Thursday, July 29, 2004
On my way home last night, I decided to forego the NPR special report on sitar-playing Buddhist monks in Oxnard and instead dipped my toe into the fetid swamp of drive-time talk radio. I figure it's an election year, and I should probably start paying attention to what's being said in our nation's public square.
I came into the middle of the conservative host's rant against a local light-rail project. His thesis was that the city and county's attempt to provide alternative modes of public transportation amounted to "social engineering." In other words, improper use of government funds to force people to do things the way government thinks they should be done.
Apparently, this guy hasn't heard about the war in Iraq. Iraq is social engineering that makes this little light-rail project look like pre-school play time. Why is it bad to spend money to make it easier to forego using our cars, but it's patriotic to give Halliburton and Bechtel bags of cash to rebuild something we didn't need to destroy in the first place? (Whether that "rebuilding" is actually occurring, of course, is a matter of debate. However, that is a subject for another rant.)
I came into the middle of the conservative host's rant against a local light-rail project. His thesis was that the city and county's attempt to provide alternative modes of public transportation amounted to "social engineering." In other words, improper use of government funds to force people to do things the way government thinks they should be done.
Apparently, this guy hasn't heard about the war in Iraq. Iraq is social engineering that makes this little light-rail project look like pre-school play time. Why is it bad to spend money to make it easier to forego using our cars, but it's patriotic to give Halliburton and Bechtel bags of cash to rebuild something we didn't need to destroy in the first place? (Whether that "rebuilding" is actually occurring, of course, is a matter of debate. However, that is a subject for another rant.)
