Posted on 10/09/2022 2:39:26 PM PDT by grundle
This New York Times article on the failure of California’s high speed rail reminds me of the chapter “The Moratorium on Brains” from Ayn Rand’s 1957 novel Atlas Shrugged.
In that chapter from the fictional book, everyone on a passenger train died because the train was controlled by politics instead of common sense.
This new article from the New York Times explains how the real world train’s ridiculous, absurd, irrational route was chosen based on politics instead of on common sense.
The New York Times article states:
“… the design for the nation’s most ambitious infrastructure project was never based on the easiest or most direct route. Instead, the train’s path out of Los Angeles was diverted across a second mountain range to the rapidly growing suburbs of the Mojave Desert – a route whose most salient advantage appeared to be that it ran through the district of a powerful Los Angeles county supervisor.”
Wow. That’s just dumb.
The article then goes on to state many different reasons why the project is so far behind schedule, and so far over budget. These blunders are the result of decisions being made based on politics instead of on logic.
By comparison, look at the very successful high speed rail in other parts of the world, such as Japan and Western Europe. They designed and built their high speed rail systems based on logic and rational thinking, not politics.
You can read Rand’s entire novel for free at this link. The chapter that I mentioned begins on page 523.
https://antilogicalism.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/atlas-shrugged.pdf
Here’s the New York Times article:
Mel Brooks’ THE PRODUCER will give you a better understanding on what is going on with the High Speed Train.
In the movie, the producer oversubscribes his play and then presents a bad play which closes the first night. No one expects to be re-paid and no-one audits the books. (All is well until one of his plays becomes a success and his scam is exposed).
Democrats know how to play this game well. The High Speed train will most likely never get completed regardless of how much money is spent.
“We’re on the road to nowhere.”
Couldn’t help but notice that China’s high speed rail network was not mentioned . It is the world’s longest and most extensively used – with a total length of over 25,000 miles .
I began reading Atlas Shrugged in 1972. I’m almost done.
“Run for your life from any man who tells you that money is evil.
That sentence is the leper’s bell of an approaching looter. So long as men live together on earth and need means to deal with one another—their only substitute, if they abandon money, is the muzzle of a gun.
“But money demands of you the highest virtues, if you wish to make it or to keep it. Men who have no courage, pride or self-esteem, men who have no moral sense of their right to their money and are not willing to defend it as they defend their life, men who apologize for being rich—will not remain rich for long. They are the natural bait for the swarms of looters that stay under rocks for centuries, but come crawling out at the first smell of a man who begs to be forgiven for the guilt of owning wealth. They will hasten to relieve him of the guilt—and of his life, as he deserves.
“Then you will see the rise of the men of the double standard—the men who live by force, yet count on those who live by trade to create the value of their looted money—the men who are the hitchhikers of virtue. In a moral society, these are the criminals, and the statutes are written to protect you against them.
But when a society establishes criminals-by-right and looters-by-law—men who use force to seize the wealth of disarmed victims—then money becomes its creators’ avenger.
Such looters believe it safe to rob defenseless men, once they’ve passed a law to disarm them. But their loot becomes the magnet for other looters, who get it from them as they got it. Then the race goes, not to the ablest at production, but to those most ruthless at brutality. When force is the standard, the murderer wins over the pickpocket. And then that society vanishes, in a spread of ruins and slaughter.
“Do you wish to know whether that day is coming? Watch money.
Money is the barometer of a society’s virtue. When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion—when you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing—when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors—when you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don’t protect you against them, but protect them against you—when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice—you may know that your society is doomed. Money is so noble a medium that it does not compete with guns and it does not make terms with brutality.
“There were so many things that went wrong,” Mr. McNamara said. “SNCF was very angry. They told the state they were leaving for North Africa, which was less politically dysfunctional. They went to Morocco and helped them build a rail system.”
Newsom is more likely to be the Dems 2024 nominee than anyone else.
The US is a disaster.
California is destroyed.
He has an ugly record that he won’t be able to run away from, so he will try to make it sound as though his egregious abuses of power (and general incompetence) are a shining story of progressive policies.
He will be aided and abetted by sniveling shills in the so-called “news” media, and the so-called “entertainment” industry.
This project is exhibit A of the Democrats approach to governance: measure never, cut 72 times. When it inevitably falls apart, say “oh well our hearts were in the right place” and move on to F up the next thing.
This will not stop until their electorate stops them. Which is to say, probably never.
one of the best books I’ve ever read. Bottom line is though, everything out of liberals parallels Ayn Rand’s take in her writings. I fully see a John Galt move right now with Truth Social and other entities that are creating a place for conservatives to go without the mental illness of the left controlling us.
Yes. It’s almost pure corruption.
To the extent something real may come out if it it will be transport for illegal aliens.
33 billion dollars.
A 737 costs about 5 million a year to operate full time.
They could buy a fleet of 20 737’s and operate them for 300 years for the cost of this railroad.
don’t bother finishing. You are living it live and in color.
Yes, looking at the map, it makes quite a longer route, taking big East detour from LA and then making smaller detour West at San Jose. Kind of zig-zag!
The biggest problem with building anything of that scale in US is getting through the lawsuits. NYMBY!
We had freeway build in Phoenix - 30 years of lawsuits, 2 years of building.
Basically, with the laws how they are, we cannot build anything!
Everyone knew it was going to fail. Everyone knew it was ridiculous and hyper-expensive. Yet the whole state (and country) accepted the BS and happy green slogans coming from California Government.
This is how a country fails - when no one cares about the truth and lies are just shrugged off
You are too conservative. Democrats get torched first Tuesday in November. They know that they have to throw Joey under the California high speed train to save 2024 and they only have 60 days to do it. First have to get rid of the giggler. Easy peasy. Some foundation comes in and offers her say $3,000,000 annually to run it. From one no work job to another. Now the dem’s pick Gavin to replace VP Word Salad. Then Joey steps down and Napa Valley Boy is your President. There done.
Well, yeah, but that didn’t prevent Rand from making high speed trains a big thing in her novel.
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