Why would you NOT want to drive this?Posted on 03/24/2018 7:58:36 AM PDT by NOBO2012
Could there be anything less American than driverless cars? I suppose sexbots might quality but certainly driverless cars are right up there.
Seriously, driverless cars have no place in the land that practically invented the open road, hit-the-road-Jack-never-come-back motif. And Michael Walsh agrees:
…these vehicles are emasculating, imprisoning, anti-American, and inhuman. And now, in the wake of the first fatal accident involving an “autonomous vehicle,” they’re deadly as well.
Whence comes this rush to robot cars? Did the public demand it? Or have our betters in the tech industry and in the bowels of the bureaucracy taken it upon themselves to correct our lamentable human failings and, in the name of “safety,” shove these vehicles down our throats?
He also touches on how the fear of terrorism has led to the trashing of the Fourth Amendment. Citing how we’re all subject to government overreach, unreasonable search and seizure at airports and “legal” snooping via your computer, phone (and bank records) he wonders “why would you climb into a robocar and take yourself hostage on purpose?” And notes that convenience “is no reason to voluntarily surrender your personal autonomy to something that will, by definition, be subject to close governmental scrutiny and control.”
All of which seems self-evident to anyone of a certain age. Not so for Millennials – many of whom didn’t even want to learn how to drive – who have been conditioned by propaganda to embrace mass transportation, Ubers and Zipcars. Not only do they feel they are saving the planet by not owning their own means of transportation. And it allows them to forego yet another right of passage to adulthood: the assumption of responsibility for owning and operating a set of wheels to get them from where they are to where they think they want to go. They’ll never appreciate that joie de vivre kindled simply by listening to a “road song” written to celebrate freedom and mobility – both euphemistically and literally. Pity, really.
Here’s just a partial list of my best ‘Hit the Road’ songs, feel free to add your own:
The Beach Boys — ‘Little Deuce Coupe’
Ronnie and the Daytonas – Little GTO – aka the “The Wah Wah song”
The Stills-Young Band — ‘Long May You Run’
Janis Joplin — ‘Mercedes Benz’
Wilson Pickett — ‘Mustang Sally’
Willie Nelson — ‘On The Road Again’
The Doors – Riders on the Storm
Prince — ‘Little Red Corvette’
Tracy Chapman — ‘Fast Car’
Don Henley — ‘Boys of Summer’
And of course the ultimate Motown car song, Aretha Franklin’s Freeway of Love (in her Pink Cadillac)
Mr. Walsh concludes his analysis of driverless cars with this:
But that’s what the land of the free is rapidly becoming: a nation of passengers, without even enough gumption to be backseat drivers. Enjoy the ride.
They once said “as GM goes, so goes the nation.” I say “no” to gray, soul-less, driverless cars. I say let’s make Motown great again and see how it works out for the rest of the country.
So let’s hit the road, Jack (and Jackie).
Posted from: MOTUS A.D.
So knew that was coming...haha. What's your preference for classic cars?
Do you have Mud Season where you live?
My mom had breast cancer and was treated at a local cancer center. I took her there for 6 years. I always saw some older people in the waiting room waiting for rides from the cancer bus. Sometimes if I had time I’d take them where they needed to go, if it wasn’t that far. I hated to see them just sitting there.
How many have died over the same timeframe from vehicles operated by humans who were drunk, drugged, fatigued, distracted, senile, ill, or operating on fundamentally flawed programming?
Let's end the senseless carnage of human-operated vehicles once and for all!
Perfect for a cruise down the Tail of the Dragon . . .
“If you’re gonna have “road songs” you have to include THE road song:”
Wins!
Add LSD, American Pie and Dinah’s “See the USA...”. All pure heart and soul Americana which the Obama left so thoroughly despises.
“No one is going to take your little deuce coupe away from you when self driving becomes available.”
Not at first, but yes; eventually they will make it illegal.
Big brother starts out just offering “safer options” and “environmentally friendly solutions”.
Next, they let you choose, but if you choose wrong, your insurance rates are higher and you don’t qualify for a tax credit. They use taxpayer money to raise “social awareness”, i.e., create a social stigma for the nonconforming behavior.
Finally, they just make it outright illegal.
The left will eventually take away your rights as sure as the sunrise.
For a while, they pushed latex paint vs. oil based as an option, then they used manufacturing regulations and work permit restrictions to drive the price of using oil paint up. Now, it’s almost impossible to get the oil based - the private citizen never got to choose.
People used to be able to rent out rooms or operate a business out of their home, plant a tree or vegetable garden, raise chickens, hunt, whatever - do as they pleased, within reason. Now everything needs to be approved, regulated, restricted, licensed, etc., and many things are prohibited - they’ve gone the way of the dodo bird.
They will eventually do the same with guns, cars, beef, you name it.
They get 2/3 of the people conform just by offering incentives - the remaining 1/3 needs to be fined and punished.
And many people are just fine with big brother making their decisions for them. Like you with the self driving car - you look at the silver lining, like being able to get around when you’re too old to drive.
That’s fine, technology and innovation can be wonderful - just beware the tyranny of the majority - don’t let them take away your right to choose - as they will certainly try to do.
People try to control each other - it’s human nature - we have to guard against it - that’s what being conservative is all about.
Rush - Red Barchetta
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAvQSkK8Z8U
“Do you have Mud Season where you live?”
Where I live I can cross 600 miles. A dozen mountain ranges, canyons, deserts, alkalai flats, hot springs, while only touching pavement to cross it 4 times. There is still snow in July above 9000 feet, and there can be walls of wildflowers some years. Many months of the year (like now)great swaths of land are impassable due to mud. Though not the kind of mud you are prolly thinking of...you get stuck in this mud you may be walking for days. Some of the most awe inspiring sights in the world, though most will never see them
“Cars have been soulless for years. No character what so ever.”
I bitterly regret not keeping my first car, a 51 Chevy,
Welcome to the future. If one wants to be nostalgic, pining for the past, one might also remember how unreliable most cars were not so long ago.
And in a pursuit of rugged individualism, shouldn't you really be hand-cranking the engine to start it? After all, having an electric motor turn over the engine is wussy. And what about electric windows. Don't really need those. Remember the fun of being on the highway with the windows down when you encountered a thunderstorm and you can't reach across the seats to rollup the passenger side window. Good times.
And tires. Those steel belted, tubeless 40-thousand mile tires we have nowadays are for wimps. Natural rubber tires with inner tubes. The ones that would suffer 3 or 4 blowouts on a 120 mile trip requiring a 20 minute pit stop at the side of the road. Made more fun again if it was raining. Or the middle of Winter. Tires for a real man!
And lets not forget electronic ignition. It's a damn computer chip running the engine! A real man would deal with cleaning dirty ignition points and adjusting the engine timing every other week. And don't forget the proper setting on that manual choke. Set it too rich and you flood the engine. Set it too lean and you exhaust the battery. it took skill and finesse to start a car back in the good old days!
And those sealed batteries. Who wants a sealed battery that's good for 3 or 4 years when you can have a real man's battery where you need to check the electrolytic level and add distilled water periodically. It's like a home chem lab experiment! What fun! And try not to splash any of the battery acid on the dog. His coat is already looking kind of mangy.
No; I like Heinlein's old quote. “Progress is made by lazy men looking for easier ways to do things.”
Hot Rod Race (Hawaii version)
A 1958 Corvette was my college ride. Now it is a Chevy Silverado 1-ton Dually Quad Cab (I have a 5th wheel...) Two other Vettes, a ‘69 Mustang 351 fastback and a bunch of others in between. No self driving cars for me....
Different story for my two sons - both living in Portland - one just bought a new Subaru and the other mostly rides the bus. I guess the love of cars is not genetic....or maybe it’s the water in Portland.
If every car was driverless they’d be no need for car insurance. Bumper to bumper at high speeds. Ownership would be unnecessary. Uber and Lyft + throw in a few companies for competition. Every mechanic would be employed doing routine maintenance. More would get done just like the iPhone. Gonna be awesome!
Sounds kinda dry.
I drove a short distance yesterday down a road that looked good but seemed to be made of a mixture of sand and very wet Bentonite thawed out to about two inches deep. It was nasty.
Hard Top Race--George Stogner
Hot Rod Mama--Ramblin' Jimmy Dolan
Good song, but I prefer Dwight Yokum's, "Long White Cadillac". Great cruising song with all the windows rolled down on a Hot August Night. So looking forward to warm days/nights to pull Justine (my 58 Impala) out of the garage storage and head down the coast and to car meets.
I have no particular preference except American. Just smell a GM lover only here.
I grew up Ford-based and still love them. But funny is I have never outright owned one myself. So far it is all GM.
As far as old cars, as I said just about anything American. (No, I think foreign cars are wimpy, if not boring or ugly to look at.)
For ‘50s, a great all-too forgotten one is the great Continental Mk II. THAT is a beautiful line. And 12 coats of paint.
All-time I must have a Duesenberg Model J.
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