Trains Are Freedom

[marmar]

from the California High Speed Rail blog:



Trains Are Freedom
Mar 1st, 2011 | Posted by Robert Cruickshank






Does that look like freedom to you?

Apparently it does to the far right. This completely ridiculous and insane George Will column attacking trains as somehow being antithetical to freedom has been making the rounds today:

So why is America’s “win the future” administration so fixated on railroads, a technology that was the future two centuries ago? Because progressivism’s aim is the modification of (other people’s) behavior.

Forever seeking Archimedean levers for prying the world in directions they prefer, progressives say they embrace high-speed rail for many reasons—to improve the climate, increase competitiveness, enhance national security, reduce congestion, and rationalize land use. The length of the list of reasons, and the flimsiness of each, points to this conclusion: the real reason for progressives’ passion for trains is their goal of diminishing Americans’ individualism in order to make them more amenable to collectivism.

To progressives, the best thing about railroads is that people riding them are not in automobiles, which are subversive of the deference on which progressivism depends. Automobiles go hither and yon, wherever and whenever the driver desires, without timetables. Automobiles encourage people to think they—unsupervised, untutored, and unscripted—are masters of their fates. The automobile encourages people in delusions of adequacy, which make them resistant to government by experts who know what choices people should make.

There are any number of reasons why this argument is so stupid as to cause one to wonder whether George Will should be allowed to write about anything other than baseball. First of all, trains and cars are not exclusive. People can drive a car to a train station. Or, as more people use trains, it creates more savings and more room on roads to allow folks to use cars as well. It’s not an either/or. ..............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.cahsrblog.com/2011/03/trains-are-freedom/

[Dawson Leery]

1. k/r

[Historic NY]

2. Trains & the sweat of immigrant labor built the rails that joined a nation ...

people were then free to go from coast to coast. George Will is a jackass.

[H2O Man]

4. "Every railroad tie

is an Irishman's tombstone." -- my Dad

[HubertHeaver]

8. "A 'murder a mile' on the IC.

[Recursion]

3. And what's weird is his writing on baseball is really, really good

And on any other subject he becomes a ****ing moron.

[WillyT]

5. George Will Ain't Got Nothin On This !!! - 'The City of New Orleans'

The City of New Orleans
by Steve Goodman

Riding on the City of New Orleans,
Illinois Central Monday morning rail
Fifteen cars and fifteen restless riders,
Three conductors and twenty-five sacks of mail.
All along the southbound odyssey
The train pulls out at Kankakee
Rolls along past houses, farms and fields.
Passin' trains that have no names,
Freight yards full of old black men
And the graveyards of the rusted automobiles.

CHORUS:
Good morning America how are you?
Don't you know me I'm your native son,
I'm the train they call The City of New Orleans,
I'll be gone five hundred miles when the day is done.

Dealin' card games with the old men in the club car.
Penny a point ain't no one keepin' score.
Pass the paper bag that holds the bottle
Feel the wheels rumblin' 'neath the floor.
And the sons of pullman porters
And the sons of engineers
Ride their father's magic carpets made of steel.
Mothers with their babes asleep,
Are rockin' to the gentle beat
And the rhythm of the rails is all they feel.

CHORUS

Nighttime on The City of New Orleans,
Changing cars in Memphis, Tennessee.
Half way home, we'll be there by morning
Through the Mississippi darkness
Rolling down to the sea.
And all the towns and people seem
To fade into a bad dream
And the steel rails still ain't heard the news.
The conductor sings his song again,
The passengers will please refrain
This train's got the disappearing railroad blues.

Good night, America, how are you?
Don't you know me I'm your native son,
I'm the train they call The City of New Orleans,
I'll be gone five hundred miles when the day is done.

©1970, 1971 EMI U Catalogue, Inc and Turnpike Tom Music (ASCAP)

[tularetom]

6. if there were really such a thing as cosmic justice

George Will would be strangled with his bow tie by an angry driver exercising his "individualism" in a road rage incident

[Luminous Animal]

7. The time I spend on subway or surface buses is total freedom...

Freedom to be inside my own head. Getting rid of my car was the best thing that I ever did.

[Mojeoux]

9. EVERY Artist's Conception of the Future Has a Rad Mono-Rail.

Mono-rail or duo-rail, what-ever, lets get those trains rolling!!

Un-used railroad tracks are blight.

[Overseas]

10. I love trains !! //nt

[npk]

11. Yeah soon every developed 1st world nation will have a built out of speedy trains

servicing large populations of their people, but here in the good ol US of A we will still be stuck in traffic wasting away our lives. All in the name of individualism.

[StarsInHerHair]

12. K&R to 17

trains ARE freedom