As documented in this latest on the topic from Issues & Insights, the Elite’s war on cars continues. Excerpts, with my comments, follow:
No human invention has expanded liberty like the automobile. That’s one of the reasons that the Western ruling class wants to end private ownership of cars. The other reason is just as insidious.
The main theater in the war on cars being waged by the elites is in California – of course. There, Gov. Gavin Newsom, with the support of the unelected state Air Resources Board, has outlawed the sale of new cars that run on fossil fuel. Beginning in 2035, all new automobile sales in the state will have to be powered by batteries.
This is unsustainable for a number of reasons, including the likelihood that there will not be enough energy for all the charging that will be needed, particularly as the state makes a foolish transition to an all-renewables electric grid. EVs are expensive, as well, out of the reach of many.
Yeah, the Second Law of Thermodynamics is sure a bitch.
Here’s the thing about ever-more-loony California; all these screwy ideas won’t work, the people in the energy sector know they won’t work, and if the California state government continues to push them, it will eventually become apparent to whoever is left in that state that these policies won’t work. When that time comes, there are going to be some red faces in Sacramento; or at least, there would be, if those people were in the slightest capable of embarrassment.
But let’s get real; none of this is about energy, or climate, or anything of the sort.
Outside of California, the World Economic Forum has suggested the world shift from “ownership to usership” of vehicles as a way to “to reduce demand for critical metals.” The WEF wants to impose on the world a “mindset” that is “needed to redesign cities to reduce private vehicles and other usages.” Media “fact-checkers” gaslight us with claims that the WEF is not “explicitly” advocating “for an end to car ownership,” with “explicitly” being used as a weasel word. The WEF’s objective is clear to any open-minded person.
Further evidence that the elites are at war with automobiles includes:
- One British city’s effort to use traffic filters, in which “private cars will not be allowed through” unless the drivers have the proper permit, “to reduce unnecessary journeys by private vehicles and make walking, cycling, public and shared transport the natural first choice.”
- A warning to drivers in Ireland that “they will be forced off the roads.”
- Agitators in the UK who want to limit car ownership to one per family.
- A Spanish town that “stopped cars crossing the city and got rid of street parking.”
And a screed in the New York Times, which is unfortunately still influential, written by a couple of professors who describe cars as “tightly sprung debt traps,” “turbo-boosted engines of inequality,” and “in general” vehicles for “accelerating the forces that drive apart haves and have-nots.”
Take a look at that last bullet point, from the once-reputable New York Times.
There’s an apocryphal quote attributed to the Duke of Wellington, who reportedly opposed passenger railways as they “…would promote unrest by allowing the lower orders to move to freely about.” That’s precisely the kind of elitist go-fuck-yourself-ism that the New York Times is arguing here.
I&I concludes:
The elites’ crusade against the automobile is also motivated by the same reason they’re waging a war on food. They are convinced Earth is running out of resources and they want to hoard as much as they are able for themselves. The most efficient method to guarantee that their bellies remain always full, and the tanks of their jets, yachts, limousines, and luxury cars are filled with fossil fuels, is to restrict consumption by those “common people” who make up the middle and lower classes.
I’m not so sure about that. Some of these people, sure, are probably interested in hoarding resources. But I think that for the most part, it’s just condescending elitism; they know better than you do what’s good for you, and are willing to use force to get you to comply. One doesn’t have to be allowed to live in, say, rural Alaska, as they please, which requires a big gas or Diesel vehicle and involves a thirty-minute drive to the grocery store. One could be required to live instead in an apartment building in a major city where one can walk everywhere.
But the elites, of course, will keep their motorcades, and mansions, and private jets. You can bet on it.
