Better Than Banning

Bans are problematic when the thing being targeted is already in wide circulation. Gun being an obvious example. They can decree no new sales but what about the ones already sold – already possessed – by literally millions of people?

Door-to-door confiscation risks physical resistance and is logistically difficult regardless. It is much easier and equally effective to not ban possession of guns outright but rather to require that those who wish to continue continue possessing them pay for the privilege.

That they pay a lot for it. Not just once, either.

An annual registration fee, for instance. With the threat of criminal repercussions for failure to pay, if discovered (as during a “routine” traffic stop, for instance).

Also make ammunition expensive – as via heavy taxes. Not illegal, per se. Just generally unaffordable.

Presto! You have banned without actually banning.   

This method will likely be applied to cars that aren’t electric cars and – most particularly – cars that are not modern cars; i.e., those without built-in spyware (marketed as “apps” and “concierge services”) which present the threat – to the electric car agenda – of  being an alternative to them.

The electric car agenda is about more than just electric cars. It is about connected cars – and electric cars are the apotheosis of connectedness.

The source of motive power is almost incidental to the fact that the powers-that-be can remotely control a connected electric car. Its range, for example, can be increased over-the-wire via a “software update.” It ought to be obvious what this implies. If the range can be extended, it can also be reduced.

To zero.

Other parameters can be adjusted just as easily; for example, how fast the car can be driven. Which implies when and where it can be driven, too.

The basis for this is already embedded in many new cars, electric and not. It is marketed as “speed limit assist” – and it is very helpful indeed. The car – connected to satellites via its GPS, which you cannot simply turn off – knows the speed limit and if you ignore it, a warning light flashes.

This warning could just as easily become something else.  At the flip of a switch. This is the stated, eventual purpose of this form of “assistance.” (More about that, here.)

Bear in mind that in almost every modern car, electric and not, you don’t control speed via throttle. The computer controls the car’s speed – via responding to inputs. Which can easily be countermanded by contrary inputs. This is not hypothetical. It is already actual. Many new cars have a “valet” feature that limits speed in this manner.

The same technology can be used to limit the driver’s speed.

And more.

Again, it is just a matter of flipping a switch – of making use of tech that already exists and which is already embedded in most new cars.

Not just electric cars.

Similarly, many new cars have “teen” controls that restrict the radius the car can be driven by a teenaged driver before it sends out an “alert” to the teen’s parents. An adult driver could be restricted just as easily. Keep in mind that new cars are essentially very large, very expensive smartphones; they have software controls you do not own that can be used to pre-empt the “device” in ways you may not like – irrespective of the fact that you are the nominal “owner.”

Read the EULA.

A “connected” car – which is becoming almost any new car – can be controlled in this manner, enabling control over mobility that was previously impossible. And this is why electric cars and connected cars are being pushed harder than Face Diapers.

The reasons for both are essentially the same.

Keep in mind, too, that there is no Second Amendment protecting the right to drive, which is considered a privilege. And privileges can be rescinded at will.

Those who think it is far-fetched to believe the powers-that-be would actually use their ability to control a “connected” car in these ways are apparently not familiar with the way the powers-that-be are already using their ability to control what one may say or write without risking the loss of their ability to be in or transact business, as via the refusal of banks and similar (e.g.,PayPal) to do business with them once identified as a Wrongthinkful Person.

A Wrongthinkful Tweet or Facebook post and – just like that – your electronic car has been bricked.

No Face Diaper? No charge for you!

But if you do not own an electric car or an electronic car, they cannot control you as easily; cannot punish you as readily for Wrongthink. This is a big problem for those who want such control.

It is literally impossible to flip a switch and turn off a pre-computer-controlled, non-electronic car remotely. It is technically possible to disable it, of course, via other means – such as an EMP, for instance.

But this is impractical.

Far more effective – because far easier – is to simply place onerous financial and other burdens on those who “cling” to their non-electric, non-electronic, uncontrolled cars.

One obvious – and also subtle – way to accomplish this is to make fuel progressively more expensive, a thing already under way. The genius of this being deniability. No one in government is “after” your non-electric/unconnected car; it’s just gotten so damned expensive to fill it up that charging up begins to look like the better deal.

At the same time, offer tax subsidies and other “incentives” to those who turn in their non-electric cars.

A blunter tool is also available, if need be, as regards pre-electronic/out-of-their-control cars. They can be gaslit as “dirty” and “dangerous,” a thing already attempted and successfully, to a degree, in states like California – where extremely stringent emissions test protocols have been in force for years that are increasingly difficult for cars that are many decades old to pass, in part because it is sometimes difficult to find factory parts for these cars and without them, the car can be failed visually – even if it passes the actual exhaust sniff test.

These tests could be “updated” to “modern” standards, too – which pre-electronically controlled cars could not “comply” with unless they were “updated”  – as by replacing a carbureted engine with a fuel-injected engine – at a cost beyond the means of most owners, even if they wanted to mutilate their cars in this way.

Not a ban, you see. Just things that must be complied with in order to retain possession. To maintain your driving privileges.

All for the greater good.

Just not yours.

. . .