Re: OT - Have you seen this ad?

On Fri, Aug 29, 2008 at 10:56 AM, Alex Dean <alex@crackpot.org> wrote:
        Eric Cope wrote:
                However, if the government were to steal money for other
                purposes, that don't benefit you, then it would be a
                completely different situation. 
        That's what elections are for.  If you don't like what your
        taxes are
        being spent for, elect someone else.  If you want to have no
        taxes and no services, fair 'nuff.  I wouldn't vote for that,
        but I can cope with people disagreeing.
        'Stealing' is an inaccurate term in my view.  I don't personally
        benefit
        from food stamps, unemployment insurance, homeless shelters, or
        a
        million other programs, but I am happy to contribute to them.  I
        think
        the real measure of a society's greatness is the way it treats
        its most
        vulnerable members.  We hear a lot of pandering to the 'middle
        class',
        and not nearly enough about helping the poor.  To tell me I only
        support
        things out of selfishness just means you don't know me at all.
        You're taking some suggestions I had about concrete,
        tangible ideas (get a quote for solar hot water, check the bus
        schedules), and turning this into a thread about ideology, about
        the
        illegitimacy of government.  It's not very convincing, and seems
        likely
        to spark a 'my politics is better than your politics' argument.
         'Ideas' and 'ideology' have a common root, but in practice they
        rarely interact.  If we can stick to specific points, I'm with
        you.  If we're going up in the clouds, I quit.
                Additionally, when you see how much
                money the city governments subsidize your bus system,
                and now light rail system, your $/mile or $/day is very
                high. 
        How much do we spend on road maintenance?  How much land do we
        loose to
        huge superhighways to accommodate all those cars?  What price do
        we all
        pay breathing the smog produced by large numbers of cars with
        only 1
        occupant?  How much time do we lose sitting in traffic jams?
        If you don't live near a convenient bus route, don't use the
        bus.  My point was you'd be surprised how often you can get
        where you're going, and in about the same amount of time, and
        without having to look for a parking space at the end of your
        ride.  If you want to drive, by all means.  I use my car often
        enough, and I'm not trying to tell you cars are bad.
        > Additionally, while city
                governments subsidize  bus systems, they also prevent
                other systems from entering the market through licensing
                and lack of subsidies. The end result is a very poor
                system that has no market forces forcing it to be 2 of
                the 3, better, faster, or cheaper. 
        Multiple transit companies competing can also be a huge waste of
        resources.  Lots of duplicated effort.  Lots of redundant
        service in high-population areas and a lack of service
        elsewhere.  A transit system works best when it's comprehensive,
        when you can get EVERYWHERE.  Maybe some private contracts would
        improve things in some areas, but I'd be really leery of turning
        the whole thing over to the lowest bidder.
                For example, I wanted to take a
                bus from i-10 and Elliot to ASU. The bus route would
                take just over an hour. I rode my bike the seven miles
                in 30 minutes. 
        No doubt routes could be improved.  My observation has been that
        if you
        live near a route that works, the system is pretty good.  But
        too often,
        you don't.  The system is not nearly as comprehensive is it
        ought to be, and I'd support ideas to make it more so.
        About the bike : Folks who are blind, elderly, or in a
        wheelchair aren't
        going to be riding a bike.  I think providing basic
        transportation
        options to everyone is a legitimate service a local government
        ought to
        provide.  It's not stealing, and I don't know why you'd call it
        that.
                Your favored
                subsidies, your pooled resources, create (financially,
                timely, and environmentally) extremely inefficient
                mechanisms, in this case a crappy, smelly, rude, late,
                slow, bus system.
        I dismiss this as unsupported assertion, not real argument.
         With this
        kind of hyperbole, I'm rapidly losing interesting in continuing
        the
        discussion.  You're coming off as a zealot.  You continue to
        imply that there's no legitimate role for government in
        providing public transit, and I think you're flat wrong about
        that, but if you're going to make your point with talk-radio
        style I'll just let this drop.  A civil debate with actual
        information I'm interested in, a shouting match I'm not.  I like
        to have my thinking challenged, but I don't like to be berated.
        The core of what I'm trying to say is simple.  Just this : There
        are lots of good ideas for lessening our energy consumption.
         Cars with better MPG are only 1 of them.  The bus system works
        quite well in many circumstances.  I benefit, and so do many
        others.  You might be pleasantly surprised if you try it.
         That's it.  Not much more to it.
        I appreciate your last statement about having a good debate, and
        no I
        don't take it personally.  But if you want to turn this into a
        tirade
        about the tyranny of the nanny state, you're going much further
        afield
        than I have interest in following.
        kind regards,
        alex
        ps - Maybe I can make this point a different way : 'pooling
        resources'
        is exactly what makes open source work.  If everybody insisted
        on doing everything for themselves, we'd all be re-implementing
        a merge sort in
        assembly language every time we wanted to put up a web page.  It
        might be fun, but it certainly isn't productive.  If you're so
        libertarian that any cooperation seems like socialism, I think
        we aren't going to find much common ground.
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