Comments on: THE TRANSPORTATION PROBLEM

By: kgotthardt

kgotthardt — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 12:18:56 +0000

“but ending our need for Middle East oil does not solve all our military problems.”

Certainly not! But it would help.

By: Citizen Tom

Citizen Tom — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 10:00:04 +0000

kgotthardt – We use oil because it is still relatively cheap. Government is not a magic wand. Just because we want them to do something does not mean our leaders either can or will do what we wish.

We have been trying to get off oil for decades, and that has not happened for three reasons.
1. Oil is cheap energy. Until recently, no competitive alternative existed.
2. We were unwilling to tax oil to compensate for the pollution costs.
3. Our leaders are perfectly happy to ignore the long term consequences of sending so much money to rotten regimes.

As a practical matter, we need to spend money on both energy and the military. The two issues are related, but ending our need for Middle East oil does not solve all our military problems.

By: kgotthardt

kgotthardt — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 01:52:38 +0000

Tom, what I am saying is we spend so much money on war over oil that if we rewarded those who removed our dependence on oil, we wouldn’t need to have quite so many wars and we would help the environment.

Of course our soldiers need good weapons! But we don’t need to be sending them to their deaths over oil. In fact, I would prefer they were home, as I am sure many of their families do right now.

It is never enough merely to hug trees, no matter how satisfying the notion may be to some. If we want things to change for the better, we must DO.

By: Citizen Tom

Citizen Tom — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 14:13:56 +0000

kgotthardt – Are you at all familiar with the history of environmental pollution in communist states? I think not. I suggest you look into it and imagine what might have been. Sometimes weapons in the hands of good men protect our environment far more than any tree hugger. Without such men, the tree huggers end up silent or dead.

There are evil men all too willing to do evil deeds. That is just a fact of life and nothing you or I can change — except by opposing what they would do. When we do not support well-designed weapons in the hands of good soldiers, we cannot protect ourselves or our environment.

By: gary

gary — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 13:43:09 +0000

My only concern here is that something like a completely new transportation system may be too aggressive for any one community to pull off. It would be like expecting Los Angeles to build the first 747. Probably the idea of breaking the task into stages is the way to go.

gary