They don’t know precisely what they want. What they do know is they are experiencing a great itch that they want to scratch by once again increasing their control over us. Over and over again, personal choice and personal freedom end up being in their crosshairs. I’d ask, do they think that we’ve lost the ability to detect patterns?, but for the most part, meaning, in the case of the most of our fellow adults, it appears we have lost that capacity.
The most likely cause of this increasing trend toward stupidity amongst our fellow adults is that the vast bulk of them have thoughtlessly slipped beneath the moral waves and are mired in grave personal sin. Over time this markedly weakens one’s individual intellect.
I’m all in favor of personal choice and flexible work arrangements that allow people to make better work-life decisions. That doesn’t mean government should use the power of eminent domain to build expressways from every suburban cul de sac into the center city. We would be better off with denser cities in which more people were able to live close to their jobs. Transportation issues are highly local and I am always ready to allow for exceptions, but as a general rule, urban expressways are like big public housing projects: more bad ideas from the 1960’s that haven’t stood the test of time and that we are now trying, very expensively, to unwind. No more commuter sewers through residential neighborhoods. No more urban expressways that create barriers and disrupt and degrade close-in neighborhoods. If commuters want to drive, fine. But they can do their driving on regular city streets, with sidewalks, stoplights, and safe crossings every block. If that’s too slow for them, they can take the train. Or move back into the city, help gentrify older neighborhoods, and perhaps even help recover a healthy civic culture.