There have been a lot of people waxing poetic on Free Republic lately about the glories of Communist China’s High Speed Rail Systems. (note: not saying you are one of them)
The communists get to control what money is spent and where the trains go. If it is subsidized because it isn’t profitable, they simply don’t care.
A lot of people are just fine with that and think that is how we should do it here in the USA too. They don’t realize that if the government wants to simply relocate you, in Communist China, they can just do it. The citizens don’t have a legal recourse (on paper they probably do, but that is all it is)
I respect their ability to build them, but that is as far as it goes. I won’t be a fan boy for a Communist regime. They put a smiley face on, but they are still a country that murdered tens of millions of their own citizens and will do it again if they feel they need too.
In the USA, we don’t want the government telling us where we can go, when we can go, how much it will cost us, and tracking our movements every step of the way. We prefer the freedom of highways and our own cars.
You don’t want the government tracking your moments so you DRIVE? Ha! US police routinely use license plate scanners that can track you. Do you use a transponder to pay electronic tolls? Guess what they know where you’re going. Do you normally carry a cell phone when you drive? It tracks your movements, every time it pings a cell tower - not to mention if you use a GPS service. Even if you’re not carrying a cell phone, just about any car made in the last two decades has cell connectivity built in. When you buy gas do you pay with a credit card or do you only use less traceable cash? Any driver in the US who thinks they’re somehow free from surveillance is out of their minds.
Well said. A communist government such as China can do whatever they want. In spite of free market reforms, China still has a totalitarian government, and people have few legal rights.