An article in the Stranger today talks about how the government of the State of Washington is further devolving power down to the county and city level when it comes to long-assisted mass transit for King County which is going to put King County and Seattle in a bind for paying for the mass transit system. I understand after visiting Europe that to make a city function extremely smoothly and save money on emergency services (in response to accidents) you need to have a well-functioning mass transit system.
When you have a mass transit system that works people don't need to park in the middle of gigantic cities (saving money and time searching for a parking spot), and it reduces traffic on freeways for people who are going to somewhere too remote for bus service.
Another function mass transit provides is for people who don't have a lot of income they can purchase a pass to get to and from work when they can't afford to buy a car. (assuming they live within a short distance from a bus/metro stop or live in a warm climate) The alternative is you have people who are unable to get around, given how they don't have the income to buy a car and pay for parking, and they don't have mass transit available to travel
to where the jobs are, which is detrimental to the economy. When calculating the costs of mass transit you have to take into account the economic value added from jobs, because it has implications far beyond the balance books. If you can make it pay for itself, all the more power to you!
Anti-federalism has never been about state rights. That is not the real reason, and it never has been. The people not wanting federalization in the late 1700s were from large southern states who followed an inherently broken economic system of mercantilism. The anti-federalists of the 1860s were mostly slaveowners. The anti-federalists of today oppose all assistance to people and want the same thing they always have, where people have to get themselves up with their own bootstraps with no assistance from the government, which sounds really good when you have always been given help from your family to get going, but when you are someone who always has to find your own way to get what you need you realize that romantic assertion of everyone getting themselves up without help from others doesn't fully represent reality.
Anti-federalists are at the core anti-poor and anti-minority. It has nothing to do with some ridiculous "states rights" but they subscribe to the nihilist doctrine that in order for one person to improve their quality of life someone else has to be worse off, which doesn't represent reality. Some people call nihilists realists, but their opposition to trade makes me disagree with this naming so I will call them nihilists because that is what they really are.
Today's anti-federalists are just repeating the same arguments they always have made, and have always been at the core been focused at the poor, which has never changed.
America is one country united, not divided against itself, and a house divided against itself cannot stand, whether it is through political disputes in a civil war or an immense distribution of wealth, as was one major factor in the survival of the USSR.
When you have a mass transit system that works people don't need to park in the middle of gigantic cities (saving money and time searching for a parking spot), and it reduces traffic on freeways for people who are going to somewhere too remote for bus service.
Another function mass transit provides is for people who don't have a lot of income they can purchase a pass to get to and from work when they can't afford to buy a car. (assuming they live within a short distance from a bus/metro stop or live in a warm climate) The alternative is you have people who are unable to get around, given how they don't have the income to buy a car and pay for parking, and they don't have mass transit available to travel
to where the jobs are, which is detrimental to the economy. When calculating the costs of mass transit you have to take into account the economic value added from jobs, because it has implications far beyond the balance books. If you can make it pay for itself, all the more power to you!
Anti-federalism has never been about state rights. That is not the real reason, and it never has been. The people not wanting federalization in the late 1700s were from large southern states who followed an inherently broken economic system of mercantilism. The anti-federalists of the 1860s were mostly slaveowners. The anti-federalists of today oppose all assistance to people and want the same thing they always have, where people have to get themselves up with their own bootstraps with no assistance from the government, which sounds really good when you have always been given help from your family to get going, but when you are someone who always has to find your own way to get what you need you realize that romantic assertion of everyone getting themselves up without help from others doesn't fully represent reality.
Anti-federalists are at the core anti-poor and anti-minority. It has nothing to do with some ridiculous "states rights" but they subscribe to the nihilist doctrine that in order for one person to improve their quality of life someone else has to be worse off, which doesn't represent reality. Some people call nihilists realists, but their opposition to trade makes me disagree with this naming so I will call them nihilists because that is what they really are.
Today's anti-federalists are just repeating the same arguments they always have made, and have always been at the core been focused at the poor, which has never changed.
America is one country united, not divided against itself, and a house divided against itself cannot stand, whether it is through political disputes in a civil war or an immense distribution of wealth, as was one major factor in the survival of the USSR.
No comments:
Post a Comment