Some Not Quite Random Thoughts On Americans and Their Cars

by L. Neil Smith
[email protected]

Special to The Libertarian Enterprise

           The private automobile, and the exhilarating sense of freedom it engenders, is central to everything unique in the American character. Today it's come under attack by a coalition of prohibitionists and Luddites.
           Every day, tens of millions of Americans employ what amounts to the best mass transit system in the world to travel from exactly where they are to exactly where they want to go, at exactly any time they desire. No lugging their groceries or bulky packages to bus stops, train stations, or subway terminals in the heat, rain, cold, sleet, or snow. No unwanted or dangerous company. No undesirable noises or smells.
           Half of this "best mass transit system in the world" -- streets, roads, and highways -- is a monopoly of various governments. The automobile itself belongs to individuals. While automobiles themselves improve a little each year, and have done so since before the turn of the last century, the failures of the best mass transit system in the world are on the "public" side. Problems attributed to the automobile -- air pollution, traffic congestion, lack of parking space, and most accidents, injuries, fatalities -- arise from an unwillingness on the part of bureaucrats and politicians simply to resign themselves to the reality of the automobile (they've only had a century, after all) and adapt.
           There's a reason for this. Those who want to be bureaucrats and politicians despise the automobile because (among other things) it represents so many well-solved problems they can't claim credit for and exploit. Also, it affords its owner a mobility and privacy which it absolutely kills their shriveled souls not to be able to intrude upon.
           Nor, in a political society dedicated to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" should the recreational benefits of the private automobile be neglected. The simple pleasure derived from owning and operating fine machinery is something that bureaucrats and politicians comprehend only dimly enough to loathe and want to eradicate, recently by using "safety" as an excuse to regulate the function and appearance of vehicles they actually dislike for reasons of cultural or class prejudice.
           A friend of mine with plenty of political savvy, holds that the main thrust of the last 10 years of environmentalism and regulations governing the ownership and use of automobiles is to force Americans out of the country -- as the Brits did so brutally to the Scots -- and into cities where they can be controlled. The first time he said this, I had my doubts. The more I learn, the more sense it makes. While our children and our grandchildren broil in crowded, stinking tenements, Algore's vile spawn will to ride to hounds in what used to be our back yards.
           What they dare not acknowledge is that ownership and use of an automobile is a right guaranteed by the the first ten amendments to the Constitution, commonly known as the Bill of Rights, specifically by the Ninth Amendment which provides for "unenumerated rights" and by the Tenth Amendment, which limits government to only a tiny handful of functions.
           Should a Ninth or Tenth Amendment right be enforced any less stringently or energetically than those rights protected, say, by the First and Second Amendments? Absolutely not. The automobile and its owner should be accorded exactly the same protection that the First Amendment extends to freedom of expression, religion, and assembly, and the Second Amendment is supposed to extend to firearms and their owners.
           If the automobile and its owners deserve Constitutional protection it follows that the enemies of the automobile and its owners -- in Congress, in legislatures, on county commissions, on city councils, and in university administrations -- deserve to feel the full weight of the highest law of the land descend on them whenever they threaten those rights that we commonly associate with the automobile and its owners.
           Two classes of objects and activities must never be taxed, no matter what trumped-up excuse bureaucrats and politicians pull out of the air to justify it. Food, clothing, shelter, and transportation are basic necessities of life. Anything guaranteed by the Bill of Rights should be sacrosanct. No aspect of the ownership or use of an automobile should be taxable -- and if that causes problems with financing the present bloated level of government, so what? Since when are Americans obliged to have more government than they're willing -- voluntarily, without the least trace of coercion -- to support?
           To drive this concept home, government must leave car design and fuel formulas to the private market system that made them possible in the first place. (All that any government knows how to do is break things and kill people, neither of which promotes automotive safety or progress.)
           It means defunding light rail, empty bus companies, and other transportation confidence schemes across America (and deregulating taxis for those who don't use a car) and using the enormous savings that result to improve roads or reduce taxes. We must also search for private alternatives to our present backward, stagnant public highway technology.
           It also means eliminating driver's licensing (something far better handled by insurance companies, if it has to be handled at all) along with the nationwide tracking and identification system commonly known as "license plates". Both represent powers that were unwisely granted to the government in the first place, were widely abused almost from the beginning, and today have become tools of a rapidly growing police state.
           The right to privacy must be fully restored with regard to the automobile and made equivalent to privacy in homes (something that needs some work, too, if we don't want to end up like the Japanese, who are subject to random searches any time the police feel like it). Roadblocks to enforce DUI or seatbelt laws -- an excuse to search for drugs, guns, or other things the police don't approve of -- must be forbidden.
           Seizures and "civil forfeitures" without due process have become common since the War on Drugs was instigated. They must not only be forbidden, but restitution must be provided to the victims of previous forfeitures, along with severe punishment for those who carried them out.
           The next time some bureaucrat or politician starts spouting off about subways, light rail, or some other multibillion tax-dollar confidence scheme to empty our pockets and control our movements, step on his toes, grab him by his lapels, and shout up his nostrils (it's the only known way to communicate with these vermin) that the American people already have the best mass transit system in the world -- one that takes them from exactly where they are to exactly where they want to go, at exactly any time they desire. -- and fully intend to keep it.
           Perhaps a new bumper sticker should be printed that proclaims,

"THEY CAN HAVE MY CAR KEYS -- WHEN THEY
PRY THEM FROM MY COLD, DEAD FINGERS!"

Any attempt to pass or enforce an unconstitutional law -- especially any law that violates the first ten amendments to the Constitution, commonly known as the Bill of Rights -- is a crime punishable by ten years in prison and a ten thousand dollar fine for each offense (Title 18 U.S.C, Sections 241 and 242). If you'd like to see that law enforced, go to http://www.smith2004.org and make your wishes known.

"Guns are no more responsible for killing people than the spoon is responsible for making Rosie O'Donnell fat." -- quoted in a message from Boris Kupershmidt

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