Open Left

Definitely a dangerous game (0.00 / 0)

It's why people think that the wonders of technology should create cars that magically get much better gas mileage that what we currently have, but strongly oppose something like a gas tax to discourage gas consumption.  It's why politicians favor building more roads to placate constituents who complain about traffic.  I argue that Democrats often seem weak more because they fear pissing voters off than because they are in the back pockets of corporations, so they tend to follow what look like risk-averse strategies that accomplish less but seem to have a much lower chance of being short-term epic fails.

I'm actually somewhat pessimistic about encouraging people to use mass transit in this country because I see the personal car as a sort of avatar of American individualism which people aren't willing to give up, which is why I suggested training younger people to live without cars by not giving them the option to drive when they turn sixteen.  I remember thinking it a bit ridiculous to meet people in college who didn't have driver's licenses (mostly from NYC and DC), but perhaps more people need to be in that boat.

Things You Don't Talk About in Polite Company: Religion, Politics, the Occasional Intersection of Both

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by: Anthony de Jesus @ Tue Jul 07, 2009 at 15:05:03 PM CDT

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yes (0.00 / 0)

There's a reason that the people you met who didn't have drivers licenses were from DC and NYC, and it wasn't because they had massive driving fees or were otherwise penalized from driving.

It was because public transportation was actually good, and more convenient than driving.  Which is exactly the point I'm making.

To be clear on my original point, though, I don't necessarily think that Democrats need to be risk-averse, they just need to be on top of messaging anything that feels punitive.  For example with a gas tax, you can point at lessening our dependence on foreign oil, on assessing the true costs of burning gas, on encouraging clean domestic energy production, etc.

The way you phrased it struck me as very "nanny state", which is a label conservatives love to pin on liberals.  We shouldn't be cowed by them, but we shouldn't play into their hands either.

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by: ccarollo @ Tue Jul 07, 2009 at 15:49:10 PM CDT

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