[Editor’s Note: Living in Los Angeles, which has had the nation’s worst traffic jams for 19 consecutive years, exasperates Mr. Rosebrock, a Westside entrepreneur. He is equally frustrated with what he says are the too-facile solutions suggested by Los Angeles politicians. His opening essay last Friday, Nov. 30, was provocatively headlined “Group Vehicle Just a Code Name for Socialized Transportation.” When we left him, he was discussing a newspaper story from last week.]
According to a Nov. 28 article in the Daily News, members of the Los Angeles City Council Transportation Committee have finally conjured up a “mission statement” that has six goals to be used as a “road map for traffic problems.”
They are:
1) Emphasize environmental issues by reducing emissions.
2) Protect neighborhoods.
3) Ensure safety.
4) Promote the city as a center for international trade.
5) Develop a stable funding source.
6) Increase mobility and accessibility.
Clearly, a class of second-graders could have come up with a more meaningful set of goals to reduce gridlock than what these extremely overpaid “experts” fumbled and bumbled around with.
All of these politically correct “goals” are nebulous at best, while the real mission is, according to Councilwoman Wendy Greuel, the Committee's Chairperson: “To get people out of their cars … but no one knows the best way to do that.”
Ms. Greuel underscores how the Transportation Committee is absolutely clueless about solving our traffic problems by declaring: “Right now … if you ask anyone where the city is going, no one knows.”
Well, Ms. Greuel, it is because there’s no leadership and no vision on your Transportation Committee. That’s precisely why you are all clueless about where the city is going because none of you knows where you’re going.
Your only vision is to get re-elected and live off of the public dole.
Has anyone on the Committee ever thought about being forthright and honest about your incompetence and resigning for the greater good of the people?
If not, then come up with a real “Vision Statement” that tells L.A.’s citizenry what must absolutely be done in the future if we are going to survive as a prosperous city on the move.
Here is a purposeful vision:
“By the year 2018, Los Angeles will be No. 1 in the nation for having the best traffic conditions instead of being No. 1 at having the worst traffic in the nation.”
To do this will require strong leadership with a steadfast vision. Otherwise, Proverbs 29:18 forewarns: “Where there is no vision, the people perish.”
Time is running out. We need a completely new transportation infrastructure with a multi-level freeway and mass transit system to effectively and efficiently mobilize everyone, including cars, trucks, bicyclers, walkers, etc.
No more band-aids and patch-work.
We need a superb system of mobilization that offers freedom of choice for everyone, not your narrow-minded mission of getting motorists out of their modern cars and into antiquated public transportation.
Equal Misery For All
Fellow motorists, if you truly appreciate the freedom and independence of driving alone in the car of your choice, then enjoy it while you can. A malicious crusade is afoot to remove drivers from their personal vehicles and force all commuters into depressing and unsociable mass transit, or what these far-left politicians now call “group vehicles.”
This is their deceptive attempt to imply that feel-good camaraderie is your reward in waiting when giving up your personal car. If the notion of having to submit to one-size-fits-all socialized healthcare doesn’t frighten you, then one-size-fits-all socialized transportation will.
This much you can be assured; standing on filthy, trash-strewn street corners every day waiting for a government bus that’s jam-packed with total strangers will make going to the DMV seem like a pampered afternoon at the health spa.
And while unreliable bus schedules are known to spoil an entire day, ever-demanding bus drivers going on strike for another pay raise will create havoc in your life for months upon months.
Government’s incessant drumbeat to “get motorists out of their cars and into public transportation” is not a solution for ending gridlock. Instead, it’s a devious and dastardly motive to rob us of our independent freedoms and force us to submit to the merciless control of dictatorial bureaucrats.
Their motive is plain and simple — to replace democracy’s equal opportunity for all with socialism’s equal misery for all.
The American Way
Traditionally, a motorist driving the personal car of his or her own choice has always exemplified the highest form of American independence and freedom of expression.
It’s also archetypal of sovereign citizenship that allows us to go and do as we please under our own free will.
Yet, without these equal liberties and personal autonomy for all, America will never be a nation of free and independent people.
Obey My Commandment
Ms. Greuel, the Los Angeles City Councilwoman and Chairperson for the Council's Transportation Committee, recently declared: “I don’t care what they take to get to work, as long as it isn’t their own car. They can carpool or ride a bike or anything else, as long as it isn’t one person in a car”
That was Ms. Greuel’s heartless and insensitive defense to the directive she issued to her staff of 20 employees requiring each to strictly adhere to her rigid one-day-a-week prohibition of driving alone in their personal car.
And once Ms. Greuel has her entire staff browbeaten and guilt-ridden about even thinking of exercising their right to independence and freedom of choice, everyday citizens will be next for her dictatorial “thou shall not drive alone in your own car” commandment.
Warm and Fuzzy Collectivism
Bill Rosendahl, City Councilman for the Westside's District 11 and also a member of the Council’s Transportation Committee, recently proclaimed: “The day of the automobile, the one-person car, is over. We all know we must have mass transit if our quality of life is to continue to be good rather than totally deteriorate. Be they bus lanes, be they light rail, be they subways, whatever they are that can take you out of your car and into a group vehicle.”
There you have it.
Mr. Rosendahl’s transportation solution is to take away our personal independence as motorists and put us all into warm and fuzzy group vehicles to go along with group hugs, group therapy and other collective nonsense of the far-left extremists.
Anti-Car Antonio
Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa reiterated this new political doctrine of discriminating against solo motorists and forcing them all into degrading public transportation: “We need bus-only lanes. We’ve got to move more people from single-passenger automobiles to buses, to trains, to public transit.”
The Mayor expanded his anti-car campaign against Los Angeles motorists by emphatically stating: “We are not going to build more freeways in the city of Los Angeles.”
$300,000 a Year Transportation Genius
Roger Snoble, CEO of the Los Angeles Metropolitan Transportation Authority, gets paid more than $300,000 a year to supposedly solve our traffic problems. As might be expected, he’s made his job real easy by placing the blame on drive-alone motorists and their personal cars.
His simple solution to reducing traffic gridlock: “We need to do something about the 2,000-pound pieces of plastic and metal that have one person in them.”
Facts That Will Enslave You
If these statements from government leaders in the “car capital of the world” aren’t disturbing enough, then Bart Reed, the gadfly Executive Director of The Transit Coalition, reinforces the bigoted anti-car doctrine that lies ahead when he ominously declared, “The facts indicate that we need to ban private cars.”
Take heed fellow motorists.
Mr. Reed’s fabricated facts are designed to force you from the freedom of your personal car and make you a slave to government's public transportation system.
No Parking Anytime
If banning personal cars won’t force you to ride public transportation, then the bureaucrats want to eliminate public parking so there is no place for you to park your car.
Here is what Michael Woo, the Los Angeles City Planning Commissioner, former L.A. City Councilman and ex-candidate for Mayor, has in store for you. “The carrot isn't working, (to get people to use public transportation). Now it is time for the stick … I want to create a parking crisis that will force people out of their cars.”
Note: The foregoing statements are not from brutal dictators in Communist China but are the callous and calculating dictates of politicians and bureaucrats within the supposed democracy of the City of Los Angeles.
Progressive Liberalism or Oppressive Socialism?
Never mind that less than 5 percent of L.A.’s commuters use public transportation, L.A.’s political autocrats want to unilaterally ban millions of L.A.’s motorists from driving their own personal cars for work and pleasure.
Then they want to force everyone into oppressive, burdensome and lumbering mass transit in order to control our freedom of mobility and personal lives.
This dictatorial governance is blatantly contrary to our Founding Fathers’ proclamation of self-governance and the promise of unencumbered “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.”
Nonetheless, these far-left extremists, acting under the guise of “progressive liberalism,” are hell-bent on enforcing oppressive socialism with their anti-personal car and pro-group vehicle doctrine.
Forewarned is Forearmed
Democracy’s mission is to liberate the individual and set the people free.
Socialism’s mission is to conquer the individual and keep the people enslaved.
Because of this dangerous force that is now taking place, we must stop this oppressive movement that wants to use us as collective pawns for advancing their socialistic scheme at the catastrophic expense of losing our independence and freedom of mobility.
Future generations are depending upon us to protect and preserve America’s promise of personal independence and freedom of choice.
Philosopher Baron de Montesquieu (1689-1755) gave ample forewarning when he rightfully declared: “A nation may lose its liberties in a day and not miss them in a century.”
Fellow motorists, you’ve been adequately forewarned; either stand up and fight this anti-car crowd now or say good-bye to your individual freedoms as sovereign American citizens. Then say hello to group vehicles, collectivism, and the “Socialist Republic of Los Angeles.”
“History will record with the greatest astonishment that those who had the most to lose did the least to prevent its happening. Well, I think it is time we ask ourselves if we still know the freedoms that were intended for us by the Founding Fathers.” — Ronald Reagan
