America is slowing down. How long before it stops entirely?
Literally stops?
A reader who is a commercial driver wrote to tell me about how his work vehicle is monitored and controlled via the saaaaaaaaafety tech that is coming soon to your garage and may already be there, just waiting to be fully enabled.
His work van “fusses” at him for”hard cornering, idling too long, hard acceleration and hard braking.” And – of course – for not wearing his seatbelt, even for a moment.
It actually does more than “fuss” at him.
It narcs him out to his employer for accelerating or braking or cornering in a manner considered by the onboard nanny to be too “hard” for its tastes. Which means, paralytically hypercautious. Imagine a paranoid 95-year-old with trifocals, encoded and embedded in your vehicle.
My reader describes “weekly beratings” by the fleet manager of his company about drivers’ “scores” – which are calculated based upon the driver’s mindless adherence to every traffic law and the onboard nanny’s programming parameters regarding the quickness of his vehicle’s movements.
Or rather, their lack.
The slower, the better – ipso facto.
And so, the drivers do. Slow down. What choice do they have? The onboard granny nanny is the mobile equivalent of the cube farm Human Resources frau who will have your job if her always-cocked ear should hear an off-color comment or even an innocent malaprop – the malaprop defined by the triggered aggrieved. One must walk on eggshells at work – and drive as though there were an egg under the accelerator (and brake) pedal while working.
For the same reason.
My correspondent explains: “I used to drive with the flow of traffic” (which of course means he was “speeding,” since everyone, just about, drives at least a couple of miles-per-hour faster than the invariably ridiculous and always arbitrary speed limit) “ . . . but now have to be the asshole going too slow for conditions. I also now have to turn into parking lots, etc., at the speed of” (here it comes) “a 95-year-old Florida” retiree – which means stopping in the road before turning off the road, among other things.
“I feel my safety (the real thing) is in danger despite this being sold as saaaaaaaaaaaafety equipment,” he adds. “I am in danger of being rear-ended now” – as well as an early death from the soul-crushing misery of it, he might have added.
“You should warn others that a ‘work vehicle’ may now be limited” – because closely monitored by the GPS Granny Nanny – “and the driver neutered to drive like a robot.”
Indeed. A very slow robot.
You may have seen such vehicles – emblazoned with placards proudly touting that “safety is my priority” and that the vehicle’s speed (and other such) are being monitored.
Note the resignation and defeat on the face of the meatsack behind the wheel.
“Driving was one of the reasons I loved my job,” my reader writes. “I’ve always had an affinity towards driving. I still own a 1990 Miata (supercharged) that I’ve had for 18 years. I’ve been ‘driving’ since I had my first bicycle. I loved going everywhere and enjoying the ride in between. The joy of driving has been taken away from me. I drive 5k miles per month on average and the last 5k have been miserable. Watching the speedo like a hawk is akin to reading text messages constantly. The naturalness of driving has been subverted to trying to not get in trouble. My eyes are less on the road now than they were when looking far out ahead for the cop sitting on the side of the road – because the cop is now riding shotgun with me.” 
My reader concludes with something insightful:
“I feel this is being forced on us to make our driving behavior so intolerable to others that they acquiesce to future demands for self-driving vehicles.”
Indeed, again.
Create a problem, then offer the solution. A generation of idiot-proofing cars has created a pool of idiot drivers. The (manufactured) Problem.
Solution? Take the driver out of the equation – on the presumption of everyone being an idiot. Then make the now-automated vehicles – not just the commercial ones, yours and mine, too – drive idiotically.
Trifocals and Depends for all!
This will, of course, create new Problems – including a slow-motion society (and economy) in which less and less gets done and what does get done gets done torturously. There is a reason why Vodka was the national beverage of the old Soviet Union and partaken of regularly.
It took the edge off.
All of this is due to the Safety Cult, which obsesses about “risk” in the same way that ‘50s McCarythism obsessed about communism,with an interesting correlation: Risk-obsession will have the same effect as formal communism. We will no longer control anything but rather be controlled – in the interests of Our Safety rather than the Proletariat.
But the dictatorship feels pretty much the same.
. . .
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I used to be in the pizza delivery business, and still read online forums for pizza-delivery drivers. I left the business less than ten years ago, but the amount of change in the business since then has made it nearly unrecognizable to me.
Case in point: Papa John’s has initiated the process of having its drivers’ behavior monitored by GPS. The vendor is called Drivosity. You’ve seen the signs magnetically attached to the tops of cars that show the name of pizza-delivery companies? They’re now being modified with the installation of a tracking device. PJ’s has stated to its management staff, including the lowest rung- the manager of each store- that the goal is to get every single PJ’s driver to have a cartopper that can track the way he drives. The reason? Lowered insurance costs.
Just like with the guy mentioned in Eric’s blog post, these trackers transmit real-time information on vehicle speed and- here’s the kicker- hard braking or swerving. It doesn’t see *why* the braking or swerving takes place. It doesn’t see the car or kid that suddenly darted into the driver’s path; it simply assumes that the driver was driving too fast for conditions. Each driver is scored daily- hell, scored in real time. Penalties for bad scores? Up to and including loss of job.
Not sure if I agree with the man mentioned in the blogpost about the acquiescence to self-driving vehicles, though. One of the major pizza-delivery companies- Domino’s, I think- has experimented with a self-driving vehicle to make deliveries, but the customer has to walk from his residence to the curb to get the merch. Those customers don’t *like* having to leave their residence.
It is my opinion that the auto-insurance cartel is pushing very, very hard to get the public accustomed to monitoring of commercial vehicles as a means to the end of getting the public accustomed to the idea of monitoring of personal vehicles also. The cartel is dangling the carrot of “lowered insurance costs.” Or, properly stated, insurance costs that don’t go up *quite* as fast as for those who refuse monitoring.
Safe driving as a goal? How can the cartel make money if everyone obeys the law all the time? Hell, how can the law-enforcement-revenue industry make money if everyone obeys the law all the time? The idea is catch you breaking the law so that you can be forced to pay. Every Single Time you break a rule, you’ll be dinged.
I am the person quoted in the article. And as well, once upon a time, I delivered pizzas to get me through college.
I do think you missed the point about self-driving vehicles as it was not meant as reference to pizza delivery. Of course, people only want to open their doors. They do not want to have to do any real labor further than opening their door. That is the whole idea behind the convenience of ordering overpriced pizza. Case in point, myself…. I live just a little too far out of the delivery areas of our town’s pizza places. Therefore; I have to meet them just down the road at an intersection. Unless I’m really not in the mood to make dinner on my own, I don’t do business with them because driving one mile or 15 miles is all the same to me. I have to get in my vehicle and drive somewhere to get pizza. At this point, what does delivery mean? Nothing. If I am in the mood for PJ pizza, I just order for pickup and drive to town. And since PJ opened in town, how many times have I ordered from them? Once. And they have been opened for several years now.
However; you finally get to the point trying to be made about self-driving cars and make the case succinctly. Once everyone has finally been forced to have these devices in their vehicles (starting with mandatory commercial vehicles and voluntary private vehicles), then folks will hit the “auto-pilot” button to keep from getting dinged for every lapse of concentration of the speedometer.
Since this article was published, the techs in my area have decided we aren’t going to let GPS change us. We are going to drive like we normally did. They may use it as a reason to not give us a raise (and they have been skimpy on raises for years anyways, and I suspect this is just another excuse they put on their belt to continue denying raises) but they aren’t going to fire us. They can’t replace us as quickly as they wish they could. We’ve all been good drivers before GPS as shown by our impeccable DMV records. It is not that hard in general terms to be within the performance parameters of the GPS as we were doing that anyways. However, speeding, hard cornering and braking, we aren’t getting upset that it beeps at us anymore for the rare instances that we need to so. We are operating now with the attitude that instead of beeping at us for hard braking, we should be getting pats on the back for not hitting the car that just cut in front of us and hard braked. Speeding? Yeah, screw em. We will be as mindful as possible but we are not going to be the slowpoke anymore. We are going to move with traffic as we are supposed to.
How did this change of attitude affect the company? We went from an overall score of 90.6 to 90.4. If we are in the 90s across the board nationally, then guess what? We are good drivers. And the constant complaint from the fleet manager is that our worst scores are in speeding and we need to slow down. I think its obvious that it isn’t just the techs in my area that no longer pay attention to the manager, its company wide.
Maybe we still are Americans and no matter how much they try to subjugate us, we will find ways to buck their tyranny.
J said “Once everyone has finally been forced to have these devices in their vehicles “…
Sad thing is, nobody is being forced; people will gladly tolerate such BS if it means saving $20 a year on their insurance, or getting some $10/hr. job. If even half the people had enough balls to tell them to shove this stuff, and wouldn’t go along with it, it would never come to fruition…but since few care about their own liberty, let alone ours, this stuff is rolled out gradually and “voluntarily”, until “everyone’s” with it, and then it is forced on us remaining loose nuts/defenders of liberty who wouldn’t go along.
What they hell ever happened to “Take this job and shove it!”? You can make more money mowing lawns or being a handyman (etc.( as most delivery drivers make; And even if one couldn’t…MANY of us are making substantially less than we could be if we had acquiesced and sold-out our principles for a convenience and trinkets….but we actually live better lives having not sold-out, because we are much freer than those who did- and we have avoided many subsequent pitfalls by resisting that first one (‘Cause one truly leads to another…and another…)
Your comment got me thinking. With this hard braking etc being penalized I think I now know how it fits. Society in the USA is IMO engineered for assholes by assholes. Considering that, how would a person be scored on monitoring? Would it score cutting someone off as negative or would it penalize the person who got cut off? Of course it does the later. Just like all the other teachings that tell us that right of way goes to the biggest a-hole. The person who threatens the collision if he doesn’t get to go first. His monitor won’t be triggered at all.
Brent, what you describe is the digital version of old analog tactics.
I remember many times back in NY, picking up a “junk” car in a nice expensive subdvision. As I’d hook-up the car, invariably somebody in a nice car, wearing a nice suit, would roll through the all-way stop, and get pinched by the porker in waiting.
Meanwhile, a few blocks down and across the highway, there was “the hood”, where there was never any lack of homies with warrants, and all sorts of crimes- real and gov’t-defined….. but why deal with people who may fight back, or who may summon the media or NAACP, when ya can stop harmless people who have never hurt a flea, and who actually pay their tickets? (Then at night, when the homies from the ‘hood rummage through thier yards and help themselves to whatever isn’t bolted down, and Mr. Upstsanding homeowner calls the pigs, for some reason, there’s never anything they can do- and the pig who sat in that intersection all day, vanishes at night).
nd to think our forbears refused to compy with the orders of that evil King George Three to disarm themselves, and those forbears did every thing they could to stand against, thwart, nullify, ignore, disobey, subvert, and tear down his edicts, taxes, laws, fatwas, general warrants, and such like…. that stuff today would be in the category of amusing nuisances. If their kind nad still been around back in about 1934 when the first real Laws of Stupid about firearms were made into not law but obeyed anyway they’d have started USING those BMG’s, Thompsons, gatlings, instead of paying the Mordita and registering them.
Amen, Tio!
As recently as the 1930’s, in of all places, California, residents of the Owens Valley took up arms to defend their property against the state, which decreed that it would steal their water by diverting it to Southern CA.- thus turning the once fertile Owens Valley into desert.
Gotta love it: The state can turn tens of thousands of square miles to desert when it suits their purposes….but they’ll persecute you for watering your lawn in the desert which they’ve created!
Unfortunately, the state prevailed, and stole the water. A few residents were prosecuted because some of the state’s thieves walked in front of their bullets. The residents lost the fight- but by and large, nothing happened to them for defending their God-given right to protect what was theirs.
Imagine that same scenario today! The media would be labeling them as “terrorists”; the feds would be dropping bombs; and every last person who so mujch as picked up a pea-shooter would be thrown under the jail, and everything they have confiscated……
I figure it is only a matter of time before Uber, Lyft, Grubhub, and Google’s drones will make pizza delivery as outsourced as Indian computer science graduates have computer support lines. It will probably make it faster as well, given the built-in navigational services for human drivers. Tips will be toast, if they aren’t already. I used to make more from tips when I was delivering pizza than I did from the commissions, and most of my managers avoided asking about them as long as I didn’t leave them in the cash bag.
Self-driving cars and use of drones for everyday stuff is a pipe dream. Remember Amazon’s drone delivery scheme? They were testing it out several years ago. Ya don’t hear any more about it, do ya?
It’ll never work…..and even if it could, the cost of maintaining the technology and buying/repairing/replacing the short-lived equipment would be far higher than paying someone to drive or using UPS.
Just like all the talk of living in colonies ‘opn the Moon’ when we were in indoctrination camp 50 years ago….this bullshit is pushed to make the masses envision some glorious high-tech future and accept all of the technology, despite it’s abvious social pitfalls- as if it “progress” and will “elevate the human condition”- while in reality, they just want the masses to be conditioned to that which will surveil and control their every action and thought.
Oooppss! The Amazon thing didn’t work out so good….but now Joe Sixpack thinks nothing of seeing the police drone hovering in front of his living room window….
Amazon can go fly a kite.. or a drone, right into one of those 80 foot blades on the wind generator charade game.
They started out as a platform for plain folks to sell books and media to a natioinwide audience. At that time only eBay had anything close. eBay has distinct lisings for each ITEM on offer, Amazon has generic listings for each product number, the only thing differentiating between sellers being price. That results in a dive to the bottom, then Amazon actually jumped in selling their own products… and undercutting Minimum Advertised Pricing from the manufacturers. The margins for retailers disappeared, Zon would rather make a nickel and get the sale than see a vendor listing with them make that nickel.. and Amazon get their bite. I’ve had stuff listed, and Zon and/or other vendors in response to Zon’s undercut pricing has a minus margin for me…. some items I’d be better off putting the stupid thing on the kerb with a ten dollar bill tucked into the carton flap, and walking away.
When it comes to their crazy (mis)calculation of “shipper allowance” to add to what the purchaser pays, that amount is tyically half what actual sipping costs, through THEM…. and they’ve pushed USPS so hard the shipping we DO pay when we buy it through Amazon (subsidised, remember) is a loss to USPS, AND it is still half again to twice what the buyer pays for delivery. Guess who eats the missing piece? Yup.. the seller. And NOW they’re taking their HUGE profits made by squeezing every cent they can ever time in every way, and they’re trying to create a delivery system that performs as well as USPS but at a lower cost…… Amazon need to decide whether they are a selling platform, a merchandiser, warehous company, or (now added) a trucking company. I would laugh when I see ol Jeffie Boy squandering megabux as he is wont to do, but the knowledge that such squandering comes out of part of what I SHOULD be getting but don’t. His business ethics stink.
Hi T,
Others have noted that we’re headed toward an unprecedented nexus – productivity increases without attendant wealth increases for the average person, via the robotics and the wholesale elimination of jobs. How this washes out is anyone’s guess. My guess is it will not wash out well.
I have long tried to point out that automated-trucks, taxis, food production, manufacturing, etc………… all have one inherent problem. If there are no worker making wages, who is going to buy the products?
Oh, right. The Elite, without need of what were the productive class, now useless eaters. Guess what their fate is.
Much of what was called Science Fiction should be renamed, Science Prediction. Plenty of stories out there that lay out exactly what will happen when no labor class is required. We are living it.
One problem with that, Anon (T?):
The elite would not remain the elite for long without the labor and consumerism of the working classes- hence the continual importation of cheap labor/baby-makers into the US and Europe as our birthrate plummets and why no politician dares to stop it.
Labor will not be required once the robots take over.
Consumerism. Yes, under the system today. But the Elite have been sucking up all the wealth for decades. There is little left to suck. None, once the robots take over the labor.
Now I am not saying this will work out well or is a good idea for anyone, including the Elite. But how many obviously ridiculously bad ideas have been implemented by the same Elite over the decades? Being rich does not make them smart or capable of long term thinking. In fact the inbreeding, disconnection with reality and skating by on nepotism seems to make them kind of clueless.
Where I think we are heading is towards an elimination of the working class entirely, followed by the Elites splitting into the Super-Elite and the average-Elite (already done to some extent). Human nature seems to likes having someone ‘lesser’ to kick around. There will always be the ‘in’ crowd and shit upon, even if they are wealthy. You can see it today in how they eat their own regularly in politics.
I think the imported lower classes are just there to accelerate the destruction of the current system and to kill off the working class folks when the SHTF. If you come from a country with a ~80IQ where killing your foe with a machete is the norm, your average suburbanite worker drone will not have a chance. They will be trying to reason with them right up to the machete being planted in their forehead.
Just my predictive view anyway.
Exactly. No different than a leech.
That’s already happening with many jobs. A longtime local journalist had to quit the station because they required her spend extra time on social media without a raise.
Companies are modern slaveholders. If you’re unwilling to devote your entire life to them, you’re out of a job.
Morning, Handler –
This is Pravda (truth). I am glad – eternally grateful – my instinct for self-preservation kicked in early. I bailed out of the system almost 20 years ago and moved to the Woods 15 years ago. Had I not done so, I’d be a drone, too – like so many other people.
This guy is a commercial driver, but it doesn’t sound like he has a Commercial Drivers License or drives anything requiring it. The day when true commercial vehicles get such a nanny is when most of them will be lacking a driver. I can’t imagine a dedicated truck driver putting up with such silliness for crappy pay by the mile. Minimum wage would be a raise for the vast majority of them.
This puts me in mind of the days I lived in Southern Calif.. my school years. Went down into Tiijuana a couple times to play turista just for fun. Didn’t understand the culture there much at all.
I did learn that almost all the trucks and busses in Mexico were independently owned owner-operated, and most times the owner had his client base and took loads that suited him, or ran bus routes he liked. Diesel fuel in those days was typically 19 cents/gallon in Orange COunty, a tad less in Mexico. Once in a while we’d have trouble getting certain things that came up from Mexico… word was that the truck drivers were on strike. WHY? Fuel prices had risen to the shameful price in US dollar equivalent, of two bits the gallon. Oh the HORROR!!!! So, whenever that target was hit at the pumps, the drivers parked their own trucks, content to sit at home or do odd jobs instead of losing so much on fuel that was too dear. The government and oil companies would huff and puff and declare THIS TIME we’re not gonna give in. Its two bits or no fuel!!!! But as no one could get anywhere, and the store shelves ran empty, and society began to shut down at every level, the fuel prices did.. guess what? Back down to the nineteen cents mark. Having half a milion independent non-union not organised hey its MJY truck/bus I’ll drive it when and where I want to, bugger off drivers suddenly decide its time to park their rig….. there is an untenable situation. We all thought that pattern was pretty ridiculous form north of the line, but now I understand.
I remember maybe two, three years back, the heavy vehicles got parked again down that way when the fuel kept climing.. but this time all the fuel is prodiced and marketed by a govnerment owned/run entity. They tried to hold out, but the drivers got em again. This time I cheered… YAY, they won again.
Its amazing the power a bazillion ants can wield…..
Tio,
I knew this guy what[sic] moved to Honduras c. 10 years ago. Same deal. Only there, I think it was a new fuel tax. The cab drivers in the capital brought the city to a halt- parking their cars in intersections and such. The fuel tax that was supposed to take effect, suddenly was cancelled!
What people here don’t realize, is that here, the tyrants have become very good at micro-managing and using violence on a small personal scale through a long-established network of armed government agencies, with ultimate power over property and person.
By contrast, there, they have brute force when needed- i.e. machine guns and soldiers- but they dare not use them for micro-managing, as not only would they have full-fledged civil war on their hands; not only would such provoke intervention by foreign powers; but it would destroy their fragile countries and the order of things; power structure, etc. and the very tyrants who would order such a thing, would probably end up losing their power and being among the victims.
So they save the brute force for the “big things”, and there being no (or very little) infrastructure in place to nudge the citizenry and use violence on a smaller scale…there is thus much more freedom, and the people have much more of a say, and are still feared a good deal- which is what it all comes down to: When citizens fear the government, we have tyranny; when government fears the citizenry, we have some liberty.
Stoopit Americans have not only tolerated the implementation of this infrastructure of tyrannical micro-management- but they’ve aided and abetted it, thinking that such is “helping them” and “protecting them from criminals”- when in reality, the ones who control that infrastructure view THEM as the criminals!
Stoopit Americans have not only tolerated the implementation of this infrastructure of tyrannical micro-management- but they’ve aided and abetted it…
I think that’s for a few reasons. One is incrementalism. Two, we’re too affluent. Three, our people are dumbed down. Four, they’re more concerned about the game than the Constitution.
One, unlike when Stalin or Hitler came to power, our gov’t didn’t take away our rights all at once; they just took away a little freedom here, a little there. Instead of tossing the frog into an already boiling pot of water from which he’d jump, they turned up the heat a degree or two every now and then. When the heat is turned up gradually, the frog never knows what’s happening; he boils to death and does nothing.
Secondly, we’re too affluent for our own good. Our people have gotten soft-too soft to fight the tyranny being imposed upon them. When people are affluent to the point of wanting nothing, they no longer have the hunger to do what they need to do.
Three, our folks have been dumbed down beyond belief. I mean, AOC talked about the “three chambers of gov’t”, and then proceeded to say that they were the House, the Senate, and the White House. Uh, she only named TWO branches-duh! The House and Senate are both part of the legislative branch. I read a while back that a significant number of college students can’t tell you the century in which our Civil War occurred! Hate to say it, but AOC is the rule, not the exception, of people 30 and younger…
Finally, more Americans are concerned about ‘the game’ or “Dancing with the Stars” than they are the Constitution and the daily assaults on the same.
***”Incrementalism”***
Exactly, Mark!
That is why even though many places which have no regard for liberty, such as many third-world countries, still offer much more freedom than the First World: Because we have had the infrastructure of “education” [propaganda] and a vast media[propaganda], and BS electoral process[“”…”], etc. in place to one degree or another for c. 100 years niow, pushing this BS.
So they nibble away at our liberties little by little; and few can even keep track of how much they are losing- or even care. And it takes place over the course of several generations- so that the 3rd or 4th generation is the total opposite of what theiur ancestors were.
Imagine 75 years ago if they had arrested a parent for letting their kid walk to the park; or if CPS would have kidnapped a child because it didn’t consider a condition in one’s home to be quite right……the “social worker” would likely have been shot on site- if not by the parent, then by the neighbors.
But if ya start by publicizing the taking of some kid who was horribly abused- be it real or made-up….then just keep adding to it… “Oh, those poor kids were freezing; they had no heat- therefore not having central heat shall result in your kids being confiscated…for theirsaaaaafety, of course”…etc. etc. and here we are.
So, many of these other countries are only now starting the process; just starting the indoctrination. It will still take a long time to fully make the people compliant, and implement the levels of propaganda and control needed to turn a functional society into a glob of brainwashed idiots who cheer their own enslavement and demise; and if they try to do it too quickly- whether via the coercion of violence, or merely implementing scads of restrictive laws too quickly, it would be like throwing the frog into the already boiling water.
They have to take the time to increase the heat gradually, so the frogs don’t realize it and jump ship.
“Finally, more Americans are concerned about ‘the game’ or “Dancing with the Stars” than they are the Constitution and the daily assaults on the same.”
As I’ve said before (and I’ll say it again), “sports” have officially become political events as opposed to pastimes that one could legitimately enjoy every once in a while. And PLEASE, don’t get me started on “reality television”. *shudders*
“Instead of tossing the frog into an already boiling pot of water from which he’d jump, they turned up the heat a degree or two every now and then. When the heat is turned up gradually, the frog never knows what’s happening; he boils to death and does nothing.”
Best…analogy…ever! You, sir, hit the nail right on the head with that one!
Hi bg,
“As I’ve said before (and I’ll say it again), “sports” have officially become political events…”
Well, they are paid quite well by the government to push this crass jingoism.
https://www.truthdig.com/articles/pentagon-paid-nfl-displays-patriotism/
Cheers,
Jeremy
I participated in the first strike in ’75 against high fuel prices. Most “company” drivers didn’t and many companies even hired more people and trucks to make more money. It was definitely designed to be a power shift. 75% of independent truckers folded in 75 and 75% of those remaining folded the next year.
Not much you can do when a full 2 day(and some over)run left you with $20 after the price of fuel. I did just about everything including driving a tractor for a farmer, doing construction work, just whatever I could find. Meanwhile the truck sat with a For Sale sign in the windshield. I was lucky that a friend had a new contract with a recycling yard and needed a good truck. I got out of it with not a dollar of profit to show, just a paid off banknote.
Ocho Sur, that fuel price hike was a deliberate plot, I think by the oil companies, to change their financial status. I lived in NOrthern California, coast, (Eureka) through the early 70’s. Fuel was always higher up that way for some reason, so we always filled up in Santa Rosa on the way north to home. The crunch began to hit So California in the fall, if memory serves aright. I headed to So Cal for Christmas with the family, knowing the shortages down there were severe. We had enough fuel up north, prices were climbing but the fuel was there. I had cobbled together an old Euro Karmann Ghia Typ 3, the 1600 in it was dead so I tossed in a slightly rehabbed 40 horse upright. It ran fine, gutless, but the Euro car was geared high. That crazy thing would cruise at 75 or 80 and get 40 MPG. Don’t try and climb a hill, though. Considering the shortages (I’d seen in the news how the new I-5 from about Stockton to Bakersfield was a desert….. almost no fuel available. SO.. I dropped an extra petrol tank into the front boot, plumbed it to draw into the stock one, then put two five gallon metal cans up there too. (just make sure you don’t HIT anything…. ) I knocked about Orange County for two weeks, saw the half mile long lines at the bowsers, but observed something else that was VERY englightening: multipe times I watched as a 40 foot tanker pulled onto the apron at a fuel station… a CLOSED fuel station, mostly the Big Name ones, dumped their entire trailerload into the underground tanks, then drove off….. the whiles, the station across the street had a queue stretched round the block, signs advising that there was a ten gallon limit… while TEH THOUSAND GALLONS had just been dropped across the street. I went by next day, expecting to see the newly supplied vendor open for business… instead I saw ANOTHER truck unlaoding. At that point I realised we were being scammed… and guessed that when fuel prices hit a buck a gallon we’d get all we wanted. They had steadily climbed from 19 c/gallon in October to 24 c/gallon in December, a 25% increase that had everyone hollering, and kept cilming on into the summer of 1975… the climb ending at.. $1.00/gallon. A 400% increase in about ten months. Supplies were still short, but available. Manyplaces still had ten gallon limits, And long lines. Imoved to Vancouver BC in June 75 (not draft related) and we had all the fuel we watned there, though prices were signficantly higher up there, as they always had been, but stable. Spring 76 I had to come back to Calif for a brother’s wedding. I had acquired an ancient Mercedes 190 Diesel saloon, which returned 40 mpg in local driving, and a solid 45 on highways. Knowing they were continueing with the Fuel Games down south, I dropped the 35 gallon tank from a school bus I’d scrapped out into the Benz Boot, wired/plumbed in an old Lucas fuel pump to refill the main tank. Tossed in a couple 5 gallon cans, and drove south. Still plemty of closed stations along the way. Famlly all wondered how I managed to make the thousand mile trip during the “fuel shortage”. I explained.. Yep, he IS his Daddy’s Son, sure enough. On the return north I was calculating how much fuel I had left, and thought I might be a bit short. I pulled in to a log truck fuel depot in Southern Oregon and peaded with the chap there to sell me ten gallons. He did… made it home to Vancouver in good order, the “fuel crisis” being mainly a subject of conversation for me. Everyone else’s life seemed to revolve round it.
I have often wondered how it was that no government agency ever decided to “look into” the certain collusion and the entire charade. Things stabilised that summer. I bought an old Kenworth conveintional tractor, moved to Portland Oregon in early 1980 and put that old beast to work. Made good money for a year, diesel was a solid 70 c/gallon that year, I guess shipping rated had adjusted for the increase in fuel prices. I ran that gig for a year and a half and decided I had rode that horse long enough, and sold off my equipment.. JUST AS the Feds were “deregulating” trucking. Runs I was getting $450 for pulling had gone down to paying half that. Again, who ever looked into the certain collusion? No one I ever heard about.
Truckers in the US never played the Mexico game… EVERYONE parked their rigs (trucks and busses) when fuel hit certain point, EVERYTHING stopped for a few days, until the fuelprice dropped back to where it had been before, everything started moving again. Lather, rinse, repeat. It worked for them, but WE never tried it.
Aren’t all businesses deliberate plots to change the financial status of their owners?
You might have turned a profit on the sale of the truck if you hadn’t already paid it to the bank as interest. Dave Ramsey has become a multimillionaire partially by serially explaining this to people who, apparently, wouldn’t have ever figured it out on their own. He has made more from being a landlord.
You are correct. I do not have a CDL. It is just a light vehicle, hence the word “van” used in the article.
You couldn’t pay me to have a CDL. However; with the granny nanny, I am getting passed by 18 wheelers in disgust with my pace on a regular basis.
It should be noted that right now, Allstate is advertising for their customers to voluntarily put these in their vehicles. Next phase: not voluntary, but mandatory.
Even if it doesn’t affect you now. It will at some point.
A “van” is a unrefrigerated box trailer.
They aren’t passing you in disgust. They are paid by the mile and you don’t cover those fast enough for them to make a living.
Allstate is also advertises that if you go without getting into an accident for 6 months, they’ll give you a discount. I wouldn’t give a renewal to anyone who couldn’t do that for a 6 month insurance term.
Hi Vonu,
I’ve gone without an accident for 30 years… where’s my discount? By any reasonable standard, someone like me shouldn’t be paying more than $100 per year for “coverage” … which is the most I would freely pay, were I free to say no to the insurance mafia.
I haven’t been involved in an accident or convicted of a moving violation in over 40 years. By any reasonable standard, they should pay us to carry their insurance.
Some intelligent insurance actuary should figure out that people like us should get annuities instead of insurance policies. After mature, no further premium payments, kinda of like a inverse mortgage, albeit I doubt they’d ever agree to pay us to not be a hazard on the road.
Me too, Eric.
What really kills me, is my best friend used to get into an accident about once per year- always his fault; usually resulting in totaling his vehicle and others; then he had a dry period for a few years, with just minor skirmishes- like hitting fized objects in parking lots and damaging his own vehicle (And I’m the one with bad eyes!)- and his insurance is the same as mine- me- with no tickets..no accidents; never caused the ins. co. to pay me or anyone else a dime.
That is what happens to a free-market when the government gets involved.
If you go too long without an accident, the insurance mafia will jack up your rates, not reduce them. What’s the ‘reasoning’ behind this? Sooner or later the law of averages will catch up, and you’ll have an accident, according to their actuarial tables. Ergo, they increase your rates.
Funny thing is, MM, they didn’t increase my rates- My rates are about as low as can be- instead, they reduced my friend’s rates down to my level!
I think the reasoning is that they only consider one’s driving record for last x number of years. So my friend hasn’t had an accident in 3 years….he egts the same consideration I do, who has only had one accident in 30 years- and never a chargeable accident (Other guy pulled out of a stop sign right in front of me- didn’t even have time to hit my brakes- and that was 27 years ago). [He thought it was a 4-way stop-ski….Polaks should not be allowed to drive 😉 ]
Morning, Nunz!
I despise mandatory insurance of all kinds precisely because it is mandated – which is the clue that you don’t need it. There is nothing in this world I genuinely need which I refuse to purchase – and I am pretty sure the principle applies generally.
Hi Mark,
Lately I have been giving serious thought to “riding dirty” – just cancelling all of it. I tire of being forced to send a large portion of the limited funds I have to a mafia. I long ago stopped paying the home insurance mafia – which is one of the few forms of insurance extortion one is still allowed to legally not pay. It has saved me – so far – at least $25,000 (which kinda sorta makes up for the property tax I’m forced to pay).
But the vehicle insurance still chaps my ass.
I’ve established – by decades of never filing a claim nor having a claim filed against me – that my “risk profile” is damned near nil, regardless of my penchant for driving fast. I am either exceptionally lucky or I am an exceptionally careful/competent – and therefore, safe – driver.
Yet I am forced to pay and pay and pay . . . because some control freak worries I might have an accident. Well, using the same logic, I might also crap my pants at any moment, too. Should I also be forced to wear Depends – just in case?
Eric,
One thing you CAN do is use a higher deductible; that’ll reduce the amount you pay, since you’re volunteering to take on a larger chunk of any claim yourself. For example, my brother has a $10k deductible on his home insurance. You could do that with your cars too.
Hi Mark,
I have – it’s still extortionate! See here: https://www.ericpetersautos.com/2019/05/16/riding-dirty-daydreams/
Anything spent on more than the state minimum is generally a waste of money unless it pays for a rider to protect you from the uninsured.
Comprehensive is the most profitable part of automobile insurance.
Hey Ya, Eric!
One problem with “riding dirty” is that it encourages people to flee when there is an accident- whether one is the victim or the cause of the accident- because the Nazi’s who have made insurance mandatory, have also enacted various schemes to “punish” those who manage to maintain some degree of freedom and personal choice by evading their dictates.
So if we get “caught” without the stipulated product which they require us to purchase, we often face jail; impound; fines; and of course, a retro-active charge by the state per day for every day our mafia payment “lapsed”, at a greatly inflated rate, no less. [How they can do this- because the state DOES NOT compensate the victim when he is hiot by an uninsured driver who is incapable of/refuses to take financial responsibility- is beyond me- and just shows how disingenuous and corrupt their laws are!].
Even if we are just stopped, or encounter an unconstitutional “roadblock” we can be victimized by those penalties…. [How long before they enact the same scenario with Obozocare, and other things?]
And the irony is, that such laws actually encourage irresponsibility- both by making it more likely that someone involved in an accident will flee; and by costing them a great deal of money if they stay -because after the state gets through collecting all of their extortion, there may well be nothing left for the victim; Ditto if the uninsured person ends up in jail.
Just like the War On [some] Drugs and everything else…..the government is either the source of real crime, or makes it worse.
We’ve driven safely for decades…and yet we are forced to pay tens of thousands of dollars over the course of those years, as if we had caused actual damages. So what incentive is there [other than moral!] to being responsible and paying attention, when you end up paying the same whether you cause harm or not? Either way, you must “pay your insurance”. So my friend who had many accidents, pays a few dollars more for that insurance for a few years- which for him is a bargain, because it was far less than if he had to pay for the damages he caused to others and his own vehicles…and after a few short years…his rates return to being the same as mine.
So, if I didn’t personally care of my own volition, why would I be careful and competent?
Such seems to be the goal of most government “solutions”- discourage personal responsibility; punish the responsible and competent; and redistribute accountability (as well as wealth) so the innocent end up paying for the harm that others cause, while those who actually caused the harm are largely relieved of responsibility/consequences…as long as they “are in compliance with the law”)
And what really kills me, is that 60 years ago, when ‘mandatory’ insurance was just starting to be imposed in many places, there was at least debate about it. Now, it is as if the matter has been settled and everyone just accepts it as normal, as, apart from the few like us, there is no longer any debate- everyone just accepts it as perfectly normal and fine!
Hey Eric,
Bastiat’s essay “What is Seen and what is Unseen” is perhaps the most important, but most overlooked, economic treatise. What we never see is what would have emerged on the market absent the intervention, in this case mandating coverage and preventing regional competition.
Absent the mandate, demonstrably safe drivers would likely be offered significantly lower rates, for the simple reason that the insurance providers would be forced to compete against a zero price option (deciding to have no insurance), as opposed to a possibly lower priced option, coupled with the time and energy required to find it.
It also seems likely that, absent the mandate, insuring the driver, as opposed to the car, would be commonplace. The legal right to opt out completely would force these companies to address the preferences and concerns of their customers directly. It seems likely that many people would start to wonder why insurance is tied to a particular vehicle, instead of a driver. After all, a single person can only drive one vehicle at a time.
What we have lost, as individuals and as society, due to rent-seeking regulations, is incalculable and likely to be more extreme than any of us can imagine. One particularly tragic example is the destruction of Lodge practice that I and Brent have highlighted here many times. Had this system been allowed to develop, it is likely that even the poorest in society could afford good quality health care.
Regulation, mandates, licensing requirements, code standards, etc… are NEVER about protecting the “consumer”, they are about protecting the established players from competition and providing a cudgel to GovCo in case any player in a “protected” industry steps out of line.
Cheers,
Jeremy
All this was inevitable. Next step will be electronic tickets emailed to your employer for “violating” whatever traffic rule you broke wherever you were driving – and this will be used to FIRE EMPLOYEES. GPS already allows fleets to track where their drivers go & how long it takes them to get there. Add in violations and fuel consumption and you have perfect, textbook reasons to fire people. McCarthy was right.
Before they were banned(?) years ago (I guess they triggered children’s mental health advocate-ninnies), I used to chuckle every time I saw a yellow diamond-shaped caution sign with a small human’s silhouette and the legend “Slow children ahead.”
I think I’ll start up a company to make similar signs that read “Slow drivers ahead.” They’ll be needed everywhere.
the “slow” descriptor applies both to their velocity as they slowly wend their way, but also to their, uhm, mental state…. slow in the head.
Can’t be assaulted by too many forced decisions in such rapid succession. Need time to “observe, identify, y, evaluate, respond”.
Sometimes the signals just don’t travel quickly enough to do this in the time allowed when travelling at the posted speed limit.
T, got behind one this afternoon. Small suv type thing with that “caution” angled black and yellow stuff along the bumper and more of it in the endgate with a “how am I driving 800 number”.
I gotta be honest, not worth a damn. 58 in a 75 that you can see far enough but all the striping has been continued where not needed. Going downhill traffic was approaching and then I was close to my turn. Screw em, I’ll wait. Then that fateful moment when the signal came on, going my way. So I got another 1+ wait and finally nailed it and got around………”her”. Not surprised at all since I saw it had some corporate emblem on the side for some sort of insurance of one sort or another.
This person is so cowed you can feel the paranoia coming from the vehicle. I almost pulled her over and searched her. She might have had some good drugs…by the way she was driving and at that point, I needed some myself.
Women follow rules obsequiously- that’s probably why there was such a push to get them into the ‘workplace’. Follow rules, and rat-out those who can actually think and reason and respond appropriately.
Hi Marcus,
Indeed… though I am determined to fight all this, to the last shell if it comes to that.
This is the sign we need:
https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSS71kEZKWH3htbCwRYBah1WH_3F_JRUdXPuhrHu6-FHqK8hCpDBw
“Baby on Board” signs made me want to accelerate up to their bumpers. So did “Honor Student” signs.
Those “honor student” stickers just make me wanna whistle for the school bully. What the hey- they’ll both follow their respective roles through the rest of their lives; the honor student will go through life following every rule imposed on him by men; and the bully will become a cop.
Only bumper sticker I ever wanted (But wouldn’t get, ’cause it’s a tasd blasphemous- even thouigh true) is:
“JESUS LOVES YOU
(everyone else thinks you’re an asshole)”
school bullies are the capos of the institution known as public school.
School bullies are not there to push people into being independent. They are there to enforce the institutional and social order against those who are independent. To make them at the very least go along to get along. There’s a reason why schools punish kids who stand up to bullies. Bullies are part of the institutional order. Muscle with plausible deniability for the formal administration.
When it became widely known that standing up to bullies schools started zero tolerance. Why? To protect their assets.
Today’s anti-bullying efforts are at most a method to replace the traditional bully with other forms of institutional and social enforcement. In other words they are nothing more than BS that changes how kids are bullied into conforming. Keep in mind that’s only a best case for them, reality will of course be different.
Hey Bobster et al: ever see one of those “My kid can beat up your honor student” bumper stickers? Those aren’t just good for a chuckle, but for a full-blown LOL.
I’ve seen em…. and sorta chuckled a bit. Cause I’ve know a small handful of honour students who are also very skilled practitioiners of various combat arts…. one fifteen year old super cute gal was state champion wrestler, and her Dad owns and runs a martial arts school where she not only trains, but helps teach. I’d like to see that “my kid” try and take on this little cutie pie because, or in spite of, the fact she’s an honour student. She graduated high school at the top of her clas (about 600 kids?) and was high scorer in wrestling, not to mention being a black belt in a couple of styles of hand to hand jujitsu, wai kwan do, that sort of thing . Her little sister last I knew had followed in her footsteps….. that would be one go-round I’d love to watch. Oh, her Dad and two uncles are also top notch handgunners, so she’s been working on that too. She’s far better than I’ll ever be. Too bad Nannie won’t let her carry till she’s 21. SHe does own at least one handgun, and is VERY good with it.
Tio, remember when men used to be like that?
Now that few are…the women have to assume that role. Sad. It ruins both genders.
Reminds me of a favorite quote from Seinfeld:
George: “You think a couple of men could build a cabin?”
Jerry:” Yeah, a couple of men could. ….We couldn’t.”
McCarthy was right.
“He freed a lotta people, but it seems the good die young,” in his case, at 48.
You think this is bad? In Europe they are already setting things up so you CANNOT speed. The car will just follow the speed limit.
So yeah, zero fun is possible.
Hi Alan,
Yes, in re speed limiters – “active” ones that don’t merely limit how high a car’s top speed is, but restrict how fast it can go relative to speed limits. Thus, the car’s effective top speed corresponds to whatever the maximum is, legally. In the U.S., this would mean no car could travel faster than 85 MPH anywhere.
makes perfect sense from the throne of the Nannie State. Cheaper, less mess, universally effective, than “the old way”, which was the deployment of guns, spy networks, ratlines…… now technology IS the oppressor, programmed, of course, by a nazi near you.
You cannot win with these people! Drive normal, get yelled at, rack with the disciplinary actions and they fire you for cause. Follow the GPS granny nanny, slow down, now deal with late deliveries and getting yelled for for being late and riding the overtime and get fired for cause. It is a heads we win, tails you lose racket.
I picked up a load of lumber at the local building supply store with my 1978 Ford 10 wheeler, left it idling while I strapped my load. Delivery driver with a new semi pulled up. He says that old truck sure runs nice and I replied yes that’s a 6-71 Detroit. Well he had no clue what that meant but he went on a 5 minute rant about how he hated his new truck with all the sensors and speed limiter.
Hi G7,
And it’s not just you guys – commercial drivers. This stuff is making its way into new cars – I test drive them, so see it before most do. – and will, if not stomped, end driving as we knew it within the next five years.
Turns my stomach; makes my teeth ache..
G…..well, gee….a 6 71 Detroit eh? Now and again I have to watch a YouTube of an old truck running a Detroit. The damn things are bullet-proof….and their sound is addictive.
Knew an old man long ago with a conventional KW with locks on the hood. It was a Detroit but he wouldn’t tell anyone what it was. One day a lot of guys started giving him hell for being so secretive so he opened the hood and behold, there sat a 12V71…..and not with the requisite 2 blowers but 4 of them. It had marine injectors and some other work(too bad he didn’t sub turbos for the other blowers since they did on some engines. He said it was a 160mph truck. That should get your blood pumping.
Another thing I liked about the old iron was no idiot-proofing so dual gearboxes were common. A Spicer 4X5 is a thing of beauty. Some of the old crowd still run such. My BIL ran a Freightliner back when they were all COE. It had an 8V 71 with a Spicer 5X6. It was an oilfield truck and he always had a lower gear. I used to like the Road Ranger 15 speed with the 5 speeds that were under-drive. Now the 18 speed is the thing with only 17% difference between the last 8 gears. You can always find the best fuel mileage gear after you’ve been driving one for a while.
BTW, my first truck was a GMC 9500 with a 6-71 and a Road Ranger 10 sp. A 13 sp would have made it better.
Here’s a 12V71 Detroit in a Brockway truck: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQnA6nsgZEo
Here’s a 6L71 in a 1980 Crown school bus. Now THAT sounds good! Enjoy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7BFvVoXEX8
Here’s a 6-71 Detroit with a 10 spd Fuller tranny in an 82 LN 9000. This guy can row some gears, baby! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QbYwzWREinU
Listen to this Cat purrrrrr!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CY7t8ow2gOM
God, I miss those Detroits! Even as a “millennial” growing up in the 90’s, I remember those engines still (at the time) being used in a wide array of vehicles and machinery. Of course, I’m a big fan of anything diesel; but man, those things could scream!
Yeah, those DEEtroyts did have a roar to them. I worked on some in marine applications… a 2 54 in a dozer boat that had not run in ten years, wakt it up agian. When it first lit off I instantly shut it down cause of the increadible noice…. resterted it, listened for a while and realised that was normal. Some 6L 71’s, best rig was a pair in a twin screw fofty footer. In the engineroom it WAS loud, but in the wooden boat with everything buttoned up and we up on the bridge the noise was easy t take.
Craziest DDA I met was back when I was driving for a frieght company out of Portland Oregon. I was an owner operator with the fleet, but one time there was no load for me so I was tagged to ride shotgun northbound to Seattle, and be dropped off at a repair facility where a compny rig had been dragged in shame with it quit. It needed to be deadheaded back to Portland. Jumped ot of the rig that borught me, signed the paperwork, did the pretrip instpection, lit it off… the tractor was a mid-1960’s IHC conventoinal,, day cab, tandem drive, split box (5×4, I think) (my own had a 4 x 4 so no big deal). oh, signficant detail.. leaf spring up front, but the rears rode on Henderson biscuits… that were pretty old ahd hard by then, and walking beams. Getting out of Seattle on the surface streets I almost lost a couple of teeth. No, not on the geartrain. out of my head. May as well have had NO rear suspension. As I learned the rtorque curve and wheere to shift gtting onto the freway southbount I was shocked… I could NOT believe the roar of that monster. Deafening. Worst three hours I’d ever spent in a cab. The insulation, if there ever was any, in that steel cab ws gone, no door liners, no overhead panel, the racket of that DEEtroyt trapped in the small engine bay up front made the whole truck like a drum. When I pulled into the yard three hours later I was never so glad to see that barn….. I also decided then and there I’d never own a piece of equipment powered by one of those things.
I suppose the newer ones that dropped the mechaincal blower in favour of turbo(s) are far quieter. A good part of the roar of that 8V 71 I drove was the whine of those blower vanes. It was old enough I think the impellors were straight instead of the later curved units. Not much of an intake pathway on that old Cornbinder, either, so the roar of the blower blades was right there…..
Funny how that one run, out of how many total? sticks in my memory.
That sort of cab it wouldn’t have mattered what engine/type or anything else, it would have been deafening. I picked up a hitchhiker at 4 corners one night. We screamed at each other till he screamed to let him off in Tucumcari. He said he couldn’t believe anything would be that bad. It was a Maxidyne. That old Mack had started life with next to no sound deadening and by the time I was driving it, it was with a 2×4 wired to the throttle pedal because it was so hot, burned my foot through my boot. At least a Detroit wouldn’t have been that hot.
I had a 9500 GMC with a 6 71 Detroit. My uncles new one was 5 years newer. It was a lot quieter. I put a sheet of foil backed insulation over the engine, lined the cab with stick on rubber carpet and lined the doors with more stick-on carpet. A friend had a 350 Pete with a Cummins. We got stuck at Port of Brownsville one evening so we took my rig to a restaurant and motel. He couldn’t believe that truck was so quiet and said his 359 wasn’t even close to that quiet, one reason to have a long nose Pete.
It ain’t the engine, it’s the cab it’s stuck in. I had a custom interior, diamond pleated naughahyde from top to bottom in a 74 Freightliner with a custom Cummins 335 block, but not a 335 in effect, a handbuilt engine. It was quiet simply because of the interior but not because of lack of power. It would blow Cummins 400’s into the weeds.
They’re all loud and none any louder than the newest engines on the road. They may idle softly but full throttle they’ll knock you down going by. The difference is in sound deadening. The decibel rating of a cab was finally mandated in the 80’s since drivers couldn’t hear anything outside the truck.
I was driving along I 20 one day and saw the boss coming up on me in his new Dodge 3500 and me in the 379 Pete. He paced me right beside the door and I waved as if there was something else to do. The next day he asked if he scared me when he was beside me. So I asked why I would be scared. He said he laid into the horn right beside my door. You could have fooled me. I didn’t hear anything but the transmission and 60 series Detroit, never had a clue he was honking. And this is the very reason dual headphones are so stupidly illegal. You can’t hear shit in a big truck except the big truck. I was going home one night in a 880 KW with exceptional noise and bucking a 45 degree hard wind and couldn’t hear the stereo at all. I was pissed, especially since I had been dispatched after I had cleaned up and laid down to read after a hard day. Being dark, I put the earplugs I had in and then I could hear the stereo. Damnedest thing for me ever. I could pull the plugs and only hear LOUD but put them back in and hear the stereo.
Goddamn bureaucrats should be exterminated. They know shit about that they have control over. Hell, I might have even heard a car horn(No, you won’t ever hear that).
What? I can’t hear you….literally. I now have to use the stick one finger in an ear and listen and then do the same with the other ear to figure out the direction of sound. If I just go with first instinct, I’m always 180 degrees off. 55 years of loud noise will do that. And to think one of the worst things to hurt my ears are those combination muzzle brake/compensators. Never even considered a small caliber rifle sounding like a cannon till those things. Time for a 10 foot barrel.
There were a number of two stroke diesel variants made by Detroit Diesel, each one based on the non-metricsexual measurement of an individual cylinder: 53 Series, the 71 Series, the 92 Series.
Did you know they made a marine/industrial version with 149 cid per cylinder?
Get a listen to THIS:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8sLbPzBU5a8
Anti, I’ve seen that before. It pisses me off listening to it idle. Detroit 2 cycles only surged like that when they were pulling air in the fuel line. That being said, it was the killer of other diesels, they wouldn’t run or either wouldn’t start.
Workover units still run Detroit 2 cycles as do many marine applications as well as power plants and mud pumps.
I’ve run a number of them in different vessels, and EMDs, all the way up to 20 cylinder.
That one in the video, based on the dark blue paint, I’ll wager was salvaged from a Schlumberger frac pump.
AF,
Get a load of THESE Detroit Diesels! With the firetruck, no siren is needed…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42EzIcmbED8
I believe some of the earlier railroad diesels, as in the F3 and such, were GM Electromotive Drive units. I seem to recall the most common one (the F3) was a six cylinder, some monstrous cube measure per cylinder Max RM was about 900. (the number 240 CI per jug, making about 24 litres for the pwoerplant. Those things ran forever, but were fuel hogs. Today’s mostruis V 16’s burn clean and super efficient… last longer, less maintainance, and pull incredible loads. And all that happened without the “help” of gummit MANDATING changes. The engine designers simply decided to redesign, make them stronger, longer lasting, andfar more fuel efficient, then sold them on the economy factor. The free market doing what it does best.
Quite right. I’ll keep this short. The prime mover you’re referring to is the EMD 567 (8.5 inch bore, 10 inch stoke) 900 RPM redline, 1750 hp (typical). Hell of an engine. EMD used them in every locomotive they built from the FT to the GP/SD models up till 1966 when it was superseded by the 645 prime mover. How the mighty have fallen.
Tionico wrote:
“The engine designers simply decided to redesign, make them stronger, longer lasting, and far more fuel efficient, then sold them on the economy factor. The free market doing what it does best.”
Not quite.
The redesign of diesel engines in the global marine/industrial realm has happened due to government fatwas of the worst kind: UN mandated fatwas.
Now, while a 399 series CAT is not as “clean” as a 3516 series CAT is, to compare one old and one new design just as an example, the “new and improved” 3512 is more expensive, less reliable, and, this is critical in a marine environment where, if you break down, there’s no calling AAA and going home until it is fixed, they are utterly unserviceable at sea beyond simple wear items like a water pump, oil cooler or injector.
and most of them came in 1, 2, 3, 4, 6 Vee and inline, 8, aand 12 cylnder versions. The 71 and 92 series also came in V 16. I saw some of the big log trucks up in Canada running the V 16 Detroit, I think they were 92’s. What a ROAR those things made!! Of course, they were IG trucks…. 12 feet to the outside of the driers, 16 feet to the outside of the bunks. They would haul four to six standard highway sized max weight log truck loads. First time I sw one was on the old gravel roads in central Vancouver Island. I wondered why all the roads were forty feet wide, gravelled, smooth, no potholes ir rills… I was driving in my old LandRover, just follwing my nose, Slighr descent, gentle curve to the right as it flattened out, as I came round the hill at the apex and could see the road ahead (I was probably running at about 50mph) I almost choked….. that HUGE monster came at me, doing at least 79, dust flying everywhere, slightly drifing the turn with afull load.. he eased to his right but it still seemed his rig FILLED the 40 foot roadway….. my LandRover could have parked sideways between the stanchions on one of his bunks.The crossbars of his bunks were almost as high off the road as was the top of my LandRover. Never did learn what theyran for gears.
Met another one, empty, on the BC Ferry coming down from Kelsey Bay to Beaver Cove, east coast. Got a good up close and personal look, the driver was quite friendly and appreciated my interest. How he got into it was something.. near the left front road wheel he’d start by climing a four rung latter, then walk aft along a catwalk along the hood… which was almost as long as myLanRover. Step up two steps, new catwasl on top of the fuel tank, then open the cab door and slide on in. When it was tie to debark I got to hear that thing purr as he waited his turn to drive off.
I watched a few vids of old DD 2 strokes, and man, what a sound! I could listen to ’em for hours. Too bad Uncle fatwad them out of existence…
Not only the Detroits, but ALL American powerplants (Cummins, Caterpillar, etc.) have essentially been “neutered”.
Sadly, kids nowadays will never know what TRUE American power sounded like without consulting Youtube…
I got some of these devices back when I owned a Taxi business. I bought them strictly to be able to see in real time where the cars were for the purposes of dispatching. They also came in handy for disputes and claims–that my company gave people a ride home on such and such date and time–which I could show data for and dispute if it ever came to that.
I always disregarded the “rapid acceleration”, “harsh braking”, “speeding” alerts. I noticed that when I drove, I was the worst offender of all three of the “bad” things. All I know is that all three of those things that the GPS devices monitored for safety are my regular driving habits. “Rapid acceleration” and “harsh braking” according to what? Compared to what? It would be horrible to drive in a manner that doesn’t set off those devices.
It’s too bad. There are some really cool things that can be done with the technology–as with most technology–but the safety cult/uncle enters the equation and pisses in the punch bowl. That’s why I generally have an aversion to technology. I’m not opposed to tech as such. I’m just opposed to the manner in which it is usually used and what most use it for.
Ancap, I heard a guy cussing because he was doing 15 mph in a traffic jam when an idiot crossed 3 lanes and didn’t time it right and if the trucker hadn’t stomped on his brakes he’d have hit the car.
Immediately, his phone rings and it’s the main office. You are abusing the truck and acts like braking as you just did are cause for termination…blah blah blah. He replied and told them what happened and said “and you’d terminate me for hitting the idiot too”. He didn’t get a cohesive answer. But to think the truck calls home when something like that happens is too much. Now they even have cams that face the driver and record and they can remote view too. I’d rather starve than drive one.
Eight, It is crazy what big businesses have become. Of course there’s need for safety in a reasonable manner, but the safety cult has made it the most important–spare no cost, no hit to production–part of everything they do.
In my small excavation business, we practice common sense safety measures such as trench boxes, paying attention and keeping your eye out for obvious dangers around the site. There are no face camera’s or spy devices on any of our vehicles or equipment. We all know each other and look out for one another while trying to carve out a living, doing something we enjoy. While attempting the best quality and price for our customers. Safety nazi’s be dammed.
I’ve worked on countless sites with a dedicated “safety ossifer”. It’s such a crock. He always has some sheet of instructions you are to read. Of course, nobody reads it since it’s the same old same old. Then you sign your name, ostensibly showing you have read and understand the “rules”. It’s a CYA thing for companies involved in dangerous work. If someone gets hurt, they are the ones at fault regardless of a false negative on a gas monitor or whatever might happen.
I went to a meeting one day before a job and it was a big deal. I expected they had something to say I hadn’t heard. As usual, a big waste of time and money(for my employer).
The next day I was hauling base in for a road when I noticed there was a big gouge in load as it was falling. Got out and found one of the large pieces that comprise the width adjustment on the belly dump was broken off one end. The post it was mounted on had been replaced before I ever saw the thing so I wasn’t surprised. I did borrow a big pry bar from a welding crew and proceeded to try to pry the other end off. The thing was bent and useless but it was a trap waiting for me. The bar slid to the side and then smashed into the dump with my hand in between the two. I took the bar back to the welders, got them to torch it off and pulled off my glove to find my middle finger smashed just like it felt. I drove right by the “safety ossifer”, held up that middle finger and said “shit happens”. He looked halfway shocked. I think he thought I was giving him a sign. I was giving him a lesson that shit can happen when you least expect it. He never mentioned it. I got to live with that throbbing all day and drilled the nail later.
Morning, Eight!
This nonsense is everywhere, of course. And it is true that the companies are playing along for reasons of lawyer (and bureaucrat) avoidance. At my gym, new members and guests have to sign a long form absolving the gym of any responsibility for heart attacks, sprained ankles, sore backs and what-have-you that happen incidentally while using the equipment.
This is a byproduct of Slip and Fall Culture and the rise of shyster lawyering into the mainstream. You and I are both old enough to remember when it would never occur to most people to sue someone or a company for “shit happens” – and would be regarded as a loathsome cockroach by most other people if you did it anyhow.
My right pinkie finger is mangled because when I was 17 I was timing the engine in my Camaro, bent over with my gun, my Keds on wet pavement. I slipped a little and my hand went into the running fan/pulley and my pinkie was practically severed. It was re-attached but the middle joint is fused.
It never occurred to me to sue GM – and argue that there should have been a protective something or other to prevent such a thing from happening.
Maybe the statute of limitations hasn’t run out. I sure could use some money…
eric, we have something else in common. In my late 20’s I had a steel door get away from me and broke my pinkie on my left hand, my chording hand dammit. I worked that thing every day after I could stand to touch it and months later, I could pick a gitfiddle once again. And no, it wasn’t some storm, just west Tx. wind. 3 weeks come Wed., we had 60-80 mph winds, not a storm, just straight line winds. Blew 50 shingles off my neighbor’s house. When “storms” blow through other places and they take off roofs(today winds exceeding 45 mph took the roofs off local “fill in the blanks”) and we laugh. Hell, 45 mph winds are just right for catching crappie.
Well, I may as well join your gaggle of cackling washer-women…..
c. ’97 I broke the finger next to my pinky, whilst engaging in a typical manly pursuit [O-K, I slipped on the ice whilst carrying a basket of wash…but I managed not to spill the freshly-done wash!]
I went to a place that rhymes with “Urgent Care”- namely, Ace Hardware….and got a splint (paint-stirring stick] and some imobilizing material [duct tape].
Ended up healing perfectly straight and fine…unlike the lady who worked at the laundromat- who had broken her finger a short time earlier…spent $1200 at the state-sanctioned drug-dealer, and…well….she’ll never play a C chord again!
Dammit Nunz, and she was on the short list for Carnegie Hall!!
Wish you could have seen the time when as a youngster of 63 I broke both leg bones and pulled the center of the bone in my foot loose via the Achilles tendon. I was on the other side of the tank and the wife was totally on the side of stupid.
Once I finally screamed loud enough for her to hear, she replied in one of those “What is it now?” voices. Help, come get me, I broke my leg. She drives over in the car. I had pulled myself 30′ up a steep tank dam and was sorta hurting. Pull up to me I said. So she pulled up and if I hadn’t hit the car so hard she would have run over me…..but probably the same leg so that wasn’t the worst of it. I asked her to open the door. It was a great cost to her but she got it done. Then I pulled myself up into the car via seat, console(I had rebuilt to be “Strong” thankfully). I finally got all of me in there and she began to back up, straight at a power pole I knew was on the ground behind us. I told her to not keep going(no big deal, I wasn’t in pain or anything)but she cussed me and said she could drive.
So she backed up into the pole and tore off some side molding on her car….but only stopping was a big deal, she has never admitted to this day she ripped the side molding off even though the next year I brought it back from the other side of the tank. She still doesn’t admit it even though the car has only been there One Time.
She pulls up to the barn and says she needs a beer(not really, it was the last thing she needed More Of)so I say “That sounds good”. She goes in and come out with a beer, a single beer.
I want to point out that at this point my foot was a plumb bob on the end of my leg. I asked if she’d mind getting me a beer……duh? No, it didn’t hurt one damn bit.
She goes back in and brings me a beer as if I’d done some wrong to her. We get to the end of the drive. I’m sorry dear but I don’t think I can get the gate. Pissed off she opened the gate and turned left….left toward the local hospital that had turned her away with a broken foot since they had no one to address the problem. Nay, say I, I believe we don’t need to drive 10 miles, sign up for a charge and then get turned away.
So she backs up, turns back into the driveway and I ask where we’re going now. To the house.
Ok,how does that fix my leg? Let’s go to the ER, meaning where she had been taken. No, she says, it’s too late. it was 5:30 March 5th and the sun was up. I was going to point out ER’s have no set time but she drove down the drive….it was a done deal.
What she meant was ‘I’m not driving you to the ER’. Then to add insult to injury, she said “You just sprained it, it’s not broken”. Ah, glad to have that clarified. When you lie on your back and your foot points at the ground, could that be a sign of a broken leg? Evidently not.
Then she says she has an air cast. By this point an aircast and an upright foot sounded great. She even said we had some hydrocodone. Now we’re talking, some hydrocodone, some beer, an aircast and maybe even a bed if I could get in the house. Oh, no problem she said, I have crutches from my broken ankle. Thank god for small miracles.
After one of those trips you hope to never repeat I was in the house, lying in bed, with her twisting my unbroken leg around to where my toes pointed at the sky and she had an aircast that could have been more adeptly applied. We even have some bourbon but no pot I can remember. After about an hour of trying not to swallow my tongue the combo of hydrocodone, beer, booze and the air cast had me feeling no pain…….shit I wasn’t, I was damned near dying. It was killing me but there I lay. She brought a cooler of beer(amazing)some hydrocodone(more amazing she had any left) and the rest of a bottle(think you won’t drink booze no matter what?…think again).
It was cold as hell and the window was open full but the cold bounced off me and I sweated bullets all night.
Of course the next morning I was hot to get to the ER…..but she wasn’t and had to “take her time”. So we got there about 11 am.. The ER was covered with illegal mexicans in front of me and the girl directly in front was there for a “headache”. She has no idea what a headache really is because she didn’t get close enough to me to find out.
We…..uh….I…finally get to see a doctor. His nurse was horrified(sweet thing she was)at my bullet sweating. Imagine an old man releasing bacon grease out of his pores……profusely.
The doc took a look at my leg, just a cursory first look, then looks straight at me ignoring the wife and said(I love this guy, it made my day “When did you do this? and I said yesterday. He replied So, did you figure it wasn’t gonna heal by itself?” I tried not to laugh but it was hilarious. He said it so dryly and it wasn’t lost on me at all. I don’t think the wife ever notice.
Well, he says, let me straighten it up a bit although what you’ve already done is pretty good. He didn’t do much to it, just looked at its alignment and pronounced it good enough.
The nurse was going ape and after 20 questions he sorta cut her off. Well, do you want some pain treatment. Yep, that would be nice if you can spare something. So he writes me a script for hydrocodone, hands it to ME as the wife reaches for it(doc is wise). We eventually leave…for the nearest liquor store and then the pharmacy.
If I had all that happened from the time I decided to break off a tree limb to play with Cholley Jacck up to the time of getting home, I can guarantee it would be a big moneymaker. Homer never did anything so totally absurd in his entire life…..D’oh!!!
Dear goodness, 8!
I have to recover just from reading that!!!!!!!
I can’t even ‘magine breaking a big bone. I’ve managed to avoid most injuries. Finger; did something or other to a rib once (Don’t use your chest for leverage on a stuck tie-rod sleeve whilst trying to do a wheel alignment on a truck!)….and whacking myself in the head a few times with the T-post driver (Luckily, us Wops have hard heads…did absolutely no damage- physically, anyway 😉 )
that happened back in the day when the “protective something or other” was installed between your ears. So it was your fault anyway.
In those days, Big Boys could take their lumps, stand up, dust of ftheir Big Boy Britches, and get on with life.
Not so today. Hey, we’ve even got to post “trigger warnings”. Well, the onlu “triggger warning” I’d ever make is “heu, put yer hands over yer ears, I’m a gonna touch off this 357.
Ancap,
“Of course there’s need for safety in a reasonable manner, but the safety cult has made it the most important–spare no cost, no hit to production–part of everything they do.”
But in reality “reasonable” becomes criminal, even murderous.
Who would have imagined that an explosive would be mandated as a safety feature in your car?
But that’s old news. And a fairly low body count.
If one is looking for a “reasonable” body count, I posit the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System or MCAS that has been in the news lately.
Historically, passenger aircraft were designed to have positive stability. Fighter planes are designed to be extremely maneuverable and have negative stability. Passengers tend to get airsickness doing rolls and loops.
The anointed ones approved an unstable aircraft. This is criminal negligence.
Augmenting this unstable “maneuvering characteristic” with software was murder.
Hi T,
Of course, “reasonable” is in the eye of the beholder; it is an inherently subjective evaluation. Which is why it is so dangerous when given legal force.
What my risk-averse ex-wife considers “reasonable” is very different than what I consider “reasonable.” Which of is is objectively right?
It is unprovable. But it is enforceable. Thus, her feeling-based notion of “reasonable” speed becomes actionable “speeding.” Even though my “speeding” seems reasonable to me – and I can point to decades of accident-free driving to buttress my assertion whereas her assertions are all based on hypothetical “what ifs” and “might” happen.
Free people ought to be free to decide for themselves what is “reasonable” – and assume the risks (and reap the rewards ) accordingly.
But I realize I am old-fashioned and such ideas are out of style.
Eight, seems like a wise driver would get a Go Pro or some such and just have it going as he makes his way.then when he gets called on the carpet for “harsh braking” he can roll his vid… make sure his timecode matches the spy devie… so, they monitored harsh braking at 1327 hrs, speed such and such… driver has time=matching video showing the clown from outa nowhere and WHY he braked.
But then tey’d prlly fire him for “unauthorisded recording equipment” or “not licking our feet just right”. Sheesh…
Off topic, but hey Eric, did you see this?
https://arstechnica.com/cars/2019/04/eu-accuses-bmw-daimler-and-vw-of-colluding-to-hinder-emissions-control-tech/
Yes, in a truly free market you could accuse these companies of collusion, but in today’s regulatory climate I’d call it basic self-defense. The instant the ignorant, arrogant, unelected losercrats of the EU become aware of some new so-called “advancement”, it’s likely to become mandatory across the board in very short order, even if it makes cars unpalatable or will have unintended consequences down the road, because clueless utopians don’t care about any of that.
These people have such an itchy trigger finger on their regulatory howitzer that the manufacturers have started behaving like gophers on a rifle range, afraid to do anything that might attract any sort of attention, and then they get punished for acting out of that fear too. Collusion to limit technical advancement, maybe in a technical sense, but I still have to assume that the real crime here is failure to love Big Brother.
(Also, have fun puking from all the loaded language in that article!)
You could do worse than these weapons used the by first time Hoffman lenses customer Roderick Toombs:
http://www.imfdb.org/wiki/They_Live
Toombs was born in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan on April 17, 1954, and was raised in Winnipeg, Manitoba. He attended Windsor Park Collegiate. His father, Stanley Baird Toombs, was an officer with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) while they lived in The Pas, Manitoba.
His mother was Eileen née Anderson. After being expelled from junior high for having a switchblade in school and falling out with his father, Piper left home and stayed in youth hostels. He picked up odd jobs at local gyms, running errands for several professional wrestlers. As a young man, he became proficient in playing the bagpipes, though he repeatedly stated that he was unsure exactly where he picked them up. His childhood (and lifelong) best friend was ex-NHL player and Stanley Cup winner Cam Connor. Piper served a tour of duty with the Canadian Army, kicked his last ass, and chewed his final piece of bubble gum on July 31, 2015 at the age of 61.
Hey Tor,
I’ve been thinking about you lately. I have a tendency to go dark and I just wanted to say that I miss your participation.
Kind Regards,
Jeremy
A vote for Trump was supposed to be against communism but he has done literally nothing to reverse that tide. We shovel endless money into our useless military that cant beat a bunch of illiterate goat herders in afghanistan. And yet he wants to raise gas taxes on everyone. Tucker Carlson has a great segment on that Driving as we know it will be finished in 20 years. Done. Maybe sooner. These commercial gps things will soon be installed in our cars and we’ll get automatic tickets and fines. And it will be a felony to remove them.
Hi Mark,
But consider the alternative… Yes, I know. Trump is not my orange-dyed hero, either. But preferable. I also know that this lesser-of-two-evils thing leaves us with evil regardless. But I still prefer it to the alternative. I exercise for the same reason. I know I will still die, eventually. But exercising may put it off for awhile….
Because of the ‘evil’ thing I stopped voting a few years ago. Mr. Trump has not done one thing on his campaign bucket list. He has done everything the wicked witch was supposedly going to do. Check out the line up for next election!
I refused to go on a motorcycle run to help the military suicide victims. My contention is to stop sending them to no win no reason wars. Start having them do responsible things like defending the borders. They basically implied that I was not a patriot. While in Vietnam I brought many American soldiers dead and/or dying back to base, having to hose out the blood in my helicopter. That leaves a lasting impression that war is not all it’s crocked up to be. Our present WH occupant got out of the draft claiming some kind of foot problem. Very few in government today have a hands on idea of the horrors of war. They are now attempting to start another war in Venezuela.
Any person against the wars are not given the time of day.
I in no way mean disrespect to you. I took an oath to the Constitution,,, not the government so IMO people can have independent thought different than mine.
I don’t vote because voting IMO is a statement that you believe in the system. I in no way believe in the system as it exists today.
I don’t claim to know the answers,,, the coming economic implosion will likely take care of some of the problems.
BUT, what I have observed in my long life is that if voting worked they surly wouldn’t allow it.
Congrats, Ken! Sounds like you’re almost reformed!!!!
Welcome to the good-guys side!!!!
This might make you feel good now:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8_UY1TkL84
The person in the video is aiming his rant at the wrong group. He is right about some things but he will turn people off because your asking them to consider their children murderers. Years of government propaganda will prevent that. I understand where he is coming from but most won’t.
I am not angry at those in the uniform,,, only those that abuse them and their service. This not only goes for the pols but for the media and the parents as well. I enlisted to get away from home and to get a skill that would help me in civilian life. The military accomplished both of those objectives and for that I am appreciative.
At the time going to VN was a risk. I was in Europe and thought I was safe. Wrong,,, they got me as my MOS had a very short shelf life in Vietnam. I wasn’t against going,,, it was my job. I honestly thought we were helping people. Once there I learned we were interfering in a struggle that we should have stayed out of. IMO the Vietnamese should have been the ones choosing their type of government, not the US. If they want Communism, fine with me,,, I don’t have to live under it.
I still was not ‘angry’ at the US government until ex Sec of Def McNamara come out and stated the Gulf of Tonkin was faked, a False Flag set up to get us into the war. That is when I started to do real research on America’s wars.
Now what really angers me is the worshiping of the military and the police for that matter. Americans seem to get off on the power of their military. IMHO this is wrong. Celebrating the use of these troops while not caring about the damage they inflicted. Americans harp on the bad bullies in school but act like bullies toward other nations and just like bullies, they always pick on those that cannot defend themselves especially against a military as powerful as ours. They actually should be ashamed.
The best I can describe it is sports. People sort of put themselves in as players. When their team wins it makes them feel as if THEY won.
Same with the military. Trouble here is the loser doesn’t go home to wait for the next game,,, they die,,, their families die. It’s worse when there is no reason for the war and death. Most people of Afghanistan had no clue what the World Trade Center even was! Iraq had no WMD. Yugoslavia wasn’t murdering people. Every war since WWII has been started in some way by the USA for Corporate interests of one sort or another.
And what’s really maddening is most know this deep down but refuse to accept it knowing if they did then they would have to call the government on these policies. In other words…. they’re lazy.
What they don’t understand is every empire has turned on its own citizens. The US is doing it right now as Eric rightly points it out time and time again. I’m surprised he hasn’t given up!
The country is going down because it has lost its soul and has no empathy for others across the world. There is no unity. Hate is being taught in our government controlled schools. This hate is designed to make us hate a particular demographic while ignoring what the evil doers in government are up to. We are now in the third stage of the end of the empire. Only one stage to go.
I don’t have a clue as to how to get people to realize the wrongness of what they are allowing their government to do. Way beyond my pay grade.
Ken, what it comes down to, is that those who carry out the dictates of tyrants- regardless of what political ideology those tyrants represent or claim to represent, are ultimately responsible for the evil they do.
If you use the threat of violence; injure; oppress; restrain; kill; or destroy the property of someone who has personally done you nor yours any harm…YOU are the bad guy.
The mercenaries were used illegitimately and wrongly? How much more so those who were their victims?
It’s even more repugnant when people volunteer; but even those who were drafted are just as accountable. If someone put a gun in my hand, and said “Go shoot Ken’s daughter” (pretend you have one if you don’t 😉 ) “or I will penalize you!”- should I do it? Would you absolve me of guilt if I did? Would shifting the blame to thosde who prodded me absolve me of guilt?
Hi Ken,
“BUT, what I have observed in my long life is that if voting worked they surly wouldn’t allow it.”
Voting does work, it legitimizes an inherently criminal institution and mostly nullifies more effective direct opposition to the State. It does precisely what it was designed to do.
Cheers,
Jeremy
Hi Jeremy…
It’s the old Glass half full or half empty. Both are correct.
Voting could, in theory, work if there were good candidates to choose from AND if people could still think freely enough to choose them. However neither one has been the case for so long that it basically doesn’t matter.
Mark Levin really ticked me off a couple of days ago when he defended the two-party system, saying it kept us from devolving into a parliamentary democracy. I will grant that if we had more choices per given election, we’d probably see even more tyranny simply because of the left’s skill at demagoguing up hidebound voting blocks. HOWEVER, you also can’t deny that the two-party system as it is has failed us utterly and in every way. It just seems to be the curse of modern representative governments to have a “uniparty” that represents only itself. In the end, it doesn’t really matter how many political parties you have or how votes or power are proportioned among them, because somehow they always end up working together to thwart the people who elected them, along with anyone who attempts to inject some fresh air into the system, whether they work within or outside of the existing system. I mean, look at Trump. TPTB didn’t even wait for him to take office before officially declaring him the worst thing since radiation sickness and vowing to “resist” at every turn. Republicans are the loudest voices for open borders right now!
On the rare occasion that a true, grassroots, pro-freedom candidate does run, they will often lose because even non-gimmiedats are still too brainwashed to vote for anything other than milquetoasts at best. I mean, look at me – only a couple months ago I still believed that we needed some mandatory vehicle pollution controls. All of that is, of course, before you get into the rampant fraud, which you are apparently “racist” if you want to prevent.
I’ll give you an example from Alaska’s 2014 GOP Senate primary. We had three candidates: a man named Dan Sullivan, who I don’t remember what he was doing before but who was a fairly normal Republican, Lt. Gov. Mead Treadwell who was also a fairly normal Republican, and semi-libertarian outsider Joe Miller. I had always liked Miller from a young age, and was impressed as well by his performance at the debate. Treadwell didn’t really distinguish himself. Sullivan, I didn’t like at all. Everything about him just seemed so fake and politician-y, and he didn’t even try to hide the fact he was a CFR member. Of course Sullivan won, and has gone on to be fairly useless since.
Our other senator, by the way, is Lisa Murkowski, who carries the ignominous distinction of being the only one to vote “present” on Obamadontcare (and then later tell a women’s magazine she should have voted for it – how she got reelected after this is a mystery to me).
Meanwhile in the House of Representatives, Alaska’s banner is carried by the geriatric Don Young, who has been there longer than I’ve been alive, runs unopposed most years, never really does anything other than try to bring home as much pork as possible, and is overall one of the better arguments in favor of Congressional term limits.
I think our founders said something about this. Something along the lines of “evil will rule when good men do nothing”. The problem with that is, good men by and large just want to live their lives and be left alone. Most of the people who are actually motivated to seek office are either careerists or evilmongers. This brings every election down to a choice between bad and worse – do I vote for the go-along-get-along milquetoast who will probably betray us in favor of the establishment on a regular basis, or the insane mini-Stalin who openly wants an envirocommunist dictatorship?
Hi Chuck,
I agree with you. I also maintain that elections will continue to produce coercive collectivism until a working majority of the populace no longer wants it. Ron Paul offered liberty – or at least, a great deal more of it as well as a principled defense of it – but was rejected because that’s not what a working majority of the people want.
There is, of course, a structural hobble inherent in the two-party system which makes it extremely difficult for anyone to get on the ballot – especially at the national level – who is not beholden to one of the two parties, both of which are beholden to the same interests which actually control the country.
Perot and Trump are black swans, largely because of their money. Neither, of course, has a principled ideology but rather a typical “traditional” utilitarian American perspective that can be defined vaguely as “do what works.”
I think it will take a crisis – and the consequences/aftermath of one – before enough people recover their senses and relearn the lesson that Gibs Muh Dat works as well on them as it does on others; that their physical and economic security are bound up inextricably with the physical and economic security of their fellow men. That for selfish if not moral reasons, they ought to reject bureaucratized theft and busybodyism at bayonet-point. That it is infinitely better to accept risk and possible (probable) benefit rather than the certainty of cost, in the form of pre-emptive punishments over “mights” and “what ifs.”
That being an adult who is at liberty to make choices for himself is preferable to being parented by other adults and treated as an idiot child until the day one dies of old age.
The problem is the majority of people are just fine with forcing a minority of people to work to take care of them.
Voting can never work so long as people can vote themselves the wealth of others.
And so long as those running the government can be bought it will also fail for the same reason.
Hi Eric and Chuck,
As the system currently exists, your individual vote, at the Federal level, will never be significant. Nor will the existence of voting in general produce the type of candidates that Chuck wants. For voting and Democracy to even have a chance of not fueling the growth of an authoritarian, collectivist State, radical decentralization must occur. The practical plausibility of voting serving as a check on government power in the US was destroyed by two significant events: the 17th amendment and the cap at 435 representatives.
Currently, each house member “represents” an average of about 850,000 people. In the early days of the Republic, the ratio was about 30,000 to one. This means that the relative power of each individual to their “representative” has decreased nearly 30 fold. The 17th amendment destroyed the last vestiges of state sovereignty and effectively neutered the power of the states to check the power of the Federal government. Senators were supposed to represent the interests of each state, and could be fired at the will of the legislature. Now they are just better paid, more pretentious and less accountable “representatives”.
The 17th amendment was pushed by the apostles of Democracy as a populist, anti-elitist means of granting more power to the people. Its’ effect has been to further consolidate power in the Federal government and to eliminate the bicameral system intended as a check on that power. It was the last nail in the coffin of “limited government” in the US. The push for more Democracy quite literally destroyed the “Republic”.
So, what is to be done? Because I find it very unlikely that people will suddenly realize that voluntary cooperation is actually what makes society work and that society functions despite the State, not because of it, considering ways of improving what exists is important. Those who advocate Democracy but do not recognize its’ inherent flaws are dangerous. Still, we will be stuck with this system for awhile, so we might want to think about ways to improve it.
These are my proposals and I’d love to get some feedback.
First, repeal the 17th amendment. This would restore the bicameral system and, perhaps, make the 10th amendment relevant again.
Second, eliminate the cap of 435 house members and restore the ratio of 30 to 35 thousand to one.
Third, require all representatives to reside, full time, in the district they “represent”.
Today, there is no reason why “representatives” need to meet in a single building. Thus, the existence of 9 to 12 thousand representatives does not pose a logistical problem today, as it did in the past. Requiring them to live among their constituents would make it almost certain that they would actually have to interact with them, which would impose some external check on their behavior.
Counter intuitively, drastically increasing the size of the House is a form of radical decentralization. It would dramatically increase the power of each individual relative to their “representative”. In addition, it would make rent seeking by corporations far more costly and inefficient because they would need to buy off hundreds of congressman instead of just a few.
Kind Regards,
Jeremy
The problem with increasing the number of representatives is that it might end up having the opposite effect that you’d hope. Without any geographic weighting, the advantage of numbers could still skew pretty heavily towards the cities – see what already happens in Califailia – a state which is still fairly conservative, getting led around by a few loons in the coastal counties. Same thing could happen in Alaska – under the current system it leans right, but aiming for a 1:30,000 ratio would end up giving Anchorage and the bush country both several votes each in the House and those are all hardcore blue, Anchorage being “a little city with big city problems” (including whacked-out politics exacerbated by the presence of a university) and the bush First Nations people being heavily demagogued by the left.
Hi Chuck,
I appreciate your comment. While what you describe is possible, I find it extremely unlikely. Non-voters are the largest “voting bloc” in America. While politicians and the chattering class blame this on apathy, cynicism, ignorance, etc…, the much more likely reason is that voting, in a national election, is demonstrably irrational. Your individual vote is a purely symbolic act, it will never affect the outcome of a national election.
Democracy, as it currently exists in America, will not produce the “good” candidates you are hoping for. Nor does it provide any incentive to be “informed”. The idea that if we got more and better informed people to vote, we would get better results doesn’t make sense. Why would this happen? The only difference would be that the same shitty candidates would get a few more votes.
Libertarians and conservatives tend to favor reason over emotion, value personal responsibility and generally wish to be left alone. I suspect that such people are over represented in the non-voting bloc because, once again, voting is irrational. These people generally have better things to do with their time, like work, run a business, take care of their family, etc… Also, mostly what they want from government is to be left alone and they recognize, on some level, that this ain’t gonna happen, whether they vote or not.
Liberals and leftists tend to value caring, community engagement, equality, etc… and they believe that these values are best expressed through political involvement. To them, a vote is an expression of their morality and is thus extremely important to them. I suspect that there are very few passionate, well informed leftists who don’t vote. But, there are lots and lots of passionate, well informed libertarians and conservatives who don’t vote. The disturbing truth is that leftists have a psychological advantage in the Democracy game as it currently exists.
So, how can we change this? Returning to a 30,000 to one ratio would make voting much more meaningful and thus incentivize more people to vote. I suspect that the majority of former non-voters would lean libertarian or conservative. It could also help to break the current “two party” stranglehold on politics that now exists.
Kind Regards,
Jeremy
BTW, I consider House and Senate elections to be national elections.
Jeremy
It would be a good idea to repeal the 19th Amendment too. Giving women, who are by nature collectivists, did a lot to WRECK our republic…
Marky,
We can hope and pray.
https://youtu.be/kQJQ–T4U0c
Hi Mark,
I agonize over this one… women and the franchise. But perhaps the deeper source waters of the problem is the transition of women’s historic dependence upon individual men – their husbands, fathers and brothers – to general dependence on jobs (styled “careers” to make the drudgery seem glamorous, especially relative to being a mother and wife) which dependence entails voting for the “provisioning and protection” which their husbands, fathers and brothers once provided.
Hi Mark,
The fact that their top legislative priority before getting the vote was enacting prohibition reveals the governing mindset of many women.
Cheers,
Jeremy
Hi Jeremy,
It makes sense, biologically. Women are weaker. They therefore incline toward risk-aversion and esteem “security” more so than men. Give women the power to vote for “security” at the expense of liberty (of other people’s liberty) and many will. So will many men, of course. But I think it’s pretty self-evident that men are by nature – biologically – more willing to accept risk because they are more able to deal with it than most women.
Modernity has Potempkin Villaged the biological differences between the sexes, but they are there nonetheless.
I’ll use myself as an example:
I can manage on not much money because I am physically capable of doing things like cutting/splitting four cords of firewood, which my ex-wife could never do, even when she was 25. So she pays the electric bill in her new house, while I pay nothing – except time and sweat. She – like most women in their 40s – has various health issues and sees quacks on a regular basis. I see them never – because I am still physically strong and have no chronic or other health problems. Ergo, I skip insurance – which she has to have.
Even though I am middle aged, I’m still stronger and more rugged than probably 98 percent of all women – including women half my age – because men are that much stronger than women. A man can lose half his strength and still be stronger than most women half his age. He is less fragile, too. Especially after 40 … whereas women markedly deteriorate after 40, because menopause.
Biology.
Women will sacrifice almost ANYTHING in order to have security…
At least the women back then, i.e. the ones who originally pushed for Prohibition, had the intellectual honesty to admit that it didn’t work and went on to push for its repeal.
Marky, Jeremy,
“enacting prohibition”
You guys are making me want to take a road trip to Billy Sunday in Chicago for a few cold ones.
And then a cruise on the Ike to his grave to piss on it.
An interesting place where Billy Sunday got planted. Paul Harvey is there as well as many of the victims of the Iroquois Theater fire.
600 plus died in that fire. Apparently because safety officials in Chicago did what safety officials do.
Just 7 years before that fire, the insurance mafia had created the National Fire Protection Association. They had “Dreams for a safer tomorrow”.
I guess we can all dream.
But I’d recommend doing the dreaming somewhere other than the departure end of a runway after those safety officials return the new 737s back to the skies.
You likely already saw this but great stuff https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3cvbKdij6vE
Trump is a dud. If he wasn’t such an ignoramus, he might be able to stop (or drastically slow) the decivilization of America. Does he really believe he’ll fulfill his America First agenda by surrounding himself with New York/Wall Street liberals and neocons?
I predict the US will officially be a third world country by 2030. Get used to hearing President Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
I couldn’t agree more. I envisioned this during the election. I didn’t believe his words, now obviously lies. It’s just the same old thing, just like the Fugs said in 1965, you end up voting for the lesser of two evils. In my book, he edged out Hitlery only because of the lies he told. I really didn’t expect him to do what he said…..and he hasn’t. We’re going balls to the wall into a fiscal tyranny, one hell of a mess that’s going to destroy the country. It may not be a shooting civil war but it could be, the very thing we feared from Hitlery.
I find it strange so few people knew nothing about Hitlery’s deal with Putin to sell vast amounts of uranium from the federal lands that a lot of ranchers had leased for many decades. It was the shitty with the BLM and people like the Bundy’s.
I’m not blaming any voters except the ones that supported Hitlery and should have known better. How many decades do you have to be blind to not know what her motives are?
I’m simply frustrated that once again, as always, we have the lesser of two evils to vote for. I find it difficult to vote…..for anyone. I went to the polls the last time just to keep Beto O’Rourke out of office. Once again, the lesser of two evils. Is Ted Cruz the lesser of two evils? Does a bear shit in the woods?
8, there is no ‘lesser of two evils’ anymore; just evil ‘a’ and evil ‘b’- and both are just as violent, destructive and tyrannical- and ultimately lead to the same end; amout to the same thing- the only difference is in the packaging- the words used, and the groups to whom the purveyor of the respective evil is trying to appeal to the most.
Let people get the government they deserve…there’s nothing left here.
Hi Nunz,
There is an argument for delaying tactics; for playing for time. And for just trying to preserve what you can, while you can. I know that I am going to die someday no matter what I do to avoid it. But I do my best to delay that day for as long as possible, since life is generally good and so worth trying to preserve.
I feel the same as regards our political life.
Mornin’ Eric!
Hehyepyepyep. But death is natural and inevitable- but what we do can directly affect it’s timing.
Politics? Ticking a box and choosing the liar who somewhat vaguely manages to say a few magic words that are less abhorrent than the other lying scumbag….ultimately accomplishes nothing, other than wasting our time, and making us participants in the very system which we detest.
Trump said a few of “the right words”- but did the exact same things Hitlery would have done (Bomb Syria; let in more illegals than Obozo; Banned bumpostocks [and never again mentioned his campaign promise of 50-state concealed carry reciprocity- which he wouldn’t even have the power to do if he really wanted to]; pushing 5G surveillance net; etc. etc.)
What it comes down to, is ONE thing that Trump did to throw us a bone- [temporarily] repeal the enforcement of the individual Obozocare mandate- which may have happened anyway, as we’re seeing by such things as the DOJ’s recent shift in position (Why are they even involved? )…and considering the fact that Hitlery/the Dums in their effort to set up an even more egregious plan, first have to nix the current one, in a way which will not make them look bad to those who demand such communism or who profit from it and who lobbied for it….
It’s just a dog and pony show- no matter which candidate wins…the exact same thing happens- it’s just that the words of one candidate may be a little easier to take- but personally, I don’t even find that to be the case, because they are always insincere, lying words- and the “lesser evil” candidate always ends up embarrassing those who sincerely support the principles that candidate claims to embrace.
Joe Stalin and Adolph Hitler could run in the next election, and one of them would win- and people would be extoling the virtues of their ‘lesser evil” candidate.
Hiya Nunz,
Stalin vs.Hitler is basically already what we have already – sans (for the moment) the camps and mass murder. But that is coming as inevitably as the tides.
You can’t have collectivism – right or left – without coercion.
Our choice is going to be Brown – or Red.
Eric,
“sans (for the moment) the camps and mass murder.”
I missed the sans part.
T, don’t we all. And The Handler says we could have seen serious secession movement if Hitlery had been elected.
Shit Ronnie, there are secessionist movements and the Texas Nationalist Movement is one of many.
Several years ago when someone filed a petition to secede Texas, it had the requisite amount of signatures…..in hours.
Then some a-hole who was a bureaucrat in charge of the petition site finally replied “There is no legal way for this to be done”. Well, he shit on the Constitution and millions of Texans at the same time.
I know we’re inundated by yankees but the old school Texas tradition still holds in rural Texas and there’s quite a movement to SECEDE.
If at first you don’t secede, try again!
HAhaha! I remember that, 8!
“We can’t secede because they won’t allow us to”.
Remember recently, Commiefornia was toying with secession too? Same deal- “We’ll submit a petition to the Feds if we get enough signatures to see if they’ll allow us”.
Then they were going to break up into 5 states…..
Even that happened…all we’d end up with would be 5 Commiefornias…the ones with more white people, and thus more wealth, would likely be 3x as tyrannical as the present CA now is…..’cause that’s where most of the communism and technology to enforce it comes from.
Hey, maybe I’ll ask the schoolyard bully if he’ll let me beat him up tomorrow!
I think we could have seen the beginning of serious secession movements if Hillary had been elected. Americans still don’t distrust the system enough for political decentralization to occur; they still believe their vote counts.
I think that’s the whole idea behind this pluralistic system: Continually wobble between two sides- both of which offer no real difference, but just appeal to particular segments of society- so that every 4-8 years, half of the population relaxes because “their guy” is in.
Keep the two sides perpetually fighting each other….while both continue to march right on with the long pre-planned agendas which those who elect them usually refer to as “conspiracies”.
Secession though? Yeah….only if it can be accomplished over a weekend, ’cause the sprogs have to be back in indoctrination camp on Monday….and the parent (or more rarely: ‘parents’) have a sensitivity-training meeting Monday morning, where they’ll be fingering the virtual twat…..
I think I will prefer to be a morlock. They were actually the good guys.
You are a morlock. all of us here are. Morlocks are the working class and the middle class. Eloi are the so-called elite, managerial class, ruling class. The Time Machine is a eugenics tale. A warning to the elite about becoming too comfortable.
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. This very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be “cured” against one’s will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals.” – C.S. Lewis
Hi AF,
I have always liked that C.S.Lewis quotation. Especially: “To be “cured” against one’s will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals.”
He was a smart man.
The object pursued by these control freaks is the infantilization of society; the reducing of people to livestock.
Hey Eric!
One of my particular favorites as well, and I make sure to include the complete quote, because, of course, you’re right, that IS the object goal of the social controllers: reduce free men to infants, idiots and cattle…kindergarten every day of the week for grown men, lorded over by nagging Fraus, Grundy-esque harridans and Nurse Rachet clones.
God help us.
Hi AF,
That’s one of my favorite quotes. In addition, the concern for us expressed by the moral busybody is a sham, their true goal is control. How anyone falls for it is incomprehensible to me. Look at AOC, she is an unpleasant, self righteous, virtue signaling scold. She is incapable of honest debate because she believes anyone who disagrees with her is a bad person. She is also the stupidest national politician I have ever witnessed. That such a person can be elected should make more people question Democracy.
Cheers,
Jeremy
Ah, but to her supporters, AOC is cute, charismatic, and enlightened! It’s too bad Joe Crowley, who was #4 in the House Democratic leadership, didn’t campaign at all. Hell, he didn’t even show up for a debate with AOC! Since he’d run unopposed in his previous elections, he thought he could mail it in-wrong! AOC and her allies outworked, outsmarted, and outhustled him. Because NYC’s 14th congressional district is so heavily Democratic, the primary in which AOC defeated him WAS the de facto election.
One thing to keep in mind is that AOC was NOT the result of a grass roots effort; her rise was not organic at all. No, there’s a group that calls themselves The Justice Democrats who got behind her. Their intent is to remove establishment Democrats like Crowley, and replace them with radicals like AOC. They held a casting call, which brought in 10,000 wannabes; out of that 10,000 wannabes, the JDs found AOC. Alex Jones also said that George Soros’ money was behind her. In any case, AOC is just a puppet doing the bidding of those who were behind her.
Here’s a video by the JDs themselves where they tell how they recruited AOC: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gcqoo0Jn18A. The Indian guy with the glasses, Saikat Chakrabarti, is a co-founder of the JDs. He’s now AOC’s chief of staff. Tell me she’s not a puppet!
I’m hoping and praying that AOC has ruffled enough feathers among the Democrat Party establishment that they’ll eliminate her district. Thanks to population decline, NY is going to lose at least one congressional seat after the 2020 census. The Dems could eliminate AOC’s district, and she’d be SOL. The GOP establishment did that with Allen West, because he pissed off the wrong people. I’m hoping AOC has done the same, i.e. pissed of the Dem leadership to the point that they eliminate her district.
It’s not that the Democrats don’t think and believe as she does; they most assuredly do. However, the Democrats aren’t usually that HONEST about who they are and what they’re about; they have to lie to get elected, because most Americans don’t buy what they’re selling. Unlike her Dem establishment colleagues, AOC puts it right out there; she’s open and honest about what she believes.
Unlike many who mock AOC as being dumb (and I think she is, not to mention ignorant of our history and the Constitution) and take her lightly, I don’t; I think she’s dangerous. She’s dumb, ignorant, yet arrogant-a dangerous combination! If the Dems don’t remove her via redistricting, she could easily remain in power. If she remains in office, then we could be saying President AOC in the foreseeable future. Now THAT ‘s a scary thought!
Hi Mark,
“She’s dumb, ignorant, yet arrogant-a dangerous combination!”
I don’t take her lightly, she personifies the mindset of many in the political class: arrogant, entirely unjustified moral certainty combined with extreme ignorance. Riffing on the C.S. Lewis quote, the outright, self serving crooks in Congress are far less dangerous than the deluded “justice” crusaders like AOC.
Cheers,
Jeremy
Hi Mark,
I just watched the posted video, wow! Seeking and attaining the, very well compensated, ability to dictate what is “right” to others is neither a sacrifice, nor a service.
Cheers,
Jeremy
If she’s a useful idiot she’s open and honest about what she believes. If she’s anything else she’s not. Because she still seeks to advance an order that cloaks itself in things like protecting workers and the environment among other common excuses and sales pitches. She uses those sales pitches. But that’s all they are. If she’s anything more than a useful idiot then she knows the true aims.
I LOVE it!!! BWAHAHAhahahaha!!!!!
We are getting close to the straw that will break the camel’s back- of both the economy [what’s left of it now] and the sanity [if you can call it that] of statists!
Think about it:
Wioth companies that are dependent upon driving using this, they are essentially just gimping their own efficiency, and thus getting less work done, and at greater cost. They are also going to drive away any desirable, competent employees- and be left with nothing but the dregs who can’t do anything else, and who just blindly follow rules without thought or care…which will cause many more problems than they think it will solve.
It’s all starting to crumble!
There will be no mass use of self-driving vehicles. They don’t work- except in very limited situations; and they will be far too expensive to maintain; and would still need human “assistants” to do all of the other non-driving tasks that drivers perform….so they really wouldn’t reduce labor costs, even if they were practical and feasible….
The law of entropy is going strong!
Everything we buy these days is of lower quality than it was in past decades.
Phone service- of what ever variety, is of much lower quality than simple landline service was 50 years ago…
People are not only stupid,but they’re walking around like zombies…
There’s going to be a big mess as this huge empire collapses- and Uncle will desperately hold onto power aty all costs till the better end, and will become even more despotic, and add to the dysfunction……
We are approaching the pivotal point of no return; and the resultant landslide will be snowball very quickly. The result will not be liberty- it will be a redux of Soviet Russia. Basically what we have now, but minus the frivolities and conveniences and vestiges of lingering liberties which still remain.
Hi Nunz!
I had this same thought the other day, while driving in very light rain. The slightest adverse conditions triggers a kind of enfeebling reflex in more and more people; an automated hyper-caution characteristic of incompetent people – who can’t deal with anything. A light spring rain, on a road with an underposted 55 MPH speed limit that hasn’t changed in 30 years – despite all the advances in the capabilities of cars – and these people drop to 38-42 MPH, as though they were faced with black ice.
It lit something in my brain, a thought about the typical Soviet citizen: A passive, resigned drone shuffling through life, waiting to be told what to do next.
Sound familiar?
People are not only mistaught by the safety cult, they also get automotive advice that hasn’t mattered since the 1970s.
I hate driving in rain and snow because on one hand there are people who are driving as if they are on bald bias ply tires in 1960 Falcon and on the other hand there are people who think their modern vehicle makes it perfectly safe to drive 110mph. I am usually confronted with needing to go around the former with the later right up on my rear bumper. It’s not that the later would be a problem if they knew how to drive, the problem is they don’t and they are relying on the technology of their vehicle to save them. That means they could end up collecting me in their wreck.
A few weeks ago I was driving in blinding rain on I294. I couldn’t see much in front of me but the SUV driver on my ass wanted to do 90mph plus. I was pushing the distance to what I could see and stop for but this guy was right on my ass in a vehicle that could not stop anywhere as quickly as mine. Eventually the dufus finally moved to the left and passed me and resumed going 90mph. Never mind I could barely make out the bus up ahead.
Those are the people I routinely see flipped on their backs every time we get the first snow or ice storm of the season; they believe the garbage advertising and think their SUV can go in any kind of weather. Well they may be able to go, but they certainly can’t stop or steer worth squat ?.
Some years back I had a run in my truck, a rairoad pig to dray about 350 miles The last 150 were in gently falling snow mostly flat road, freeway with wide shoulders and a huge swale, shallow, for the center divider. As I pushed the envelope time after time, whenever I got up to 41 or 42 mph I could feel the front end get just a bit greasey, so eased off and back down to 40. Must have been two to three dozen rigs off to wieht shoulder, or into the centre swale. No one arond anymore they just walked back up to the roadway and smoehow got a ride outta there. Thre were also upwards of two hundred cars in total, again, spun off into the centre divider or onto the shoulder. Most ended up still upright, biut a fw had rolled onto their sides, or turned turtle. NONE would have been easy to right again, many had enough damage to render them undriveable, mos tikely total loss. After a while, as I made note of the spun-off vehicles, it finally hit me… then I began watching more closely.. at least three founths of the cars and ight trucks that had had offroad excursions were four whell or all wheel drive!!! ii My conclusion was that those drivers were not dring THEIR cars, they were driving the cars they saw on the TeeVee set. My old Kenworth just jogged along at forty, rock solid, slow, but I GOT THERE, passng all the hot shots and Walter Mitty types…. who did NOT get where they were going that day. My ancient old KW did.
T, got into that one day in Lubbock where I took on a load of cotton. Huge ice storm hit, immediately everything was covered in ice. I drove by vehicle after vehicle all the way past Post Tx. on 84. Somewhere down there south of Post I got out of it.
I was going to check my load in Post even though it was iced down to the point the tarp couldn’t have been loose and I had such a bind on the ratchet boomers I knew the cotton wasn’t going anywhere…..besides, my driver’s door wouldn’t open, iced shut. Once out of that crap I nailed it and got home with the load still iced. I got the strangest looks from people headed into it(unknowingly). I backed into the spot beside the house and my wife came out, just standing there not even saying anything.
I looked at her and said “Hang on, it’ll be here soon enough”. I check the oil, checked my tires and went inside to find a weather alert and showing this thing was going to cover more than half the state, quite possibly the coast(1974 I believe).
Hmm, to go, to stay and then thought about Houston in an ice storm. I did what any good Texas trucker would do, went back out and covered my windshield, came back in the house and played with the cats and dogs and the old lady for a couple days. My uncle came by and said he thought he’d put off his load the next day.
It was time to drink coffee and turn up the heat. What was really crazy is you couldn’t have asked for a nice, calmer, more balmy day at the house when I got there. I was just glad to get out of it and all those idiots who’d spun out, crossed lines and nearly been hit by trucks. BTW, I rolled down the passenger window and told the wife to get a pitcher of hot water. She stood on the fuel tank and poured it down the seam of my door. Thanks, I needed that.
Afternoon, Eric!
Ha! So true- the infantilization of society!
This is now ingrained; it has been socially-engineered for almost 100 years now -Reminbd me to thank John Dewey!
I remember, even when I was a kid in the 70’s- You’d see some grown man lose his factory job…and he literally wouldn’t know what to do with himself until and if he foiund another! Never mind not even being able to figure out anything to do to make a buck….but I mean, they literally didn’t know what to do with their time. They desired another job more so for it giving them a way to occupy their time, than for the money it would provide.
Automatons, who literally have no purpose when not being told what to do- and who are so incapable of occupying their time (much less, doing anything productive or creative) thast they would rather do the most tedious and boring tasks, in the most uncommodious environment, than have some free time on their hands.
Nunz, this would be true if new businesses could come up and compete. The problem is in many areas the laws and regulations prevent new competition. When new competition arrives its some sort of ‘tech’ company that will further monitor and track us. It will have machines instead of employee drones. Hence why corporate drones won’t matter.
I do not believe Fedgov will not go into the night quietly like the soviet union either. Given the history of Lincoln’s war it will probably use every weapon it has to maintain control.
I completely agree, Brent- This is why I always say that although the system is going to break…it is not going to be any better of a deal for liberty-seekers. There will be fewer perks, and more tyranny. This is also why I want to get out of here- because there will be no escape within. (My other reason, is quality of life, of course. Why live looking over your shoulder every 20 seconds and walking on egg shells, when you can still ferret-out a little normal life and enjoy some peace in the sun?)
I spent my career as a fleet manager in the public sector. GPS monitoring of drivers is very common in public fleets, as government vehicles and their drivers are under close scrutiny by the taxpayers. My primary focus was vehicle utilization and idling, but we did run reports that flagged speeding and unauthorized stops (we had a few folks who would occasionally deviate from their work areas. On the positive side, we were on several occasions able to vindicate our drivers from accusations of bad driving by the motoring public, by being able to prove that the accused driver wasn’t in the reported location at the time the accuser stated. We toyed around with more advanced technology, such as monitoring acceleration and braking, but decided it just wasn’t worth the trouble.
Hi Keith,
I am becoming a hater of this technology – because it is being used not merely to enslave us but (far worse) to infantilize us. To be treated constantly like an idiot child is insufferable; worse arguably than being roughly handled by government thugs. I will fight the Safety Cult to my dying breath.
We already have people driving like that in the most wide open country on earth called Australia. Freeways built better than autobahns, but crawl along at 100 kph. Traffic so thin gaps between cars are measured in hundreds of meters. And yes you can get an infringement notice to pay a fine for driving 100 kph in a 100 kph area of the freeway. In Queensland especially. People driving in a continually afraid of situation, taking 2 hours to make a 1 hour trip. Holding up traffic because this is the only area of their life in which they can exert power by robbing following motorists of their time.
With the draconian gun seizure and control you all have down under, you all must have a worse police state than we do in the USA. I feel for you Aussies. BTW, why did you all surrender your guns without a fight?
Oh, BTW, ticketing someone for driving AT the speed limit (100 kph in a 100 kph zone) has got to be about the most CHICKENSHIT thing I ever heard of! That’s just wrong! Even the cops up here don’t do that; they’ll normally give you 5-10 mph over the limit (for speedo error) before they ticket you.
Wonder if the Aftermarket could disable the granny Nanny’s
Plan B is older manual cars
be assured there will be felony charges for this. the biennial calif smog checks have a computer check and OEM completeness check…
the nanny state has redundancies aplenty…i got $5 says they even blue tooth report your attempts to bypass their “avionics”
that 94 f150 in my driveway is looking better by the day
I had a 93 Turbo Diesel, a manual. That’s what I want again. Nothing past 94 since you get into airbags and more emissions bs. The 94 Turbo Diesel was electronic while the 92 and 93 are mechanical. I replaced the chickenshit vacuum turbo control with a manual and it was the best of both worlds. 18.5 mpg for a one ton 4WD ext. cab 8′ bed pickup, nothing growing on that. It was quiet and comfortable and with R 12 it would freeze you out on the hottest day.
Two word cure – Vehicle allowance.
I’d probably drive as normal, and when they get tired of berating me, ask to drive my own vehicle.
A company I worked for did this – you could drive the company vehicle, which in my case was a ’93 Taurus. But you’d get a 1099 for the perk. Or you could drive your own car and get a vehicle allowance (at the time – $300), or simply charge mileage. I opted out of the company ride.
I can’t imagine what this is for other than an insurance break. I can’t imagine the break is more than the cost of the gear/service for most companies.
For several years now I have maintained that digital is the worse invention of Mankind. Even my wife looks at me as if I just drove the last nail in the crucifixion of Christ when I say that. Let me add that I am no stranger to Digital. When it became fashionable in the 80s I loved it. So many cool languages,,, I learned Basic, Forth, Pearl, C, APL, Cobal, Java etc. BUT,,, upon seeing what people were doing with it I became very disappointed then angry.
Like so many other things it cannot be put back in the box. It’s so addictive I doubt people will ever fight it. It’s pathetic. Even what little good it does is turned against you. I thank God everyday that I will soon be gone. It’s so pathetic to watch humans carry those things around blabbering incoherently while thinking they look sooo cool. Digital is the new god on the block,,, monitoring where you go, everything you do, say or buy. With the camera’s going up it can literally watch you in real time go about your day. Smoke in front of children,,, fined. Go into a bar and come out a bit tipsy (Eye scan),,, fined. Say a bad word,,, fined. Say something against Father government,,, fined……………………. or worse.
One thing I can guarantee you,,, IT WILL GET WORSE!
Rant Off…..
Good article Eric,,, We need more people to put on the glasses.
Wow! If I was that guy and I could, I would quit.
I’m guessing that these things are, or will be, tied to insurance rates.
So it raises the question, if a large insurer says ‘from know on, we will monitor you and if you don’t obey your rates go up x amount’
Now my first reaction would be to switch to an insurer that doesn’t do this. How long to we have?
If my on-the-road salesman had that thing, I would tell them they weren’t going fast enough, haha….