I expected it to happen, but not this quickly.
California officials are, apparently, “mulling” a ban on cars with internal combustion engines, according to an article in the industry trade publication, Automotive News. If they more than mull and pass a ban, CA would be the first American state to do so – following the example set by several European states, including most recently the UK.
Part of the reason it is happening so quickly is because of amen-corner support from American publications like Automotive News.
Perhaps they should reconsider changing the title of their rag. Because it isn’t “news” when you editorialize – and AN editorializes egregiously in its “news” coverage.
Have a look:
“The internal combustion engine’s days could be numbered in California, where officials are mulling whether a ban on sales of polluting autos is needed to achieve long-term targets for cleaner air.”
Italics added.
Egads.
“Polluting”? The mind of the reader instantly conjures images of respiratory masks and blue smoke coughing out of tailpipes – which one sees coming out of the tailpipes of new cars as infrequently as one finds straight-up news sans editorializing in Automotive News.
My high school journalism teacher would have yanked my yearbook privileges had I written the sentence quoted above and tried to pass it off as “news” rather than something for the editorial page, which is where it belongs.
AN is more-than-tacitly agreeing with the “officials” who are “mulling” a ban on internal combustion engines by conceding the premise: IC cars are polluting fiends and must be dealt with.
How else can the sentence quoted be interpreted?
Fait meet accompli.
The premise isn’t questioned. No context is given. The AN editorialist does not adduce an iota of evidence to support the smear. He – perhaps she? – merely deploys the smear, which the reader is expected to swallow whole without bothering to chew.
This is of course absolutely necessary to further the agenda of the “officials” who are “mulling” the ban on internal combustion engines – their leader being Governor Moonbat.
It cannot be questioned whether IC engines pollute – nor how much defined.
So, let’s do that.
Most people who aren’t car people probably don’t know that the EPA itself awards the designation, Partial Zero Emissions Vehicle (PZEV) to internal combustion engines powering numerous currently-in-production cars. These are not electric cars or even hybrid cars. They are simply cars with internal combustion engines that emit so little in the way of harmful effluents that the regulatory Grand Inquisitor itself – the EPA – classifies them officially as Partial Zero Emissions Vehicles.
And the rest – the ones that don’t quite meet the PZEV bar – are photo-finish close. The difference is measurable in terms of perhaps 1 percent – usually a fraction of 1 percent – PZEV vs. the not-quite-PZEV.
There is no such beast as a new car that “pollutes” – if that word is understood to mean what it ought to mean. That is to say, what it once meant.
Once upon a time.
If you dial back the clock to 1966, the year before the very first (and very basic) efforts were made to reduce and control the unhealthful byproducts of internal combustion – mostly the byproducts of imperfect combustion, such as unburned hydrocarbons – you would find that, indeed, internal combustion-powered cars polluted.
A great deal.
Fast forward to 1975 – the first year that catalytic converters came into widespread use. These chemically converted the byproducts of imperfect combustion within the car’s exhaust system – before they reached the exhaust tip and entered the surrounding environment.
Cars polluted a great deal less. On the order of 50 percent less.
Consider this the lowest-hanging fruit.
Move forward again to the mid-1980s. Fuel delivery had become infinitely more precise via the replacement of the mechanical carburetor with computer-controlled fuel injection, which could (and did) maintain the optimum air-fuel ratio at all times, continuously self-adjusting.
Around this same time, catalytic converters got more sophisticated as well.
Pollution declined yet again – and once again, by double digit percentages. By the early 1990s, internal combustion engines produced on the order of 85-90 percent less in the way of harmful exhaust byproducts, via the double-pronged advances in controlling the combustion process and treating the exhaust after the fact.
Even more precise fuel delivery (port fuel-injection) and ever-smarter-engine controls chalked another few percent off the remainder.
We are now – and have been, for the past several years – at the point that any new car’s internal combustion engine is almost “zero emissions” in terms of the harmful things that formerly smogged the skies and formerly caused health problems in humans.
Current-year cars are 97-98 percent “clean” at the tailpipe – according to the EPA’s own standards.
This is not 100 percent “clean,” of course. But then neither is the electric car, notwithstanding its “zero emissions” regulatory honorific. It may not emit at the tailpipe. But emissions are certainly created during the manufacture of its hundreds of pounds of batteries and at the utility generating plants that produce the electricity upon which it depends for locomotion.
But the point here is that there is little meaningful difference between the “zero emissions” electric car and the Partial Zero Emissions internal combustion car – or, for the matter, the next-down-the-ladder IC-engined car.
The battle has been won. All cars are extremely “clean.”
Some, however, are more politically correct than others.
AN does not delve into these distinctions. Instead, its writers parrot the politically correct line.
The car press used to know about cars – and generally liked them, too. The typical car scribe was, if not a gearhead, at least a tinkerer who understood mechanical things and appreciated them.
He drove – and liked driving.
The people in the car press today are a different species. They are people such as the egregiously editorializing author of the article we’ve just dissected – and the person who urged some months ago that the Dodge Demon be banned. They seem to hate cars and loathe driving – and those who do not loathe it.
Brock Yates is spinning in his grave.
And my teethe ache.
. . .
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Take note also that the Economic Prevention Agency has a continual habit of decreasing the allowable emissions.
Once almost all new-model-year cars reach the targets, the EPA suddenly decides to decrease the allowable emissions. It’s like slowly closing the trap door around the populace. And most of the time, the new “reductions” are so infintessimal as to be almost negligible. It’s just that the cost to reach the new standards is beyond sensible.
I remember there was a recent article about this exact issue on your site, Eric.
I always loved that one, “Partial Zero”. There’s zero, and then there’s not zero. It’s like being partially not pregnant.
You would have loved my 7th-grade math teacher- an nice older gentleman, who’d walk around checking our homework, and if you didn’t have your homework, he exclaim: “No homework?! COMPLETE. ZERO!”.
After the technocrats are finished destroying our freedom of movement, they will start focusing on where and how we live. I expect a ban on rural and suburban development in the coming decades. They want to force us into high-density living so we can all be controlled and surveilled. The New Urbanists (the group behind smart growth) have been pushing this for years. They have operatives (planners) working in local governments deliberately making traffic problems worse in suburban areas to make cities appear better. They don’t want us to own anything. No car. No garden. No animals. No yard. No shop. No pool. They basically want communal living. Unfortunately, the Agenda 21 train is coming fast with no signs of stopping.
The plans for 2030 are there and easily found by a google search.
When I mention the new urbanists and their desires people think I’m crazy. I learned of the new urbanists and what they want by following websites where new urbanists are found. As usual these people can operate out in the open and anyone who just bothers to learn what they are up to gets dismissed as a crazy person.
Those plans are already being acted upon in parts of CA. (And have been for some time now)- like around the radius of the outskirts of San Fagcisco- where they out-right prohibit development, or make it so expensive (Fees, permits, environmental BS) that it accomplishes the same thing- thus keeping housing prices the highest in the entire country….meaning that even people who make good money, often have to share apartments/houses with roommates- and basically no one who is starting out with nothing can ever hope to own a real home (and if he did, it is so restricted, it is just a place to sleep, and to spend money on, in the form of taxes and fulfilling “code” requirements)- so people live communally, and advocate for “public” or “affordable”[read: subsidized, gov’t-controls-who-gets-it] housing.
Same things are going on, but just a LITTLE more subtly in places like NYC and Baaahstin (Boston) metro areas.
In many rural areas, such as where I live, they are re-doing perfectly good highways, and making them bypass many of the small towns, which is killing any remnants of a downtown which still remains in those towns (This is slated to happen to the town closest to where I live)- This actually seems beneficial for people like me, as it will stunt future development and make it so that only farmers live here, and keep it from turning into a suburb-esque type place, but it’s pretty sick for business owners and the like, who have paid the taxes which fund this BS, and then get slapped in the face when they see those funds used to destroy their livelihoods.
US 69 through rural East Texas is a great example. Replacing TX 59 and going even further on the outskirts of small towns or bypassing altogether and forcing businesses from inside the town to the outskirts. Texas is fast catching California as a progressive hell hole who caters to the corporate lobby, mostly insurance as of recent.
Wow…
And the sad thing is: Nothing is “organic” anymore; Nothing is a result of actual need; local decisions; etc. Everything is dictated from the Feds and the state level- and the average schmoe doesn’t have a clue how every aspect of their life is so influenced- from edumacation, to transportation, to business, etc. -it’s all being done by decree- with the states, cities and towns falling into line like dominoes; but the hand that starts the dominoes moving is unseen, unless you know where to look for it….even though “you” are paying for all of it….
Soviet Russia was overt communism,.
America is covert communism. (For those who are unwilling/too stupid to see; or who don’t care. If you see and care…and rock the boat, then it quickly becomes overt communism,)
Have they figured out how they are going to charge all of these electric cars?
Without the fossil fueled power plants to generate electricity these things will just be very expensive lawn ornaments.
Add to that the fact that the US does not have the electric generating capacity to run a nationwide fleet of electric cars. I have an article which goes in to much detail about this. (I’ll have to find it and post a link.)
Hi Not So,
The claim made is that a “network of fast chargers” will be erected all over the country. But this entails billions in infrastructure costs.. where will this money come from, exactly? No one asks. They should. It is exactly like rebuilding the entire highway system. There is no money for that. Where will the money for the “fast chargers” come from?
Where will the money come from to add capacity to the electrical grid? More billions.
And what happens to the economy when millions of people are stopped for 30-45 minutes or more every day to recover 80 percent charge so they can travel maybe another 150 miles or so?
It is slowly inching toward the day to GTHO of this “country”; it is turning into a nuthouse.
What does this depraved filth plan to do with existing cars and the people who own them? No wonder they make owning a gun in California such a nightmare.
China just announced that every car manufacturer in China – or who sells in China – will be required to produce EVs by 2019. The goal is to eliminate IC cars by 2040. Each car manufacturer will have to ramp up production of EVs each year. They are planning to sell them to ride sharing services – because there isn’t sufficient demand for EVs. It is just amazing to me how people think that this sort of thing will work. We just mandate that EVs are produced and voila, the market will comply? These people know nothing of how free markets really work. This type of top-down planning has never worked and will never work. How many times do we have to see it fail? And cause human suffering in its wake? But it just doesn’t stop. And so many people parrot the line that EVs and self driving cars are the future. They never even consider that subsidizing and mandating how markets work doesn’t make it real and sustainable. If people really want and can afford EVs then there is no mandate or subsidy needed. I have heard the “advance” to EVs and self driving cars compared to the advancement of cars from horses. But the government didn’t have to mandate the use of cars as opposed to horses. And they didn’t have to subsidize it. It seems very strange that i even have to point this out. No government had to mandate the production of smart phones or to offer subsidies for iPhones. People wanted them and they paid for them. Somebody needs to ask why EVs need all these mandates and subsidies if they really are so much better.
On the front page, top news item, on Drudge right now.
http://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article176030626.html
State Assemblyman Phil Ting is leading the push, here are a couple of comments from the article:
But Ting said the state must be aggressive in establishing a vision for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
“If you had told me five years ago that we might have autonomous vehicles on the road soon, I would have laughed,” he said. “The technology is moving so quickly, I don’t know if by 2040 we’ll be owning our own cars.”
And:
“The market is moving this way. The entire world is moving this way,” Ting said. “At some point you need to set a goal and put a line in the sand.”
Note how that is phrased, that the “state” must “get aggressive” and “draw lines in the sand”.
We’re just a bunch of serfs to pushed around at their whim.
The state drew the line 15 years ago but people weren’t paying attention. Digital meters caused several businesses in a local town to burn almost to the point of being nonsalvageable. I had one forced on me virtually at gunpoint. It was a hot and heated exchange.
I wasn’t the only one to try to avoid them but nobody I knew was successful even after their businesses burned. Those meters are dangerous in many ways with surveillance being one of the most dire along with catching fire.
Hi Eight,
I have wanted for years to generate my own, off-grid power but haven’t yet found the time (or money) to do it. I would love to cut the cord, even though my utility bills are not obnoxiously high (I don’t use much; no AC in summer and I heat with wood in winter.) But I haven’t yet found a way to do it that doesn’t involve too much hassle/expense to justify doing it.
Last time I check, a solar system that would be powerful enough to run my house would cost me around $15,000.
eric, you’d be better off in my parts with a wind generator. They can be had, large enough for all your needs, at around $25K but that’s doing it yourself and not including batteries or other parts.
Texas will buy back your excess power but laws in other states have changed so drastically they have made it nearly impossible to “sell” your excess back or even continue to own your own generation equipment.
If I could afford a wind generator I’d do it on the sly and run a pipe down through a windmill style tower for water wells to disguise it.
I have no illusion anyone from the electric company wouldn’t report your generation if they identified it as such. I’d still use a small amount of metered electricity and tell them we no longer had a/c or a water heater, maybe just leave one well on itl
BTW, my meter is on a pole nearly 300 feet from the house and barn. There is a big round baler parked in front of it. If it contains a camera, it will be a mighty boring picture. And never think it might now contain a camera either. That’s the cherry on top of digital surveillance.
California’s principal pollutant is pm 2.5. That’s particles of 2.5 microns or less. That’s not automotive, it’s industrial. Or diesel. I never see them cracking down on diesel truck emissions. It’s always personal mobility that’s the target. So by about 2060, at which time it’s my kids that will face the issue, California will be like Cuba, with old cars being maintained by shoestring methods, just to stay mobile. Probably will revert to carburetors, because you can service them yourself. And when the cat converter goes? Just ditch it.
When Car and Driver fired Csaba Csere, it was obvious they were given marching orders to ditch his old libertarian thinking and adopt the new statist dogma. And they were the last bastion. Well, there was Top Gear, and despite stellar ratings, BBC ditched Jeremy, another C02 scoffer.
Argument will sway nobody. California’s deep state has gone whole hog with the agenda, and the people’s wishes be damned. They’ll go ahead with the ban, and if the people happen to pass a ballot driven constitutional amendment, the courts will simply overturn it. Like they did the marriage definition amendment.
If the market was going there, they would not need to do anything. Nobody had to ban buggy whips or manual typewriters.
California ports had contractors in old trucks they owned that would haul the stuff on various short trips. The state decided these old trucks were too polluting and banned them. The corporations these men got contracts from then stepped in with debt based servitude to ‘lease to own’ new trucks. A system of exploitation arose. If they don’t work incredibly long hours for little net pay they lose every dollar that has been paid into the truck.
Of course most everyone blames the companies but doesn’t blame the state for creating the problem. The state is what destroyed the port truck drivers’ independence.
I’ll play devil’s advocate. Regarding the pollution caused by ICE’s, it’s not the very low levels of unburned hydrocarbons they emit that California’s legislators are talking about. It’s the CO2. Of course some of you already know this. So I’m guessing your beef is either with questioning the claim that CO2 from fossil fuel emissions has been the largest contributor to climate change and global warming since the beginning of the industrial revolution. To those skeptics I’ll just point you to https://skepticalscience.com/empirical-evidence-for-co2-enhanced-greenhouse-effect.htm and let you draw your own conclusions. The other possibility, I’m guessing, is believing that climate change has always been a part of Earth’s geologic history, CO2 or no CO2, and is something that humans really have no control over. Personally I’m not a climate change skeptic and believe the science. The Earth is heating up and the burning of fossil fuels is the reason. But even my believing that, guess what? I continue to use cars, bikes, boats and other machines with gas-powered engines because they give me pleasure, thrills, or are otherwise practical. I guess that makes me either a hypocrite or uncaring, or both. And that I suppose is the other possibility to be considered!
Hi Steve,
I’ll play devil’s advocate as well…
If man-made sources of C02 are causing a dangerous warming trend then – one would assume – the government and elites pushing us to “sacrifice” would also be “sacrificing” as well. They are not. This speaks volumes. It is of a piece with the communist ruling clique in Soviet Russia, which lived as well as the Czar – while mouthing platitudes about the Proletariat and the struggle of the workers.
How many square feet was Stalin’s dacha?
The government itself is probably the single greatest source of man-produced C02, via the military. Think how much C02 is produced by military aircraft alone each day. How much does one F18 emit in one training exercise? What is the “footprint” of one aircraft carrier task force? If “climate change” is a real threat, then surely we could do without a few of the thousands of aircraft, the half dozen carriers, the support craft, the bases, the trucks and tanks…
But, no.
Not even a slight scaling back.
It’s a con, Steve.
Note the inherently dishonest verbiage. “Climate change.” That is a term which encompasses anything except stasis (which is not natural) and serves to characterize any “change” as somehow a problem that – ta-da – only government can solve.
The most prominent source of pollution in California and the rest of the world, is fast food restaurants. Hydrocarbons production from one site that passes more than a fleet of old diesel rigs. The Calis admitted that several years ago when pollution stopped declining in LA, and then the state found that fast food joints were the biggest contributors to smog. See any emission devices on fast food joints? Nah, I knew that.
Morning, to5,
I had not thought of that but it makes a lot of sense. Of course, fast food generates lots of tax income – and big pharma income (by making people sick) hence it is left alone…
Here we go again eric. The govt. won’t admit to what sorts of chemicals come out of those chemtrails on a daily basis except a couple whistle-blowers have identified “some” of what comes out which is mainly some sort of germ. That adds up when you see the sky criss-crossed like a checkerboard and it’s been going on since the 40’s.
Take away govt. pollution and we’d be breathing easy.
And for the record, when somebody can explain to me the source of eras in the past where ice cores show many times as much CO2 as we now have they’ll at least have my attention.
8S, the chemicals are barium, aluminium, and fly ash. Along with toxic pesticides and other industry generated waste products.
Bitcoin is a different kind of fiat system in short. It helps different Uncles and screws different mundanes. So far much less financial abuse.
If your friend gave you 10 bitcoin worth $6,100 US fiat last Oct 1st you’d have $42,770 US fiat equivalent today.
The kid leading the building of the west TX libertarian gulch bought 200 bitcoin in July 2013 for $17,600 US that are worth $856,000 US right now.
He goes to a bitcoin ATM in El Paso and buys Home Depot and other gift cards with them.
A house in Austin just sold for bitcoin. Our Uncle dislikes bitcoin Uncle but its not so simple a rivalry as him fighting Libya type competitors.
Voat.co survives off bitcoin donations. All national fiat uncles reject its financial business.
You should add your bitcoin account to this site’s donation page sometime.
Bitcoin s freedom from uncle so far.(caveat emptor in the future though its unknown)
Earth was much warmer back when dinosaurs lived. They musta had some pretty bad pollution. Wonder what that source was?
Then the earth cooled quite a bit. Dinosaurs run out of fuel?
Then the earth warmed again. ….and cooled again. …..ad nauseum. So a definite cooling cycle started in 1300 and lasted for over 3 centuries and then warmed again. Musta been all the industry and petroleum vehicles that warmed it again….and it’s continued to warm and cool since then.
As for me, I firmly believe in climate change. It’s been changing my entire living memory
.I’m gonna worry when it doesn’t change.
Eric, you’re more accurate than you might imagine. Last year when we got raided…..again, made me do a little research once they were gone and my temper had returned to something close to normal. BTW, the wife says I have an anger problem. I’d posit it’s merely a govt. problem but it probably won’t be going away. I told her it’s the only thing that keeps me going and without it I’d be just another head of livestock. And the truth is, it’s what gets me out of bed and operating some pollution causing piece of equipment is the only solace I have.
Anyway, back to the raid. The helo they(DPS, state of Tx)costs $2,000/hr. to operate with nearly all of it being the cost of fuel.
So how long does it take the average person to use that much fuel? YMMV but it takes me months. Plus, that’s not the only time I’ve seen that helo or the white plane or the black plane that make circles around us. Gee, it kinida tugs at the heart strings to make you feel that “wanted”.
So Steve,
Let’s pretend that we are all retarded for a moment and assume that *they* are right about the existence of “Global Warming”, and that it is caused by the actions of humans in the US and Europe (But of course, not the actions of those in China or India or South America…according to the Paris Climate Treaty…)
So where do you think the electricity comes from to power these cars?
Ah, yes! Can you see it now? A landscape dotted with electrical generating facilities! Ooooo! The air would be so much cleaner and freer of CO2, because we all know that generating plants only emit rainbows and sunshine! Once those ICE cars are gone, our next step will be to bannish those nasty farting cows from the earth!
Steve, there is almost no scientific evidence that CO2 causes warming. In fact, almost all data points to CO2 levels rising hundrends or even thousands of years AFTER warming takes place. Earth has seen CO2 levels as high as 7000 ppm, while they are currently around 400 ppm. At 150 ppm, most of the plant life on Earth would die. Frankly, the sun and other natural factors are far greater influences on climate that man’s activities. How much of “climate change” is caused by human activity? About 0.28%. See this for further reading: http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/greenhouse_data.html
Climate change hysterics are not about saving the planet from wholly imaginary dangers, it’s about bringing the rabble (that’s us) under the control of the elite (them).
Steve, why isn’t CO2 monitored with limits set? What does your state DMV require be monitored for car registration. In the state of Colorado emissions monitored with limits are CO (carbon monoxide) and HC (Hydorcarbons) and NO (Nitric oxyide ). Answer, the EPA requires no minimum limits of CO2 emissions as it is not deemed harmful. As a retired utility plant operator our plant was required to monitior nox and CO emissions only. Also contrary to most people thinking that electricity came from the energy gods and fairies we burned natural gas to produce electricity. If The grid owner curtailed us we had to burn diesel fuel to make the electricity and have an operator monitoring smoke emissions to see visually if it was in spec.
So, global warming renamed climate change is a ruse to tax the ill informed into paying for evil carbon dioxide emissions that we emit and plants take in to make oxygen as I am sure your learned in primary school.
Utter and complete bullshit, based on cherry-picked and falsified data fed into faulty computer simulations. CO2 is not a pollutant. The so-called “science” involved has been politicized to the point where it is meaningless. Follow the power and the money to understand what it is really about. Governments want this, and want it badly. Controlling carbon gives them everything they need to impose total control over all aspects of life. It’s a bureaucrat’s wet dream. The UN wants it badly as well, seeing this as the issue that will finally propel it to the role it was created for – to be the seat of global government.
The people who swallow this horseshit are being played and used by the elites, whose hubris in believing that they will control the earth’s climate borders is part and parcel of their megalomania.
Essentially, banning of internal combustion engine cars is a forced subsidy to the electric car market. Someone here said that the ICE is 100x more energy-dense than the EV. The EV technology would likely advance to close or erase this gap. However, market forces alone would never bear this out; there is too large of a gap. Hence the multi pronged approach of banning ICE cars, clean energy chits (sold by Tesla to Ford, GM, etc), and CAFE standards. If TPTB could sweepingly ban all the cars, they would. That is their end goal. However, think cigarette smoking here, it comes in small steps. What is intriguing to me is that the steps are being taken in larger chunks, partly b/c of the indoctrination of the populace to all things left (thanks Gov’t schools) over the past few generations.
I think the Gen X’ers are the *last* generation to not be fully corrupted by this. I say fully b/c at least a plurality of us have been. Boy, it sucks being an Engineer, an old-line Conservative, and an orthodox Catholic!
Wondering – how much food does California get delivered by trucks? The same trucks that will now have to stop for 4+ hours every 300 miles to recharge?
They’ve already excluded a large number of trucks from their state by mandating “Clean Idle” engines and that the trucks have low rolling-resistance tires and multiple aerodynamic fairings.
http://www.truckinginfo.com/channel/equipment/article/story/2009/09/ca-goes-aero-carbs-new-aerodynamic-rules.aspx
“The mind of the reader instantly conjures images of respiratory masks and blue smoke coughing out of tailpipes…”
Eric, you’ll never make it in the mainstream press. Everybody knows the correct word to use is “belching,” as in, “Volkswagen’s diesel cars had been belching pollutants and killing puppies.”
Hi Roland,
I know it!
I kind of excommunicated myself from the mainstream press. But that’s ok. I am able to enjoy writing – which I would not, if I had to write for … them.
The best part is, though, that I know them. I worked with them, once. I understand how it works. As such, I am uniquely positioned to dissect them.
And that gives me much to write about! 🙂
“Spewing”
You forgot “spewing”.
If you are able to find a government bureaucrat who understands the concept of diminishing returns, you will also find they just don’t care.
Hi Fred,
Well-said, on both counts.
I used to attend press briefings of the regulatory apparat in DC; it was surreal. I am glad I am far, far away from that now…
Most bureaucrats had a semblance of a soul at one point. They probably entered the halls of power as bushy-tailed 22 year-olds with fresh Bachelor degrees in bullshit, completely ignorant of the beast they would directly serve. Thanks to our overlords, these “educated” fools would never have heard of Mises, Hayek, Rothbard, and if they somehow did, there would be a 90% chance they believed these Jewish economists were Nazis.
After 10+ years of serving the beast, they are broken, probably divorced once already, realizing their lives are meaningless and their jobs are worthless at best. At this point they could leave their cushy, pointless, destructive “career” and enter the real workforce, or they can hold on for that sweet sweet sweet bucket o’stolen retirement gold. Sadly, most choose the bucket, and with that decision, they literally smother their crippled souls to death in their hospital beds.
These folks seem to want everyone but themselves back in caves and trees.
SOMEONE needs to draft and file a lawsuit against the State of California for their blatant violation of the Interstate COmmerce Clause in the COnstitution, and also I think its the 14th.. Full Faith and Credit part of that Article of Ammendment. And since a STATE will be a named party in the lawsuit it can ONLY be taken up by the Supreme COurt.. per Art 3 Sec 2 Par 2. If they pass that law, others should nail them for it.. unconstitutional. I’d add “insane” as well, but that’s not unconstitutional.
Hi Tionico,
I have little faith that the Supreme Court will do other than favor such a decision – as it did with regard to Obamacare and so many other anti-liberty measures.
I expect a federal measure to come next.
Beat me to it, Eric!
Everything state and federal governments do is unconstitutional, and has been for 100 years. Doesn’t seem to stop them. May as well have Lenin and Stalin on the Supreme court.
Ultimately it comes down to the people. If they have no love for their own freedom nor that of their neighbors, then there will be no freedom. If most people had even a vague care about freedom, California would be all but vacant by now- as would NY, MA, IL, NJ, etc. but instead, what do we see? The most tyrannical states also have among the most inhabitants, and the ones who are willing to pay top dollar to live in those hell-holes. And as go the states…so goes the country….
We are F’ed. For any hope of maintaining even a semblance of basic freedom, we need to get out of here[this country] or we will suffer the consequences which our neighbors are bringing upon themselves…and i do mean SOON!
60 million people voted for that lying murderous douchebag, and another 60 million voted for the Orange Ass. That pretty much says it all.
I’ve never closely followed the automotive media, but even I noticed a sea change of sorts years ago when Car and Driver dumped/retired/whatever Csere and the rest for the current crop of government butt kissers. Motor Trend was always a joke–making Vega Car of the Year being one of the first comical overtures. Like the rest of mainstream media, the auto press has largely gone into the tank for everything sane people dislike.
Hi Ross,
I’ve lived this.
I began writing about cars professionally in the early ’90s, which was right about the time everything began to change but the old regime – so to speak- was still in place. If I had come along even five years later, I doubt I would have been able to get a toehold as my affectionate views toward cars and driving and liberty would have rendered me a pariah – as I am today (except here and a few other redoubts of the dying Car Culture).
But I’ll fly the Jolly Roger as long as I am able!
Also, we we see Govt vehicles going solely EV?… NO, for the “greater good” they will still use energy dense and mobility independent IC. Including politicians limos and security details…
These are the terrorists who are going to destroy our country, nor some babbling horde of foreigners, but our own politicians. We need to start rounding these pig-fuckers up and deporting them! And for extra packing material, use all the pinko fascist pricks like the ones “Oppositelock” mentions below. In fact, Eric and I know the perfect example of one here in B-Burg who has recently written in local editorials that “CA has it right and the rest of the country should follow suit.” If this crazy shit costs me my livelihood, I already have a list of those I will personally be stuffing in 55 gallon drums and shipping to DC.
I live in hope that Jerry “Moonbat” Brown commits an inexcusable faux pas such as making a racist statement and is gang cornholed by all of his former worshippers on the lawn of the guvner’s mansion on live TV .
After that nobody would care if he got his just desserts from all the people in Cali whose jobs he destroyed and who have suffered under his rule. He might even get gang stomped by the Oakland Hell’s Angels. I can dream, you know.
What a giant Go F yourself to lower middle class and below that live and work in that dumb state (beautiful but dumb). Not to mention the countless other reasons you’ve outlined.
“Hey I know you guys have a car now buuuut next year you’ll be caged for driving it sooo can ya buy this one? The payment is only 70% of your monthly income…”
P.S. Heard ya on with Woods the other day, another great appearance!
Hi Devin,
It’s exasperating.
I was born 40 years to late. I would have been at home in the ’50s, 60s and ’70s… retired by now and able to ignore all of this…
Thanks for the kind words re the Tom Woods appearance; I always enjoy bantering with Tom and consider him a friend.
Shit Ronnie, I WAS at home in the 50’s and 60’s but we’d suffered so much through the last half of the 60’s we’d all seen the writing on the wall and the 70’s were different, a lot of pitting one group against the other and most didn’t have the sense to see it.
Old men who had been in WWl sat around and watched everybody and saw they themselves were soon to be a thing of the past, not in body but in spirit.
To be honest, in a way the 50’s were sort of oppressive in ways but in most ways they were the most freedom I’d see and the 60’s still weren’t too bad in Texas…..and I can say specifically in Texas compared to many other states….and even some other states were bastions of freedom for SOME people, not so much for others.
When going to the east coast in the early 70’s I was struck by how bad the highways were and even more by how poor the people were. Driving by a chain gang(we didn’t have such then in Tx., we were doomed to catch up those with Richards’ tripling the state budget to build prisons. Never elect a woman teacher to any office. One day we passed a work gang and I said to the wife “Do you know(pointing at a guy)what his crime was?” She said NO. I said “He was caught being black”. They fairly much all were caught being black and pore. I finally saw a white guy on a gang. I said he was guilty of being a long haired hippy since he had very long hair. Well, we knew all about that. I finally had my locks shorn(fuck you spellcheck, you illiterate a-hole) just to avoid hassles. Amazing how a cowboy hat on a shorn head as opposed to a long haired one changed perceptions.
I too enjoyed the Tom Woods conversation.
Even so, Eric. I’ve told my wife that I was born too late so many times she’s probably ready to transport me back in time. I’m beginning to not be so daunted by old dentist’s tools that look like a medieval torturer’s tool set and medicine that was stone age in comparison; the idea of living in comparative freedom and sanity is beginning to outweigh the alleged benefits of the present.
I wish I had lived at least 100 years ago. Today’s medical junk will look just as ridiculous 100 years from now as the antique stuff appears to us now- but at least in the past, you had the freedom to choose alternatives, and people didn’t have to mortgage their entire lives to pay for it (Who the hell ever had “health insurance”, even 50 years ago?).
Wouldn’t affect me, as I don’t let dentists drill holes in my teeth (How barbaric is THAT modern practice?!) nor patronize Dr. Drugpusher.
Ya wanna see some freedom, watch Little House On The Prairie! That was freedom, unless you were an Indian or a nigger. Indians got a raw deal. Niggers’ll never be free (some black people are though) because such is antithetical to their culture. (and even they were freer back then, than any of us honkies are today).
Hi Ross,
I often immerse myself in books about the world as it was, a long time ago. As barbaric as, say, Florence in the 15th century was in some respects, it must have been an incredible place to be in many others.
I’d happily take America circa 1965, though!
So true, Eric.
I have some memories of the 60’s, having been born in ’62. It was a different world- and things were not as “unified” or homogenized as they are today- i.e. your experience could vary greatly depending on where you chose to live- 60’s, 70’s, even early 80’s, there were still plenty of places where you could be left alone. There were still a LOT of people with traditional values, who thus valued independence and personal freedom. The Feds were not yet controlling and subsidizing everything, so things were still done on a local/community level, for the most part; people still thought, instead of merely following orders.
The irony is, in my lifetime, I saw the biggest change (for the worse) and the biggest expansion of government during Ronald Reagan’s second term. The man spoke wonderful words…..and then went out and did the very opposite of what he said.
Sometime right around 1985/6/7 was the point of demarcation, when the old world was dead, and what we have now began- much more so than 9/11.
9/11 was more like just tying up the loose ends.
The greatest thing about “the old world”, was even though there was still no lack of tyranny and evil….it WAS not only possible, but actually pretty easy, to live free if you wanted to. You could still enjoy a decent degree of freedom in the big cities even; the suburbs even more so; and pretty much any rural area was as free as could be.
Today? There are a handful of very rural areas, where, if one is careful, they can still enjoy a little freedom.
I’m so glad I left while I could. Not that comMunisota is much better, but California has gone into the abyss. Truly insane and arrogant.
Rope, tree, politician. Some assembly required.
Forget North Korea- they have nothing to do with me. I count CALIFORNIA among my true enemies!
I live in Commiefornia, and I’m a car guy. I enjoy racing, have a track car or two, and like to wrench on them on the weekends. I’m going to have to leave this place, but where do I go? This kind of retarded ideology is spreading. Fascists get a boner whenever they see another fascist oppressing in a way that they’re not yet doing themselves. It’s also quite hard to uproot a whole family, their social circle, etc. Sigh.
Commies aside, California is a huge car enthusiast state! We have a number of awesome race tracks, tons of car modification shops, and lots of jobs to support expensive car hobbies.
I’ve talked to my braying idiot liberal co-workers about this combustion car ban (half of whom make more than me and drive Teslas), and they’re all for it. When I ask about towing, or long trips outside of supercharger networks, they basically respond with “nobody really needs to do that”. Fascists, the lot of em. No understanding of how other people might make different choices than them.
We’re all doomed. These people vote, they have kids, they raise little fascists, who will be tomorrow’s Mussolinis.
Opposite, that’s so depressing…and true. What kills me about all these “anti-fascist”/pro-government/anti-constitutional Eichmann’s today is that, in their heart of hearts, they support 90% or more of the Nazi Platform without even realizing it. Strong government, universal healthcare, assigned jobs, public education, etc etc. are worshiped as salves for humanity’s ills by these bastards. The only thing they actually have a problem with was the racism and death camps, two things the Soviet Union is guilty of but will be apologized for ad-nauseum because they “had good intentions.” A fun game you can play if you enjoy alienating yourself (I do), is trap one of these rats into openly approving the policies of a self-named Fascist regime, reveal the origin of said policies, and see if the rat can grow a spine and open his eyes. They usually don’t.
I also forgot to mention gun control. Without that, such regimes can’t hold onto power for long.
This all started in Germany. It’s here now, and the goal is to end our free society, like they ended Germany. So we can be good worker drones for some American Angela Merkel.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-tobacco_movement_in_Nazi_Germany
Our system of vast upper middle class wealth was created by Alexander Hamilton. While he advocated industry and artisanship, since they were a source of jobs and sustenance for all the upper class to employ the lower and idle classes. He felt those were mostly break even propositions.
In contrast, farming, ranching, and mining eternal sources of great wealth that could provide the means for America to be the equal of Europe, despite all her disadvantages.
Even if you’re a terrible farmer, rancher, miner, or oil driller, it was pretty hard not to make a great big pile of money at it. New wealth came into being, America became the land where any man with a small slice of land could “make money.”
This replaced the old model of fighting over the same wealth over and over. Man working with nature was an unbeatable alliance.
This is the system Bannon and the new economic nationalists promised to restore under the Make America Great Again banner. Not much headway has been made, maybe not much ever will be by them. But it remains the least worst system ever to exist since Ancient Greece and the Mediterranean Merchant era ended 2500 years ago.
That was the idea anyway of the libertarian wing in the grand coalition of Red States that elected trump. Open up all the unowned land and allow new families to work it and make wealth from it. It had been working well for 220 years. It was never broke. There was never any reason to fix it.
Report on the Subject of Manufactures – Alexander Hamilton –
December, 1791.
http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/report-on-the-subject-of-manufactures/
It is not uncommon to meet with an opinion that though the promoting of manufactures may be the interest of a part of the Union, it is contrary to that of another part. The Northern & Southern regions are sometimes represented as having adverse interests in this respect. Those are called manufacturing, these agricultural states; and a species of opposition is imagined to subsist between the manufacturing and agricultural interests.
This idea of an opposition between those two interests is the common error of the early periods of every country, but experience gradually dissipates it. Indeed they are perceived so often to succor and to befriend each other that they come at length to be considered as one: a supposition which has been frequently abused and is not universally true.
Particular encouragements of particular manufactures may be of a nature to sacrifice the interests of landholders to those of manufacturers, but it is nevertheless a maxim well established by experience, and generally acknowledged, where there has been sufficient experience, that the aggregate prosperity of manufactures and the aggregate prosperity of agriculture are intimately connected. In the course of the discussion which has taken place, various weighty considerations have been adduced operating in support of that maxim. Perhaps the superior steadiness of the demand of a domestic market for the surplus produce of the soil is alone a convincing argument of its truth.
Ideas of a contrariety of interest between the Northern and Southern regions of the Union are in the main as unfounded as they are mischievous. The diversity of circumstances on which such contrariety is usually predicated authorises a directly contrary conclusion. Mutual wants constitute one of the strongest links of political connection, and the extent of these bears a natural proportion to the diversity in the means of mutual supply.
Suggestions of an opposite complexion are ever to be deplored, as unfriendly to the steady pursuit of one great common cause, and to the perfect harmony of all the parts.
Hamilton fucked us with his central bank. But he also set up the greatest economic system the world has seen in 2500 years.
So I design car and truck after-treatment for a living so I’m daily force-fed this horse manure. The Fed and EPA has created this market for BEV (battery electric vehicles) out of thin air and has convinced themselves that it’s a mature enough product and that there is somehow a market for them, though they somehow forget that it’s heavily subsidized. What’s depressing is the obvious lack of basic math. What it comes down to is energy density and cost. When I last looked, battery technology is only to the point that it has 100x LESS energy density than ICE. That means, by weight, gas and diesel are 100x BETTER than EV. And when EV finally does catch up, the costs are going to be astronomical for a considerable amount of time. So while pound for pound, they will one day be the same (in say 30 years) cost still favors hydrocarbons. So a ban on ICE is the ONLY way the government can ensure that EV completely replaces EV before their grandchildren’s grandchildren are born.
*EV replaces ICE
I don’t think it can catch up. The fools force-feeding this crap down our gullets believe they can actually circumvent physics itself through subsidies and shenanigans. Without a technological breakthrough so earth-shattering that it will probably be illegal, there is no way they are going to beat the ICE. I do hope something comes along that can, but without some sort of nuclear quark-divider engine that doesn’t create black holes and irradiate everyone in sight, I don’t know how it can happen.
Moonbat and company are insane. I periodically camp and go surfing mostly in San Diego county, and there is a severe shortage of rest areas on the I-5. Late at night and early in the morning you see big rigs parked on every available spot on the I-5. How in the world do they expect to transport goods and services w/o the ICE? The economy would collapse and people would starve. How do you spell Venezuela? Crazy, crazy, crazy.
Hi Vic,
Not insane. They are arrogant, self-centered pricks. Moonbat and co. will not suffer. We will.
Exactly right, they are not insane or stupid.
They know exactly what they are doing to us and why.
And the sick fuckers also sit around and laugh at us jumping through ever more ridiculous hoops that they set up.
What choice do we have? We either jump through the hoops, get raped in prison, or get murdered. We literally have 3 choices without upending society. Obey, Prison-rape, or Death.
God, I need a drink.
Hi Meggido,
I do, too.
My policy is to avoid interacting with them to the extent that’s feasible. This includes evading a “hero” rather than pulling over. I do not counsel this as it’s something to be done only if you are pretty damned sure you can lose the bastard and that he hasn’t got any way to ID you.
I live in a very rural area, which helps. All I have to do, really, is break contact – get out of his sight – and then disappear into any of many windy roads/woods/fields.
I used to pull over – when it was reasonable to do so.
It no longer is.
Your life is literally in peril.
Secondly, your livelihood. These bastards will ruin you over some technical foul infraction. I am working on an article about this ugly business. Should be done over the weekend sometime… stay tuned…
I’ve always wanted to construct some sort of mechanism that would swap my license plate with a decoy triggered by a button push to aid in escape. Unfortunately, I will not be outrunning a pig in an old Toyota any time soon regardless if I had such a device.
Looking forward to the article good sir.
As Eric noted, the best course of action is to withdraw, as much as possible.
But there will come a time when a choice will have to be made, by all of us, to fully submit or die.
They make their money crawling over the backs of the productive class. And the old saying of How do you know a politician is lying? is as pertinent as ever.
Get ready for the $10,000 bicycle.
they exist already.
Yeah, but so do the hundred dollar ones, and while they are not fast, handle like pigs, and don’t hold up, they can still be used to get from here to there with a modicum of reliability. I put lots of miles on the bikes I have, use them as often as possible instead of driving. Long trips, hauling lots of stuff, nasty weather, though, and a bike ain’t such a good means of getting about.