Paul Krugman underscores the advantages of rail travel and tweaks as well as George F. Will, the columnist increasingly bewildered by how to be a relevant mandarin as the Teabaggists war on education and the educated: Will says train travel is "collectivist."
When the interstate bridge collapsed in Minnesota from bad design and decades of anti-government types not funding infrastructure support, all the people suddenly thrown, with their cars, into the Mississippi, dies a sort of collectivist death, too:
When the interstate bridge collapsed in Minnesota from bad design and decades of anti-government types not funding infrastructure support, all the people suddenly thrown, with their cars, into the Mississippi, dies a sort of collectivist death, too:
Trains and Freedom
A bit more on this subject — not serious, just a personal observation after a long hard day of reading student applications. (My suggestion that we reject all applicants claiming to be “passionate” about their plans was rejected, but with obvious reluctance.)
Anyway, my experience is that of the three modes of mechanized transport I use, trains are by far the most liberating. Planes are awful: waiting to clear security, then having to sit with your electronics turned off during takeoff and landing, no place to go if you want to get up in any case. Cars — well, even aside from traffic jams (tell me how much freedom you experience waiting for an hour in line at the entrance to the Lincoln Tunnel), the thing about cars is that you have to drive them, which kind of limits other stuff.
But on a train I can read, listen to music, use my aircard to surf the web, get up and walk to the cafe car for some Amfood; oh, and I’m not restricted by the War on Liquids. When I can, I prefer to take the train even if it takes a couple of hours more, say to get to Boston, because it’s much higher-quality time.
Yes, your choices are limited by the available trains; if I wanted to take a train from beautiful downtown Trenton to DC tomorrow, I’d be restricted to one of 21 trains, leaving roughly once an hour if not more often, whereas if I wanted to drive I could leave any time I wanted. Big deal.
And don’t get me started on how much more freedom of movement I feel in New York, with subways taking you almost everywhere, than in, say, LA, where you constantly have to worry about parking and traffic.
So if trains represent soulless collectivism, count me in.
Dagny Taggart Wept
Oh, boy — this George Will column (via Grist) is truly bizarre:
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.
As Sarah Goodyear at Grist says, trains are a lot more empowering and individualistic than planes — and planes, not cars, are the main alternative to high-speed rail.
And there’s the bit about rail as an antiquated technology; try saying that after riding the Shanghai Maglev.
But anyway, it’s amazing to see Will — who is not a stupid man — embracing the sinister progressives-hate-your-freedom line, more or less right out ofAtlas Shrugged; with the extra irony, of course, that John Galt’s significant other ran, well, a railroad.
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