It’s fascinating to watch. Norfolk, Virginia recently completed a “light rail” project. What is light rail? It’s really an electric streetcar, something that disappeared from most cities somewhere in the middle of the last century as people preferred commuting using their own cars. Buses moved those who wanted mass transportation using the existing roads because it's easy to change a bus route, not so with streetcar rails. There were of course exceptions like New York and Chicago which had high population densities and a very extensive network already in place. But for much of the rest of America, streetcars running on rails were relegated to a tourist attraction like the San Francisco trolley system and amusement park rides.
The Virginian Pilot has been a relentless cheerleader for “light rail” because the Left likes mass anything: mass housing to warehouse the people, mass transit to move the people. Central control is what starts the Left’s juices flowing; from our medical treatment, to the cars we drive, the food we eat, where we worship, who we marry. The very term, “mass,” reeks of Das Kapital where the enlightened and the anointed in their infinite wisdom decide what is best for the “masses.”
But let an individual, or a group of individuals who are not part of the government propose a project, like extending the streetcar lines that the Virginian Pilot has proposed, and the Ruling Class at that point suddenly stop cheerleading and become very, very suspicious. The very concept they championed, if it slips out of the total control of the government, must come to a screeching halt. Oh, they don’t say exactly that, of course, but suddenly the project that they tried to ram through the local governments in the area needs very, very careful examination.
To the Virginian Pilot, if the government does it, it’s somehow sanctified even if things go wildly astray. The nearest analogy is the view that Christians have of the Catholic’s sex abuse scandals: an anomaly. The Left’s church is Big Government. Like worshippers at a shrine they view government as intrinsically good, even if the people who are actually in the government are shown to be corrupt and venal. Corrupt, venal and incompetent beyond what is acceptable in private life.
No comments:
Post a Comment