.

Amy, you make the point that other people are a pain in personal relationships; clearly, they are also a burden everywhere they go, no matter how small the car.

For evidence, check the condition of the nearest public toilet.

Please note also that I am not of the opinion that people who pick behemoths to drive are in the slightest way intelligent in that choice. The issue is simply far larger than the next bright, shiny 4WD Denali you see tiptoeing into a gravel parking lot.

"The pure and original concept of liberty is that you should be allowed to do anything - anything whatsoever - so long as it does not deprive or injure another person."

But unnecessariliy driving a huge, polluting vehicle does both. When I run, I feel their vehicle choice in my lungs. I might not like if people around these parts (as opposed to where L'Amerloque resides) always look like they just rolled out of a dumpster, but that's an entirely different matter.

It's amazing that people are criticizing me for protesting something I find objectionable. Again, helloooo? D-E-M-O-C-R-A-C-Y: use it or lose it. And we are coming very close to becoming a THEOCRACY at this point.

Please note well that what criticism I offer is that your approach isn't comprehensive; that is entirely OK by me, BTW, not that you need affirmation from me!

My point - of course - is that the SUV is only part of the story. We hurry in our Escalade or 3/4-ton F250 (it's a Diesel, gee aren't we "green"!) to Wal-Mart to buy trivial crap made in China, and we like that low price even as the Chinese factories pollute -- because *they* don't pollute where we can feel it. Yet.

I certainly hope that market forces push fuel consumption down before the power plants go down for lack of fuel.

Do you think this would help your cause in California?
A bumper sticker: "Support Nuclear Power. Drive a SUV!"

----

About becoming a theocracy... I notice large, steel buildings going up all over my county, here in South Carolina. I mean LARGE - 200' x 400', four-story monstrosities with a cross on the top.

You might be pleased to know I ask members of such organizations a simple and innocent question: "How big was Jesus's church?"

I get the impression that those buildings are huge so all the Baptists can sit in the back.