Life would be very different if they were.
SpyNavy
Garde la Foi, mes amis! Nous nous sommes les sauveurs de la République! Maintenant et Toujours!
(Keep the Faith, my friends! We are the saviors of the Republic! Now and Forever!)
LonePalm, le Républicain du verre cassé (The Broken Glass Republican)
Let me tell you about the clutch in my pinto - well, it went awry and stayed fully engaged. It was quite a task to get it home, without fully stopping even once. Downshifts were interesting - matching revs in neutral and sliding into the next gear down.