Friday, June 12, 2009
Wrong arguments
Polistra often wonders why both of our alleged political "parties" are thoroughly inept at basic communication. Obama is a huge exception to this rule, but his assistants and the Dems in Congress are emphatically not exceptions.
Yesterday's hearings on single-payer medical care show the problem. There is a clear way to argue for nationalized health: simply describe how it works in France and argue for adoption of the French system. Nope, they can't do that for some idiotic reason. The Dems have to re-invent a clumsily compromised wheel when the good wheel stands right there waiting to be copied.
= = = = =
Another missed selling point:
Public transportation gives FREEDOM to poor people.
(And to disabled, elderly and youngsters.)
This has always been true, and Americans explicitly understood this point 100 years ago. Towns of all sizes eagerly built streetcar systems in order to provide opportunity for everyone to work and buy things. Good public transit was a point of pride.
And the argument is even stronger now, because maintaining a car has become an expensive proposition. Not so much the cost of gas; except for brief bursts caused by criminal speculation, gas prices now are about the same as they were in the '20s or '30s. The real problem is maintenance and insurance. Before 1980 you could fix a car yourself or find a competent friend to do the job, and you could afford most replacement parts. Now, thanks to the state-sponsored terrorist organization EPA, repairs must be done by licensed professionals and parts are wildly expensive.
So why don't we hear this appealing argument for freedom and opportunity? Traditionally this should have been the Democrat argument for public transport, while the Republicans daintily clutched their perfumed lace handkerchiefs and sniffed haughtily at the downtrodden hoi polloi.
The only argument we hear now is the Green Lie, which both parties suicidally agree on. "We must bear the awful burden of public transportation because cars emit carbon." Even if the premise were true, the statistics aren't very good; buses are not much more efficient than cars per passenger-mile. So public transit is hard to justify by raw mathematics, but easy to justify on a quality-of-life basis. ¶ 7:49 AM
Yesterday's hearings on single-payer medical care show the problem. There is a clear way to argue for nationalized health: simply describe how it works in France and argue for adoption of the French system. Nope, they can't do that for some idiotic reason. The Dems have to re-invent a clumsily compromised wheel when the good wheel stands right there waiting to be copied.
= = = = =
Another missed selling point:
Public transportation gives FREEDOM to poor people.
(And to disabled, elderly and youngsters.)
This has always been true, and Americans explicitly understood this point 100 years ago. Towns of all sizes eagerly built streetcar systems in order to provide opportunity for everyone to work and buy things. Good public transit was a point of pride.
And the argument is even stronger now, because maintaining a car has become an expensive proposition. Not so much the cost of gas; except for brief bursts caused by criminal speculation, gas prices now are about the same as they were in the '20s or '30s. The real problem is maintenance and insurance. Before 1980 you could fix a car yourself or find a competent friend to do the job, and you could afford most replacement parts. Now, thanks to the state-sponsored terrorist organization EPA, repairs must be done by licensed professionals and parts are wildly expensive.
So why don't we hear this appealing argument for freedom and opportunity? Traditionally this should have been the Democrat argument for public transport, while the Republicans daintily clutched their perfumed lace handkerchiefs and sniffed haughtily at the downtrodden hoi polloi.
The only argument we hear now is the Green Lie, which both parties suicidally agree on. "We must bear the awful burden of public transportation because cars emit carbon." Even if the premise were true, the statistics aren't very good; buses are not much more efficient than cars per passenger-mile. So public transit is hard to justify by raw mathematics, but easy to justify on a quality-of-life basis. ¶ 7:49 AM
