It’s the fourth of July, I’ve just recently turned forty,
and I have some thoughts on freedom. If you lean towards pacifism, green-hair
dye, or socialism you’re probably moving on after reading my first sentence but, don’t
leave, this won’t be a discussion of our brave and intelligent American forefathers,
I have some simpler thoughts on freedom, as it relates to cars, off-road
vehicles and motorcycles.
In May I turned forty, and realizing I was statistically
halfway to my death, I had the reaction any sane car guy has: I decided I
should sell a sports car.
Now for those of you that don’t have a sports car, you may
yearn for one, and I can understand that.
When age 40 comes around, you may finally find you have a decent job and
the ability to purchase one. This is not
a mid-life crisis, this is simply the fruits of you holding a job longer than
five years because you’ve stopped being a lazy millennial obsessed with Xbox.
But, I’m in a different boat. Around 2010 I had only a motorcycle; I didn’t
own a car. A friend was selling a Ford Taurus
for $1,000 dollars and I thought it might be nice to sometimes only look out at
the rain instead of being in it. The Taurus
lasted a couple months before I decided the Taurus was lame, I sold it, and
bought a $1,500 MGB. Since then I’ve had
a series of “sports cars” including a 1957 MGA coupe, a 2003 BMW M3, a Lotus 7
replica, and a 1957 MGA Roadster.
Of the sports cars, I still have the last two. Why am I considering selling one?
Freedom.
Yes, you may think sports cars are an extreme freedom, but in
many ways they are not. Having two of
them is like having two needy pets.
Between exercising them, maintaining them, repairing them, and upgrading
them, I spend much more time on their well-being then I do my pets. They are needy.
So, as I turn forty, I’d like to sell a sports car. I’m hoping there’s a forty-year-old out there
looking for a play-toy. You’ve earned
one. It’s not a crisis, it’s fruit of your labors. Everyone does it. It’s ok.
It’s even good for you. You’ll
look cool (possibly a lie). Buy mine.
Don’t buy an electric car.
WHAT?!!!
If you’re reading this online, look at my sidebars. Do you see any advertisements? If you’re reading this in one of my
self-published books, look at the jacket and notice that no company is
associated with me.
Do you want to know why electric cars are being so fervently
pushed upon you?
It’s because there’s money to be made and everyone has their
hand in the pot.
At a high level: 1. The electric utilities are excited for
the electric load growth, 2. Most of these utilities are now publicly traded
and the investors are excited for electric load growth too, 3. These same
investors have also invested in Chinese battery companies (etc.) and are
excited for the sector growth, 4. Those investors include many elected
officials in our government who are excited to help the EV companies along (and
the utility is sending their government affairs teams to the government to ask
for legislation to make EVs happen), and 5. Elected officials are finding ways
to spend tax money on EVs which ends up coming back in to the elected officials
bank accounts as the companies they invested in realize sales. It’s nearly money laundering.
That is what none of the sponsored car news sites are
telling you because they all have their hand in the pot.
EVs are not succeeding because they’ve become better and
are now challenging gas motored cars for ability.
There’s still no EV SUV that has the same ability as our crappy
$5,000-dollar 200,000 mile ticking Ford Expedition. Not even close.
Random video of me autocrossing the MGA last weekend
Nearly the only use case that makes sense for EVs is the
lonely corporate person, heading to work by themselves every day. It is the perfect car for that… possibly. You need to make a long spreadsheet comparing
fuel mileage, maintenance costs, purchase costs, livability, etc. because 1. Let’s
face it, a 1995 Honda accord with 200k miles would do the job fine, 2. You’re
probably the very person that’s heavily invested in the EV market with your
fancy 401k and day-trading hobby and 3. You’re good at spreadsheets.
Ironically, the “socialist” leaning crowd loves EVs,
which is funny because the capitalism behind EVs is some of the worst. From sourcing lithium, to Chinese manufacturing
with forced labor, to being foisted upon us by those in power, EVs seem to
represent the worst of our current government makeup. But then, maybe that’s why the socialists
like them; they are being foisted upon us.
Enjoy the future. Buy an EV comrade.
Partly it’s our fault.
The freedom was lacking. We took away capitalism long ago in the car
market.
We all heard the story of Tucker, shut down by the big three.
And that’s the very problem.
The car industry was so regulated and locked down, there wasn’t a place
for capitalism/freedom to enjoy in the trade.
If it was gas powered, it was controlled by too much
regulation.
EVs offer a place for people to get their claws on the auto-makers
cash flow. They are slightly outside the
massive government oversight, to a great enough degree that there’s money to be
made. It’s not about their capability, it’s about their ability to generate cash
flow.
But one of the underlying drivers is that we allowed the
auto industry to become a place where there was no freedom. Little Tommy Entrepreneur could no longer
make a gas-powered car in 1985, and the ones that were being made were crap.
Freedom is awesome.
If we’d had freedom in the auto industry, I don’t think EVs would be
such a thing. To me, EVs represent
everything that’s wrong with government regulation.
Random video my daughter took from the top of the play structure
“But what about crash safety. We had to regulate it!”
Did we?
Or, could people make choices?
You know, freedom.
Two nights ago, it was 90 degrees in our cul-de-sac and the
kids were playing merrily. I was wearing shorts and a t-shirt standing next to SV650
motorcycle. I looked longingly at it. It
beckoned me. I told my wife, “I’m going
to take a short ride around the neighborhood.”
I knew I shouldn’t.
Shorts and a t-shirt? I could
hear fearmonger’s heads exploding.
But, it felt so good.
The wind rippling over my bare arms and legs gave a nice cooling effect
as I left the neighborhood and climbed the hill behind my house filled with winding
twisty roads perfect at 40 mph.
I still knew that, technically, I shouldn’t be in shorts and a ter. I was riding a streetbike. I should have been wearing more armor than a swat team member going into a heavily-armed hostage situation, according to
most.
But, here’s the glorious thing about freedom: we can make a choice. I decided that I’d risk one hell of a road rash,
or worse, for that nice feeling of freedom.
It was a tradeoff. I weighed the
safety risk against the wonderful feeling of the wind across my appendages and
made a decision, you know, freedom.
As I rode Jimmy Buffet’s song Son of a Son of a Sailor came
to mind and I was humming it as I rode.
Not because I like sea boats, I get sick as a dog if I stand on a ship
in port, but because the song captures some of that feeling of freedom. I can imagine the man heading out for adventure
on a boat with that same wind moving across his arms endowing him with a sense
of freedom.
Copyrighted video, hosted on Youtube, not on my website. This is just a Youtube window embedded; don’t sue me Jimmy Buffet!
I have a good friend who is in the 4×4 scene. I see some freedom there too.
“But what about their negative effect on the natural woods?”
Here’s what I’m seeing.
You close the woods to logging, 4x4s and etc. Then hippie-dippie granola eaters say you
have to stay on the trail so the natural vegetation is restored. The woods become choked with overgrowth, one
of the lefty hikers is an agitator and decides a good fire would be helpful for
the election season and starts a fire (sounds like conspiracy, but it isn’t; this month democrat donor Edward Fredrick Wackerman was arrested for starting a fire that burned 100 homes – link), and then the hikers “flee” when
the fire gets rolling.
During the last heavy set of fires in Oregon the term the news people were using was “flee”, not evacuate.
Man, I hate the word “flee”. It made me want to do the opposite.
“The wicked flee when no man pursueth, but the righteous are
bold as lions”.
I want to be bold.
I found some like-minded friends and we headed towards the
fires with shovels. I wasn’t
well equipped, or knowledgeable, but I wasn’t fleeing.
Some random guy teaching us how to actually put out hot spots
Well-equipped… that’s the thing… the skinny jean wearing, 401k owning, granola
eating, city living hiker seldom owns a bulldozer, or etc. that is great for
building fire breaks. You banned the guy that owns the equipment that can help
with fire-fighting from the woods when you closed it to everyone but the hiker.
The guy that owns a logging company, several impressive Jeeps,
and etc. does own some heavy equipment.
And he would protect the woods when it was his livelihood. There were
good access roads, and he made fire-breaks pre-emptively to protect his crop when he was in the woods.
I get it though, you think you’re saving the woods when you
close it and say the government is going to take care of it.
Bwa ha ha ha, how’s that going?!
But, perhaps, freedom did a better job of protecting the
woods. When the common man could make a
living out of it, and enjoy the woods in freedom (perhaps on a motorcycle or Jeep)
did we have these massive forest fires? Do we hear tales of summers plagued
with fire in the 1960s?
Indications are no.
We are having more fires now… now that we have restricted freedom. But instead of recognizing our failing manliness
is causing more forest fires, we’ve made a scapegoat of “climate
change”.
Put men back in logging trucks (it would help the costs of homes/property/wood
too). Put them back on motorcycles. Get them into 4x4s. I think those men do a
better job of protecting the woods. Partly,
it’s because they love being in the woods, partly it is because they are learning to be tough crashing their dirt bikes (physical strength) and partly
it’s because they have the mental fortitude to make solutions because they are always breaking their Jeeps/motorcycles.
With more freedom we might see men again. Freedom made strong men. Men that conquered the woods. Men that fought fires. Men that built homes
and communities. Men that found solutions and
took pride in being tough.
“Men.”
I can’t believe the word, “men”, is being looked down on now.
Freedom bred men, and now that our freedom is restricted, should
it be any surprise men are looking different?
But what is a man? Someone
that drinks beer and supports the second amendment?
I challenge you, let’s look to 1776. Yes, there was freedom
to own guns and drink beer in 1776, but that was just the cusp. The men of 1776 were smart men, who pursued wisdom,
and the majority of them were Christian.
Their freedom was based on Christ.
Hard to believe now in the land of Croc wearing hipster pastors, who grow beards and buy tattoes to be cool (anyone remember the song Tattoos and Scars?), but weakness is not the God of the Bible.
Wisdom, bravery and discretion are just some of the fruits of the
God of the Bible. Freedom comes from
Christ.
What I want to know is how to grow the freedom bred in 1776. That’s what we need now. Man I wish for more men. Men that buck the
trend, because the trend is pathetic: it’s gender dysphoria, it’s EVs, its closures for safety, it’s more and more laws, it’s green hair, it’s godlessness, it’s wall
street owning everything (including our politicians), it’s getting in line, it’s doing
as your told by pop culture, it’s being cozy with China (who fight Christianity with all their
ability), etc.
Freedom was awesome.
Look for freedom. You can find
some freedom occasionally in a car, on a motorcycle, or in a 4×4. But really, it’s in that dusty book, the Bible. We must fight the oppressors. Act like men. Happy Fourth of July!
“Be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be
strong.” – 1 Cor 16:13
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