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Yang: Private car ownership must end

They’re coming for you next: In a climate forum at Georgetown University today, Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang proposed the government eliminate the private ownership of cars, and replace it with a “constant roving fleet of electric cars that you would just order up.”

Of course, this fascist Democrat doesn’t mention that, according to his own climate plan it would be the government creating and operating that fleet of cars.

Just imagine having to depend on the DMV for your actual transportation. Right now it is generally bad enough, especially in the Democratic-controlled big urban cities, to just get your driver’s license renewed. Won’t it be just wonderful when you have to call them to provide you your car?

Genesis cover

On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.

 
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.


The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
 

"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News

24 comments

  • Chris

    The removal of private auto ownership will be orchestrated through autonomous cars (and their centrally controlled SW) that will be mandated by insurance companies. The autonomous cars will only allow us to drive when we are allowed – perhaps based on our “Social Credit” score. This system will quickly give way to one where we will not want the expense of our own car and the “roving fleets” that Yang proposes will fill the need. We will still only get to travel based on our Social Credit score and our “need”.
    Through this the ability we now enjoy now to “pick up and drive to Montana” tonight will be taken away.

    Then they can really “come for us next”

  • Cotour

    “Just imagine having to depend on the DMV for your actual transportation. ”

    1. Why are private American citizens required to abandon the private ownership of their chosen mode of transportation? And 2. How does this Communist model improve anything? Other than of course accomplishing the ultimate goal, the “Fundamental change” required by the Left in order that they get to tell everyone what they can and can not do. Why are they default only able to think in these Communistic like terms? WHY?

    Again, these people are missing the first half of everything, the foundation, and are working from the comfort of what Captialism has provided for them so they can think in such un and anti American terms.

    These are un American Americans.

    I ask again, what gives these people the gall and the nerve to think in such terms? In America.

    The Trump second inauguration will be something of real significance, the suicide hot lines will be busy that night, possibly with never before seen numbers of calls.

  • Chris

    Autonomous vehicles will be ushered in through the demands of your insurance company – you’re not reliable enough to drive. The risk is just too high.
    The software within the autonomous vehicle will need to be certified and controlled by state and/or federal authorities. This software will be able to “enable” your vehicle to take you and your family and cargo from point A to point B on a specific date and within a specific time at a specific “priority” – or NOT.
    You will find this really not worth the time and cost of owning a vehicle.
    The “roving fleet of electric cars” will serve your needs – or Not.
    At this point your ability to “drive to/toward Montana tonight” will be taken from you.

    THEN…. they can come for you next

  • pzatchok

    They found out Cash For Clunkers didn’t work out as planned either.

    What will they do about my 60 year old car? A classic 1956 Ford Victoria fully restored.

    Will I have to start a 1 car museum?

  • Ian C.

    All are equal and should use public transport, live in public housing, eat what is approved, go through the same public education, have only approved “personal property” but no private property, select important decisions from an approved list of life choices. Then there are no differences anymore and peace and justice will rule.

    (Different options may be available to those who are more equal than others.)

  • mike shupp

    [Shrug] Keep your car if you like. Do remember you need to have insurance of some sort, or sufficient assets to pay for accidents you might get into. California does not have a No-Fault Insurance system!

    Feel free to take a cab if you prefer. Or ride share with your friends or coworkers, or join some neighborhood carpool scheme. Call the friendly number at the bottom of your screen for information! Or get your ride from Uber, Lyft, TeslaFare or other ride-sharing utility — either human driven or automated. When making your appointment, please don’t forget your fare may include a rush hour surcharge.

    Remember specialized transportation is available from all carriers for passengers with physical or visual handicaps, passengers incapacitated by alcohol or other intoxicant, persons whose movement is restrained by legal order, or other circumstances. Just swipe the proper icon on your cell phone’s ride calling app. if these conditions apply to you.

    Financial assistance is available! Social security and SSI recipients qualify automatically for free fare transportation in most California metropolitan areas and many rural counties, as do disabled and elderly veterans. Simply display your federal or state-issued identification when you enter the vehicle. Welfare recipients and other beneficiaries qualify for free or reduced rates in most areas — message your case worker for details.

    This has been a Public Service Announcement from the State of California in 2035.
    [End shrug]
    ——–

    Not a word of socialism there, no tyranny. The ride share services needn’t be government owned; it’s enough that they accept state money — most will, I suspect. Taxation’s in the background, of course, but it’s already there today. Note the hint that buses and subway systems have gone out of existence, so the cost of guaranteeing transportation for all might be cheaper than we’d guess today.

    At some point, it night be that 98% of the population uses ride sharing services for 98% of their transit needs, and after this is noticed we might want to tinker a bit with the setup. Maybe local monopolies would be accepted in some places — which might be decried as socialism, or just accepted like the post office or power companies.

    I’m assuming

  • mike shupp

    FWIW, I’m not assuming any real science fictional technology here, or not much. I’ll note that subsidized (or even free) bus fares for the elderly and are pretty common in California today. Specialized door-to-door transit is available for people with wheelchairs or other mobility issues, but at 2X regular bus fares. Social security is generally dispensed automatically to a recipient’s bank account, while SSI and food stamp money is provided via MasterCharge cards, so trusting ride share customers of the future to use credit cards or smartphone apps to pay taxi fares doesn’t seem much of a stretch.

    Does this seem fascistic? Or sober extrapolation?

  • Scott M.

    Mike, what you describe might work (emphasis on the ‘might’) in urban areas. I suspect such a program would cause transportation prices to skyrocket…witness the current mess that is our medical payment system.

    Let me ask…have you ever lived in a truly rural area? One where it takes a good half hour to get anywhere?

    How is it at all fair to ask somebody living in such a place to be taxed for infrastructure they’ll never use?

  • Aaron R

    Need a car to take you to the NRA convention? Sorry, nothing is available at this time.

  • Gary

    Under Democrat utopian dreams, everybody will be working for the government anyway so the employer will be responsible for getting you to work. When you’re late or don’t make it, then it’s not your fault. Actually, they will pay you to stay home and do nothing so as not to clog up the roads. Sounds like a plan!

    /sarc for the irony-impaired.

  • wayne

    AudioSlave –
    “Show Me How To Live”
    https://youtu.be/vVXIK1xCRpY
    4:57

  • Cotour

    All this is is compelled Communism, plain and simple.

    What the brilliant Founders crafted due to their real world living experience and their understaning of the history of human beings that preceeded them and their understanding about power, governance and how the two result in their abuse and the subjugation of and the enslavement of human beings was the counter balance to it all.

    And these Liberl / Leftist Democrat presidential candidates think they know better. And they are going to take what the Founders built and improve upon it, they are “Helping”. Please stop “Helping”, your going to wind up enslaving or killing us all!

    Why is that so? Because these presidential hopefulls have been indoctrinated and “educated” by those who fundamentally oppose it all and they have been taught to destroy it possibly unbeknownst to them (?), who knows. They have the best intentions of course.

    And the road to hell is littered with intentions just like the ones that they have aquired.

  • Cotour

    I was witness to something very similar, they are all phonies and really all out for themselves.

    Andrew Yang is accused by a former female employee of being fired because she got married and “would become less of a hard worker”. Those are the allegations anyway.

    https://news.yahoo.com/former-employee-andrew-yang-claimed-130152773.html

    I saw something very similar first hand executed by another very “Liberal”, “Progressive”, “Feminist” woman executive, who loves, loves, loves Hillary, who fired a non married woman because she was hired and then announced that she became pregnant.

    “If she (that blank, blank) thinks I am going to pay for her baby she has another think coming”. I have cleaned up the actual vicious verbage that was used for the obvious reasons. Oh, the compassion.

    They are mostly all the same, they all talk their Liberal BS to make them all feel good, and to get control, and then they are just or even more ruthless than the worst of them. Frauds to the core, Yang is apparently no different if this woman is to be believed.

  • mike shupp

    Scott M — I’ve spent maybe 18 of my 72 years in rural or small town (under 500 people) settings, so I’ve some notion. I admit, my last bucolic bout ended back around 1992.

    That said … yeah it’s sort of unfair to tax country folk for flocks of Ubers and AI-driven vehicles that might be patronized by city dwellers. But there are a heck of a lot more city dwellers, to be honest, and they’re actually the ones whose taxes really pay today for those freeways and BART trains and buses and Amtrak lines that go all over the place — including many of those rural areas.

    And to keep being honest … there’s cost involved with out current schemes. Storing cars on driveways and shopping mall lots and downtown parking structures for better than 20 hours a day is darned expensive, if you think about it. Maybe it’s too much to ask overweight Americans to ride bicycles through the rain or in 100 degree summer days — but do they really need 2-ton SUVs to pick up some groceries on the way home EVERY SINGLE DAY, every one of them? Maybe something you can rent for half an hour at a time, big enough for one person or two and a few sacks of shopping is really enough, most of the time — especially if the cost per use is cheap enough. And if you had the option to rent a Maserati for your prom date, with the same easy swipe of your cell phone or credit card, wouldn’t a glorified roller skate for getting to work and back be enough for other times?

    It’s not much of a stretch to think that

  • commodude

    Mike Shupp,

    Where does your desire for government intrusion end?

  • Alex Andrite

    Zootopia – less than 4min.
    What do you call a camel with three humps ?

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0woPde7OE1k

    …wait for it …… ha

  • mike shupp

    comodude —

    ??? I thought I was basically suggesting government “intrusion” on individual transit in 2035 would be about as intensive as it is today, but slightly different in form as technology advances. If it makes you happier, a week or so back I noticed some local folks riding horses, barely thirty miles from downtown San Francisco, and there wasn’t a policeman in sight.

  • commodude

    What you describe is government control of individual movement, which is anathema to people who value personal freedom.

    If your social score isn’t high enough, can you get a “temporary personal rental” for your trip (traced, of course, but the data isn’t kept….nudge nudge) to go to work, or do you have to go through reeducation to be allowed to co mingle with society?

    Too many chances for government control, I oppose notion like this wholeheartedly. Freedom of movement for citizens has to be maintained, and what you describes give control over personal movement on the whim of the ruling body.

  • pzatchok

    I just don’t know what could be cheaper then owning a car.

    My insurance is about 3 bucks a day.
    My gas is about the same.
    The car is used and cheap. My last one cost me 2 thousand used and over the next 15 years I put about 2 grand into it in parts and oil changes. Its still on the road after 23 years. My present car which cost me 4 grand will last about 15 more years.
    Parking costs me nothing. I own my house. It came with a driveway included. Most employers don’t charge for parking unless its in some democratic run area. Mine even provides security for free.

    So lets see.
    Gas and insurance 6 bucks.
    The cost of the car 10 bucks a day and that it very generous.

    So Uber better cost me less than 20 bucks a day and better be there as soon as I call. No excuses. Otherwise the convenience of owning my own car is worth it to me.
    Plus I can charge others for giving them a ride.

    I still own and use a flip phone also. Smart phones make you dumb.

  • wayne

    Chris Cornell / Audioslave
    “I am The Highway”
    https://youtu.be/MhAJP0AK5J4
    5:37

  • Michael G. Gallagher

    Time to stop talking and start preparing to genuinely “resist?” Even a minority saying no will trash the Wreckers’ plans.

  • mike shupp

    Commodude —

    Dude, this is in your head, not reality. Do you think the government is controlling your movement any time you go down to the corner to catch a bus to the grocery store? Or drive your car to work on a freeway? Or get hauled off to a hospital in an ambulance after having a stroke? Or take a taxi to the airport? Or ride your bike to school on public streets? Get serious, guy.

  • commodude

    Mike,

    I am serious.

    Once the government subsidizes (and they would) these on call fleets of personal pods, there is no stopping their interference in your movement.

    What Mr. Yang proposes is a ban on personal ownership of vehicles, which would lead to control over who uses what form of transport.

    Facebook and Google already control who sees what in the realm of social media, Uber and Lyft already ban users. Once they are the sole providers of transport, then they, and the government lapdogs, are the sole arbiters of who uses it to go where.

    If a power can be abused, it WILL be abused, and recent history with Goggle, Facebook, the IRS, FBI and NSA are recent object lessons in the extent of possible abuse of power by .gov.

  • A. Nonymous

    China already does a lot of this today. Their serfs can be denied access to public transportation if their Social Credit score is too low. And in many locations, those serfs have no chance of obtaining or affording private transportation or the access to urban parking facilities required to use it.

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