Try to imagine a doctor who feels contempt toward his patients. Wait. We don’t need to imagine anymore, do we? Well, how about a car journalist who thinks – who openly says – “most people should not be driving cars”?
Such a one is a guy by the name of Rory Carroll – who writes for the Left-leaning car site, Jalopnik. A Left-leaning car site is itself an interesting incongruity, at least superficially – in that Leftism and private car ownership/enjoyment go together like high fructose corn syrup and good health. But it is superficial, as revealed by Carroll’s offhanded but revelatory statement. He also thinks “most people” ought to be barred from driving “very fast cars on public roads.”
Because guys like Carroll – that is to say, Leftists – consider themselves the arbiters of who ought to be allowed to drive.
And how.
Driving being a conditional privilege, to Leftists.
“Public” roads mean their roads, of course. Not in the technical-legal sense but rather in the operational-control sense, which is ultimately the only sense that has any meaning. Leftists use a mind-fuck trick to get people to accept Leftist control of everything by pretending the “public” owns these things. But the Left – which controls the government – has control over these things and so asserts practical ownership over them. The public – that is to say, you and me and the rest of the proletariat – own nothing because we are in control of nothing.
It’s a slick trick and it works really well. People notice – and object to – a king owning everything and flaunting it. They don’t object to a general secretary controlling everything – and flaunting it.
Because they buy into the mind-fuck that the “public” owns all that stuff.
That is how the once-upon-a-time right of way and the right to travel freely became “public” (that is, government-controlled) roads – and using them a conditional privilege. It is a transition that Carroll very much endorses, probably because he regards himself as one of the better class who ought to be free to use these roads because he is sufficiently competent.
Just as he appears – based upon his profile blurb, which proudly lists the multiple cars he owns – to regard himself as among the better sort who ought to be allowed to own as many cars as he likes.
Including several that have no “advanced driver assistance technology” and none of which are battery-powered.
But it’s different for you.
Just as it is different for Leftists such as Joe Biden – who among other things owns an antique Corvette that has no catalytic converters and so that “emits” a great deal of actual pollution (as opposed to carbon dioxide, which is a “pollutant” in the way that the money you’re forced to pay into the Social Security program is a “contribution”).
But he wants you to own an EV.
Just as it is different for Leftists such as the current secretary of transportation to be chauffeured around in armored V8-powered SUVs but insists you be pushed into an EV (assuming you can afford one).
But that is expected from Leftist politicians. It is, after all, what they do – summoning Dr. Evil voice, describing his henchman, Random Task. What’s unexpected is to encounter such Leftism in car journalism. The effrontery of it is stupendous. Carroll is not just a contributor to Jalopnik; he is the editor-in-chief!
And he thinks – he says! – “most people should not be driving cars.”
There was a time when that would have disqualified a person from working in car journalism – for the same reason that a militant vegan would not have been hired to write for a cattle industry trade publication. But the Left has indeed marched through the institutions to such an extent that even car journalism is now rotten with Leftism. It is so confident in itself that it – per Carroll – believes it is now in a position so unassailable it can be open about its plans and the feelings that motivate them.
The feelings they have – of contempt – for the Deplorables, as they openly call them.
If, even 20 years ago, the World Economic Forum – who are these people? – had emitted a public statement to the effect that we will own nothing and by implication they will own everything and that private car ownership (for us, they mean) must be ended, it would have been regarded by most of us as the crazy talk of the hard-core Left.
Which of course it is.
The thing is, they kept quiet about it for decades, as they marched discreetly through the institutions, keeping their mouths mostly shut so that we would not know just what they had in mind until it was too late for us to do much about it. That is where we find ourselves now and that is why a guy like Carroll can openly state that he thinks “most people should not be driving cars” and be editor-in-chief of a “car” publication.
And they ask me why I drink . . .
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This leftist car journalist virus stuff has infected other publications as well such as the staff of “Car & Driver” magazine. That rag is now just bunch of shills for the electric vehicle industry. The Ford Mach-E a “Car of the Year” contender??? ANY EVs in the “Top 10” vehicles??? You’ve got to be friggin’ kidding me! They’ve lost a lot of subscribers over the years as they’ve become nothing but fanboys (and fangirls) for EV manufacturers. When they do review regular cars, trucks, and SUVs, they do do with an overly critical eye… almost as if they wish ICE vehicles would disappear.
I wish “Car & Driver” would disappear.
Amen, Bill –
There was a time when C&D hired people like me; now guys like me are like Aurochs; i.e., archaic creatures from a vanished time!
Pretty much every tech site now is a shill for electric everything. Surely there is some innovation happening somewhere in the world that doesn’t involve net zero or the next great battery.
I wonder how many Jalopnik readers can drive a stick shift. This turd bucket is probably like their god.
Off Topic:
Michigan’s demonic governor, Wretched Witchmore and the demonrats currently ruling the state have conspired to send Michigan back to the stone age.
Only wind and sun power by 2040. Just try to heat through a Michigan winter on that, to say nothing of running an industrial based economy. The solar power I will be using is called “wood”.
Hey Ugg,
Out where I am, off-grid in Az, much of the energy we use comes from the Sun and wind, though, in our current position, propane is being used for heat. When we move into the house I’ll be building, it might be possible to use pure electrical power much of the time, but I’ll be installing fireplaces to supplement that on the cold, cloudy days.
Michigan is a much different story with regards to the weather, I’m sure. Too chilly for me, man.
‘The solar power I will be using is called “wood”.’ – You’re correct, there. Wood contains much stored solar energy. It’s even “carbon-neutral”. If they try taking away fireplaces, it’s just to kill people.
Speaking of industrial applications, I recently ran across this:
https://www.powermag.com/westinghouse-secures-first-customer-for-evinci-nuclear-microreactor/
Sounds pretty righteous, honestly.
Nuclear has been the way to go since the 70’s, then the enviro activists aided by the entrenched interests put the kibosh on it.
The only possible reason for the moronic shit that is being pushed across the board is to kill lots of people in various ways.
I am an optimist and believe people are tougher and not as easy to kill as the pushers think. We shall see.
“…People are tougher and not as easy to kill as the pushers think.”
At least the people worth keeping, right? No one achieves greatness or maintains their freedom by just doing what they’re told and accepting what they’ve been dealt. This is yet another time of selective pressure, only I don’t think it will end like the Planners think.
Horns of a dilemma:
‘Ford confirmed on Thursday that the UAW deal is expected to add about $900 in costs per assembled vehicle by 2028.
‘The company said it plans to cancel or postpone $12 billion in investments related to electric vehicles.’
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/11/30/fords-2023-guidance-uaw-deal-cost.html
Higher wages = fewer Eeevee investments.
Now you know why economics is called the dismal science. Unlike Big Gov, private sector actors can’t just print currency to fund everything.
‘Biden’ walked the picket line with the UAW. Now, *poof* goes a battery plant. Inevitably, leftism chokes on its own internal contradictions.
Leftism isn’t totally wrong. Corporations often are evil, and there are always people who don’t fit well into society who fall through the cracks and don’t really get a fair shake. Maybe a few other things here and there. When they want to, they can do most of the bill of rights very well.
But while they are occasionally good at pointing out actual problems, they are not good at proposing workable solutions.
Anything that hinges on the responsible use of power is kind of suspect, because even if you can somehow manage to find the one totally selfless and fair person who will do that (if one even exists), he will eventually die and be replaced by a tyrant. Everyone wants to be that one benevolent dictator. History shows that isn’t likely.
I’d settle for a Louis or a Frederick or a Henry any day, rather than suffer under these bozos.
Hi Publius,
Yes, but I have come to believe that all of that was – and is – disingenuous. The Left cares about power – not “the poor.” It does not oppose corporate power. It wants to be corporate power. The Left pretends to care about free speech when it serves to advance Leftism. When Leftism has power, it suppresses speech.
True Leftism is something else. If by “Leftism” you mean caring about the welfare of others, for instance. In that case, the “Leftist” helps them. Himself. Not by forcing others to.
The long-running ethanol scam takes to the skies:
‘Now, the nation’s airlines want to power their planes with corn, too. Their ambitious goals would likely require nearly doubling ethanol production, which airlines say would slash their greenhouse gas emissions.
‘To qualify as sustainable aviation fuel under Biden’s tax-credit program, the fuel would have to be produced in a climate-friendly manner, for instance using renewable energy for harvesting, manufacture or transport.’ — NYT
https://archive.ph/G4hBi#selection-5001.213-5021.13
Serfs hauling corn cobs to the distillery in EeeVee trucks, so the nomenklatura can jet about the planet … yeah, sounds like a bright future — for them.
Beam me up from this prison planet, Scotty.
haha…….. ‘renewable energy for harvesting, manufacture or transport.’
OMG I can’t stop laughing these people are so clueless, dumb, or just sinister.
The dirty little secret – it costs more energy to -make- ethanol from corn then the energy density of the fuel itself. Another pork barrel / boondoggle to make retarded environmental lefties who are scientifically illiterate feel good. Also a nice subsidy for farmers who are more than happy to take gub’mint money from the stupids.
The mere fact they are even mentioning ethanol in the same sentence as jet fuel tells you everything you need to know about their understanding of chemistry & physics.
They still have leaded gas in aviation fuel.
Presumably because it works better.
I don’t think this will fly.
Fun fact: The guy who invented tetraethyllead is the same guy who later went on to invent Freon.
The government is always using “Saaaaaaaaaaaafety” and “Cliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiimate change” as an excuse for forcing automobile manufacturers to install Nanny State stuff like air bags and the upcoming kill switch. Now they want TOTAL control of everyone & everything as well as new cars such as the ability to control how fast you’re driving, citing ONE car accident in Nevada that killed 9 people….
https://thehighwire.com/editorial/the-government-wants-to-control-everything-and-now-they-are-after-your-cars/
The wannabe owners are always trying to attach ‘public’ to everything. Truth is, we already own it, all of it. Public lands belong to the tax paying public, no one else. Don’t care how many times J Powell and Jan have rehypothicated the title to China. It belongs to us and we should start acting like it.
A backlash is brewing against soft handed screen workers like Rory. Cant come soon enough. In the meantime, where is our Random Task?
Maybe Rory is just plain stupid and doesn’t know it? Could be. What you call a big baby. He’d cry if he could have his toy car. Freaking hilarious.
You want fewer drivers? Gotta go all Gazan and kill them!
‘Bout the only answer to solve the problem.
Those ****sticks north of Richmond continue to make life so much fun.
I wanna new drug! One that won’t make me sick!
A Bloody Mary will do. Gotta use Canadian Worcestershire sauce, Lea and Perrins, of course.
Oops, he’d cry if he couldn’t have his toy car.
Gotta make a mistake now and then.
Probably an unintended nuance, Rory would have all of his toy cars confiscated and be told he can’t have them. When and if he would get one of them back, he then would cry tears of joy.
Nobody wants to go to work on a bus or with other working stiffs in a car, you want to go it alone.
I was standing at a bus stop in Seattle back in 1982, a woman next to me was standing there at the bus stop waiting for the bus. I spotted a trickle of liquid leaking down her right leg. A pool of urine formed at her feet. When you gotta go, you gotta go.
Musing memories is all.
Rory might find himself 6ft under one of those concrete blob traffic barrier islands being shat at warp speed on EVERY main road all WINTER long here in Sootville OR.
Who voted for such BS ?
Ahhh that felt good. . .
The overarching question is how can we pull off the readership from this guy. That site looks like someone’s litter bin.
I never liked Jalopnick from day one. Back in the 2000’s I found them to be squishy. Now, they’re downright hostile.
Hi Swamp,
The Left has money backing it. Our side not so much. And that is one of the major obstacles faced by our side. I don’t trust Elon Musk, but I am glad he’s backing Tucker Carlson. We need more like that.
Re: $
I just learned I might be loosing our farmland assessment. I am getting involved and I have learned it’s major eco-freaks with lots of $ against us farmers. They don’t believe we should even LOOK at nature, etc…. let alone touch it.
We won’t win and more mom and pops bite the dust.
The big guys in the room are saying it’s another mega land grab.
Cause once the original owner (farmer) sells, then any grandfathered exemptions go out the window and the new owner basically has zero property rights. I’m sick to my stomach. This is partially how it ends.
Give John Kerry a sufficient dose of some Jimsonweed root and he’ll be tamed in no time.
Kerry is a wild animal that has to be controlled using natural psychotropic substances.
Any Hopi medicine man would make sure John is brought under control.
Read Trevor Williams’ book Drugs from Plants, Hopi medicine men fed Jimsonweed to unruly braves. Have to tame the elites, has to be done.
Elon’s puny stupid brain knows not what it does.
So sad and too bad.
There is no rest for the stupid.
Eric, I read an article the other day (can’t find it now) about dealerships getting together to push back on EV mandates. Apparently they are not selling because get this, people don’t want ’em. Hmmm
A petition to ‘Biden’ from 3,882 car dealers is posted here:
https://evvoiceofthecustomer.com
It’s pretty weak tea … groveling field hands, politely begging their cruel overseer to delay their floggings. Also, they don’t understand the use of the apostrophe:
Let our customer’s voices be heard.
This is grammatical only if they have but one customer, a raving schizophrenic with multiple personalities.
Having only one customer is not that far-fetched, if they’ve got nothing to peddle but EeeVees.
The pure bred stallion will be presented to a fertile fecund mare to milk his sperm into a sperm bag by the women veterinarian, it’s all on video.
The stallion snorts at the mare’s fully engorged vaginal labia majora.
You can impregnate numerous mares with one stallion ejaculate.
Women know how it all gets done. Their labia minora receives close examinations at times.
Life is more than what we have here, here life on Earth is like life on Mars and even Venus, You don’t know what it really is anymore.
How do you think life gets here?
Women bear children, about the only way it can get done to make it happen.
Not my fault! Well, it could be. har
$2 bullets solve many problems.
This clown is not the problem but a symptom of the real problem. We’re going to need a LOT of those $2 bullets
“The public – that is to say, you and me and the rest of the proletariat – own nothing because we are in control of nothing.” – Eric
True dat!
Remember our indoctrination camps ‘a government of the People, by the People and for the People’ spoken by the biggest war mongering creep in US history. The one that changed “these united States” to “THE UNITED STATES”
mmmmm… I’m looking up recipes for locust, meal worms and other yummy bug stuff I can snack on waiting for my leased EV to charge enough to get me home to my rented ten person apartment in Area ‘F’ of my mega city.
Wonder what it would take to decapitate Ape Lincoln’s marble statue in DeeCee?
I would gladly contribute to a prize for anyone who can accomplish it with a trebuchet.
Yankee ingenuity, bitchez!
There are ways.
One thing one never sees – WHAT about WORK TRUCKS? A lot of us, including me have one. It is how we make a living going from job to job! What about heavy trucks? Semi’s – dump trucks and other construction equipment? You going to move things a round with a bicycle? Like that is not even a thing to think about with all the stuff we carry in a work truck.
Electric? You got to be kidding. There isn’t enough range in one to cover even the most city bound work truck. Much less people like me who usually go over 45 to 75 miles to a job. AND back. This is just a fools paradise. People who no longer make things, repair things, install things for a living have no idea what makes the world go. We are not going to go into anything even close to a short mileage range vehicle. Without people like us the world would surely revert back to the stone age. Where nothing even close to modern living conditions would work anymore without the support of the artisans and craftsmen who make up a the vast majority of this work force.
Sorry my 15 year old Ford E250 and it’s cabinets and bench inside are going to stay on the road no matter what any jerk in any power positions says. I need a “shop” to go to the work site and do what I do to make the gun go bang in today world.
Sorry Charlie… Their artists and craftsmen are digital robots (AI) today. No license, no insurance, no fuel stations, no parts and if caught on the road a 5 year sentence to jail for endangering the climate….
The Left has exactly the same attitude toward guns: “most people shouldn’t have guns” –except for the cops that THEY control, except for THEIR armed security, and except for carry permits issued to THEM, because, after all…their lives are more important than the lives of YOU plebeian scum.
‘a militant vegan would not have been hired to write for a cattle industry trade publication.’ — eric
Rory Carroll was commenting on a Slate article by Dan Kois, who posed this idiotic question: ‘Why would an automaker manufacture a car with so much engine power that it requires an eight-speed transmission?’
Carroll correctly points out, as Eric has many times, that multiple overdrive gears are a kludge to squeeze an extra mile per gallon out of the fedgov’s testing.
How does Dan Kois qualify to run his fool mouth about cars, which he obviously knows nothing about? Kois approvingly references an article by another presstitute, David Zipper, who writes:
‘NTSB’s [accident] investigation recommended that automakers install technology on all new cars that can prevent reckless speeding—and, for the first time, called on the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to mandate it. That is an excellent, overdue idea.
‘NTSB’s proposed solution: adopting Intelligent Speed Assist (ISA), a modern and techier version of the speed governor. Rather than preventing a vehicle from ever exceeding a given threshold, ISA uses geolocation to automatically reflect the legal limit on a given street or highway.’
https://www.fastcompany.com/90985257/you-shouldnt-be-driving-over-100-mph-and-your-car-shouldnt-let-you
So a ‘techier’ nanny that tracks your location is going to limit your speed, probably with the usual Google Maps errors. And leftist journos cheer like trained seals bouncing beach balls on their noses. That’s why it’s called the Lügenpresse.
>‘Why would an automaker manufacture a car with so much engine power that it requires an eight-speed transmission?’
What a monument to basic (“systemic”?) stupidity. IIRC, we learned in introductory science classes about gears, pulleys, etc. and the concept of mechanical advantage. How some horse’s ass could manage to get through school and get it entirely ass backwards is beyond my understanding.
>dangerously fast roads
Oohhh, what a concept.
>narrower lanes and additional intersections
Well, what the hell, why not just jackhammer every last mile of the Interstate Highway System? No one needs to go that fast, comrade.
And there certainly is no need for “ludicrous speed.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jennifer_Homendy
Can you say “political hack?”
>She earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Pennsylvania State University
In “minding other peoples’ business,” no doubt.
Science? What’s that?
“Speeding is now a factor in almost a third of the crash deaths in the U.S.”
A Bullshit Lie.
Several studies have shown: Driving over a Speed Limit is the factor in 1,5 -3% of accidents/deaths. An additional 3% is caused by people driving too fast for conditions (but not driving over the Speed Limit).
One California study showed ca. 6% of accidents/deaths caused by driving too fast for conditions but 76% of all Traffic Tickets were written for Speeding.
In Nevada, nearly all accidents factor in Speeding as a cause in accidents. A workmate of mine was cited for Speeding when he ran into the back of another car in Stop and Go traffic. In another instance near my (former) home, a woman exited the Interstate in her SUV while speaking on her celular and ran a Stop Sign – hitting and killing two people in a small car. Speeding was reported as a factor.
In California there was a Head-On accident with multiple fatalities caused by a car driven by an intoxicated driver, traveling ca. 100 MPH the wrong way on an Interstate. Speeding was claimed as one of the causes.
I guess if they make make ‘speed limits’ low enough on large, wide open rural highways like they are doing in VA, they can blame most anything on ‘speeding’. VDOT Bureaucracts are as nasty assholes as the ATF, and even have their own LEOs in VA.
Speeding is road covid
Jim H: Lügenpresse indeed. But it’s even worse than that. They prostitute themselves and are literally paid to write articles that support certain positions such as these. Hell, in many cases these articles are ghost-written by a PR firm and they just lie claiming authorship.
Much of the mass media is carefully crafted by “influencers” of all sorts. We live in a world of mostly lies.
Much like Tesla and Elon, I believe Jalopnik and similar sites are staring down the prospect of a credibility Waterloo today with deliveries beginning for the Cybertruck.
Where was Elon this week? Hanging out in Israel, looking for a distraction, maybe even hoping for an attempt on his life.
Asking his masters how they got here from mars?
“He who is unwilling to allow the liberty of others, bases that fear on the knowledge of his own incompetence & ineptitude”
Leftist car journalist?? What surprises me is how sports journalist especially TV has gone left. Keith Oberman comes to mind as the worst.
Another reason I do not watch nor consume professional sporting events. (With the breakup of the Pac-12 so goes my college football interest as well)
> I do not watch nor consume professional sporting events.
Professional sports and pornography are two sides of the same coin.
Watching other people do something instead of doing it yourself.
I am not interested.
Screw that cuckold simp, Rory Carroll. HE says he has a ‘love of cars’, but he just doesn’t want the rest of us having one. He isn’t even old enough to have grown up in cars that he ‘admires’, and is probably spiteful of those of us who did. I would bet he is also a gun-grabbing lefty as well, who can’t stand OTHER people having cars or guns, let alone BOTH. I would string his carcass up (right alongside Mussolini, Hitler & Stalin) and half of the politicians in THIS country, for treason. These are the dickless cucks that will stand right beside you and strangle individual freedom and autonomy to death, “for your own safety”.
The interesting thing is how much he loathes himself for “destroying the planet”.
Again in Rory’s own words:
“I also want Jalopnik to be the place where car enthusiasts talk about the future of car culture, specifically with regard to commuting, climate change, urban sprawl, alienation and other fun topics. The tension between my love of internal combustion engines and my desire to limit the role I play in destroying the planet is something I spend a lot of time thinking about. I don’t think I’m alone in that. I don’t see that stuff being discussed regularly in automotive media and it’s a discussion that we as a community should be contributing to—in addition to posting about craigslist garbage, naturally.”
Ya’ just can’t make this stuff up! Reality is stranger than fiction.
Amen, Graves –
He even looks like the stereotypical “soy boy.” Dumpy body, scruffy beard. I’d love to treat him to an aria produced by Little Stinker…accompanied by the smells!
Austin is fast becoming Soy Boy Central.
Every time I have to go into the city proper, I see a new apartment complex catering to that demographic being built where a light industrial park or strip mall used to sit.
It is. I have always hated that city back almost 40 years ago. At least back then, it was inhabitable. Now, it is an unlivable cauldron looking a lot like San Fransisco
Spent last week in Austin, visiting relatives. But this takes the cake:
“We estimate that Tesla will churn out 2k-3k units this quarter with the first 10k unit quarter to come in 1H24 with pilot production capacity in Austin at 125k units, while the reservation count/pre-orders has reportedly topped the ~2 million unit threshold as a gauge of demand,” [Wedbush analyst Dan] Ives said.
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/watch-tesla-hosts-event-deliver-first-batch-cybertrucks-customers
Austin — polluting the nation with Eeeeelon’s electric pickups.
Owl shaped milltard warehousing. . .
Gaza is the future.
Almost nobody who lives there drives anymore.
Evidently eLoon went there (or close by) to get schooled…(?)
‘Gaza is the future.’ — Adi Heidler
Indeed — the selective focus of the Lügenpresse is on full, ugly display:
‘The freed hostages, many of them children, were deprived of adequate food while in Gaza. Many said they had received just a single piece of bread per day for weeks. Others were fed small portions of rice, or pieces of cheese.’
https://archive.ph/zYJDE#selection-418.0-567.340
This is of course the plight of all 2.3 million residents of Gaza, who have no power, little water, and little food. But this fact receives no mention. Shorn of context, Gaza’s miserable living conditions are painted as mistreatment of hostages, rather than a collective punishment forcibly imposed by the Israelis themselves.
Israelis cry out in pain as they strike the Gazans.
Genocidal real estate grubbing banksters turning G to dust.
AKA redevelopment.
All that dust would clog an air filter pronto.
On a certain level I agree with Rory.
Why?
Most people are taught to drive by GovCo at the local GovCo school. They are then certified as Competent by the GovCo DMV. Stats show that half of newly certified drivers crash in the first year. With the track record of the education provided by GovCo schools, Johnny can’t read, write or do math, coupled with the imprimatur of the DMV, the poster child of GovCo incompetence, should we think that most drivers have the skills to be on the road?
I don’t think that’s what he meant but, Rory the Blind Hog has found an acorn.
Would you expect anything different from a hack like Rory?
You know, the sort of guy that leaves Jalopnik for a better gig but then ends up right back at Jalopnik a year later?
I have a job posting from Jalopnik / GO Media :
“Have 1-3 years of writing experience.
It’s not necessary to have worked as an automotive journalist, some of our best staffers have come from non-traditional
backgrounds.”
LOL – yes indeed, some of the best, like Rory. A political science major by trade, and a shill for leftist ideology posing as a “car guy” / journalist.
The kind of car guy that writes:
“That will probably mean that the world has to change drastically so that people who don’t like driving (and probably aren’t any good at it) don’t have to rely primarily on driving for their transportation. People should be free to drive when they want, but free to forgo driving, too. It’ll mean fewer cars on the road, and that ideally, as I’ve said before, driving becomes a hobby, like sailing, skiing or riding a horse. Driving should be for people who love it. We almost certainly won’t get that lucky, but it’s fun to have goals.”
And there you have it. That is his stated goal. If only we plebs would bend to Rory’s superior intellect and wisdom he would be free to enjoy his automotive hobby.
And yet . . . Jalopnik continues to exist and is read by “car guys”.
Hi Son,
Here’s a true story for you: Back in the early 2000s, I was up in NYC to cover the New York Auto Show (which used to be worth covering). There were press events for journalists and some of these you’d get ferried to via a jitney bus provided by one of the car manufacturers. I got into one of these, along with a group of about a dozen others. Guy sitting next to me apparently recognized me – I didn’t know him – and begins to ask me about getting into writing about motorcycles, which he apparently knew I did (in addition to writing about cars). He was younger than me and so I figured he was looking for advice, which I was happy to give. I began by asking him about his bikes. What did he ride? He looks at me and then says: I don’t own a bike. Turns out he didn’t ride, either. Didn’t even know how. Yet he wanted to write about them.
It took all my willpower not to choke him out right then and there.
Indeed,
I’d be willing to bet our paths have crossed in the past. I used to occasionally support the automotive media events you’ve described.
I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve been unlucky enough to find myself in a manual transmission equipped vehicle with an automotive journalist or an automotive executive that can BARELY drive a manual.
And all you meatsacks with the middle initial “P” (for Partsbody) can remain in your battery cages until we, the Doctor Gods, require you to “donate” a vital organ or two. The biological waste which is the rest of you will be recycled into delicious “synthetic meat” for consumption by inner party members.
You mean you thought there was something else to life?
HA HA HA HO HO HA HA.
“Rory” –a handle like that must’ve led to brutal ass whippin’s as a child.
I watched V for Vendetta again the other day. The takeaway is all it takes is one person with the stones to say Foxtrot Oscar to the authoritarians. Channeling Elon Musk: Rory, go fuck yourself.
Bullies and control freaks. That is what leftists are.
The pseudo-intellectual class will always be among us. They cannot help but make asses of themselves.
Thing is, I’ve seen a lot of terrible driving this week. But almost every one of those drivers can be properly trained. In addition, much of the poor driving was related to speed. Namely those who stuck to a strict speed limit and those who flat-out ignored it. Everything else seems to derive from conflict between those two. Add a cop in the median and suddenly you have a whole road full of hazards.
My highway speeding days are behind me, I’m much more interested in traversing mud and rock than forward momentum, and my choice of vehicle reflects this. But I get the hell out of the way of people who do want to take advantage of a good paved road if they find one. And I’m not about to make everyone match my speed either. I was trained to go with the flow. I’m convinced that speed limits themselves are dangerous, even worse on the poorly maintained roads in our network. Recommendations, sure, but when clearly capable automobiles and drivers are held back arbitrarily, they tend to assume there’s never a case for slowing down.
Amen, RK –
I’ll add my usual 50, too: It has always struck me as obviously unjust to punish anyone for what someone else worries might result if the person punished were not let alone. If I lose control of my car and wreck – and damage someone else’s car or hurt them – I would accept my responsibility for that. I certainly would not resent being held responsible.
But I deeply resent being “pulled over” by some geek with a gun and badge because I was “speeding” or some other such made-up “offense.” When I go to court, I feel contempt for it – and the judge. Why? Because I am being punished for not having caused any harm to anyone, solely on the basis of my having “offended” a statute (one based, ostensibly, on the fears of what others think might happen if these statutes aren’t obeyed).
“deeply resent” , I have progressed even beyond that. I’m at the point where I think traffic laws are tyranny. Seriously, they are the things that have conditioned us all to seek “the common good” instead of vigilantly looking to preserve our own safety and interests. Every single last driver on the road would be better at it if they knew it was up to them to stay alive. I’m not a motorcycle rider but I understand that a competent one views every other car on the road as a potential threat/hazard. Car drivers are lulled into thinking that traffic laws and enforcement will protect and justify their driving because they expect everyone else to “follow the rules.” Nope. I know, it’s a pipe dream, but if we didn’t have traffic laws then maybe it wouldn’t infuriate me so much when drivers surrender their right of way….don’t get me started.
Despite the fact that millions are driving every day, and fatal accidents are not terribly common?
A rebuttal: Car journalists who write such drivel should not be writing, much less publishing.
I don’t think this is going to increase his readership.
I wish I could say that his hubris is astonishing, but unfortunately, it’s quite common. Assuming the mantle of saint hood, and issuing proclamations expected to be accepted. Even if they aren’t.
Exactly. Car journalist should focus on a narrow set of topics to include the cars they test, acceleration tests, braking test, skidpad and subjective evaluation of driving characteristics such as noise levels, ride factor, interior “features” and highway performance. Add in some gas mileage numbers and that’s what a road test should cover.
Other topics for discussion should be speed limits, highway updates, traffic and the effect of government regulations on what you are driving.
Fiction should not be covered by journalists. That would include reciting government statistics on speeding, traffic safety, and “environmental concerns, to include ‘climate change.'”
We should be doing everything we can do dismiss and discredit the modern environmental movemnt and the traffic safety movement as both have done nothing but aggravate, abuse and destroy motoring freedom in this country. The people that advocate without and withing the government on these issues deserve nothing but immediate ridicule and removal from influence, by any means possible.