Car culture is not part of the conservative tradition
Re: “Aristocrats can afford car-free days,” Sept. 29 Sam Kazman of the Competitive Enterprise Institute attempts to link aristocratic audacity with World Carfree Day. I am neither an aristocrat nor a Democrat, but I have lived without a car for some seven years now, all the while oblivious to this new holiday. As a traditionalist conservative, I submit that Kazman’s rhetorical head fake takes our eye off the ball. Yelling “Hypocrite!” may produce feelings of self-righteousness, but it does little to answer the question of whether the dominant car culture is indeed part of the good life. In his classic “The Conservative Mind,” Russell Kirk called the automobile “a mechanical Jacobin” that would “alter national character and morality more thoroughly than could the most absolute of tyrants.” Though employed by a conservative organization, Kazman uses a class warfare tone to defend the car, which promotes urbanism, sprawl, and day-care raised children. I’ll take Kirk’s vision of society instead, even if it is mouthed by a prince.
John Murdock
Falls Church
Climate group didn’t refute any of my claims
Re: “Response: Climate education based on science,” Sept. 27 I usually don’t respond to comments about my opinion pieces, realizing it’s always best to let everyone express their views. However, I do make exceptions in cases where I’ve been accused of journalistic malpractice, as was the case last Monday by the Alliance for Climate Education’s Alisha Fowler. The Oakland, Calif.-based educator alleged that I “misreported” ACE’s “central tenets,” yet failed to identify a single instance of inaccurate journalism on my part. What could she have meant? Is ACE not funded by a wealthy wind energy entrepreneur for BP (a.k.a. “Big Oil”)? Are students not removed from their classes in order to hear ACE’s recruitment pitch for climate alarmism? Is ACE telling the truth when they inform students that they’ve lived through the 10 hottest years on record? Just what is the misreporting, Ms. Fowler? Perhaps she could improve her own research about the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, where she’d discover the “consensus” that supports global warming alarmism is drawn from a small group of non-scientist government bureaucrats, rather than the “collection of more than 1,000” scientists she claims. When you accuse someone of shoddy work, you’d better show some evidence.
Paul Chesser
Special correspondent,
The Heartland Institute
Garner, NC
Middle class must stick together
Our legislators are more interested in K Street and Wall Street than Main Street. As long as the health and insurance industry keeps putting millions of dollars into the coffers of U.S. senators, we will continue to get pro-industry legislation – to the detriment of the American public. We get the type of government we are willing to accept. Until we band together as one, the middle class will continue to be decimated. Welcome to the new New Mexico.
Jack Donner
Alexandria
