Posted on 11/25/2002 9:29:08 PM PST by JohnHuang2
The country is in the grips of a religious war -- not against Islam, but against SUVs.
A group of evangelicals visited Detroit last week to excoriate the makers of SUVs, trying to shame them with the rhetorical question "What would Jesus drive?" The implied answer is: nothing bigger than a Honda Civic.
The evangelicals were thus playing on the (false) image of Jesus as a wimpy enviro-weenie, presumably because he wore "Jesus sandals" like so many liberal kids today. If one is guessing Jesus' automotive preferences, there is no reason to believe he wouldn't have driven to his confrontation with the temple money-changers in an imposing Ford Excursion.
But "What would Jesus drive?" is still an excellent addition to the campaign to try to guilt drivers out of their SUVs. Bill Maher is also doing his bit with what can loosely be called a "book" -- think "Run, Dog, Run," with more text -- titled "When You Ride Alone, You Ride With Bin Laden."
Maher, whose specialty is making outrageously ill-informed statements and hoping a few people will mistake them as humor, argues that driving big cars empowers terrorists by increasing U.S. dependence on foreign oil.
But four of the top five importers to the United States are Canada, Mexico, Venezuela and Nigeria. Osama bin Laden is not known to reside in, or get funding from, any of those countries (if Maher has information to the contrary, he should immediately contact his nearest CIA agent).
That leaves Saudi Arabia, one of the biggest importers to the United States. The Saudis are indeed intimately connected to Islamic terrorism, since they are the primary funders of a worldwide radical Islamic network. Driving tiny cars, however, won't put them out of business.
The Saudis are the lowest-cost oil producers in the world, meaning if everyone in the world drove an experimental Toyota like Maher, oil prices would drop, and all the marginal, high-cost producers in the world would go out of business -- leaving the Saudis with an even higher market share.
When Maher putters down the L.A. freeway in his hybrid car, he is arguably doing Crown Prince Abdullah's bidding.
The smart way to handle the Saudis is to increase U.S. leverage in the region so significantly that we can pressure them to end their radical evangelism. Invading Iraq is a crucial step in the process -- one that Maher opposes, on the theory that his underpowered car can put a bigger scare into the House of Saud than 50,000 U.S. troops next door.
If the anti-SUV campaign makes no sense as a matter of geopolitics, it is because it is really driven by a lifestyle war.
Maher, for instance, can drive a tiny car because he chases models instead of raising children. So he chooses to consume his fuel in other ways. When he had an Los Angeles-based TV show, he would routinely fly guests from the East Coast on flights that burned roughly 10,000 gallons of jet fuel.
SUVs are so hated because they are a symbol of middle-class suburban comfort. No one is protesting against the Ford F-150, the pickup truck that has been the best- selling vehicle in America for about 30 years and only gets 16 miles per gallon.
The anti-SUV campaign doesn't even make sense as a matter of fuel economy. The smaller SUVs, like the Chevy Tracker, don't get mileage much different than ordinary cars. Even a big honking SUV, like the Chevy Suburban, gets 13 miles per gallon, not that different from the highly popular Ford Taurus, which gets about 20.
And SUVs aren't the most environmentally harmful cars on the road. As Sam Kazman of the Competitive Enterprise Institute points out, by one estimate roughly half of all auto emissions come from 10 percent of cars, the older, ill-repaired models that are probably owned by economically distressed households.
What would Jesus do? Maybe buy a poor person a nice, shiny new SUV.
[19] Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal:
[20] But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal:
[21] For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. [22] The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.
[23] But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!
[24] No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.
[25] Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment?
[26] Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they?
[27] Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature?
[28] And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin:
[29] And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.
[30] Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?
[31] Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed?
[32] (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.
[33] But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.
[34] Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.
P.S. Lowry is a simpleton.
Philadelphia "Big Talker" Dom Giordano had the leader of this movement on his program last week, and this guy dodged, ducked, hemmed, hawed, and evaded questions regarding abortion. I don't know his name, but he looked foolish. The slippery slope of "WWJD?" was used against him in a classic table turning.
This is the kind of statement that makes a liberal want to tie his head with shrink-wrap to keep it from exploding, because he not only can't understand simple economic facts like this, but doesn't want to, since it weakens whatever argument he thinks he has.
The arrogance of these people is overwhelming, to presume to approve or disapprove of what some stranger wants to drive. But it explains their control-freak nature as well as illustrates the danger of their being in charge.
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