The American Spectator

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Dumb Cars

3.20.08 @ 12:01AM

DON'T OUTSMART YOURSELF
Re: Eric Peters' Smart Shoppers:

I had to laugh when I read the mileage of the supposedly Smart car.

We have a 1991 Honda Civic (hatchback) with five on the floor.

My son rebuilt the engine and tranny, replaced the suspension, exhaust and brakes. He hasn't had a chance to do any body work on it as he's in Iraq, but when he gets back...

Anyway, the other day I bought gasoline (regular) and calculated its mileage (I'm a little obsessive) and it got 38 mpg. I do mixed driving -- local and highway -- to get to work and home, with the occasional traffic
jam. I drive on the expressway at 70 to 75 mph.

Har! Our hoopty Civic gets better mileage, holds four people and some cargo, is safer and FAST.

Who's Smart now?
-- Anastasia Mather
Staten Island, New York

The Smart Car isn't smart. I wish the simple minded folks buying "Not-so Smart Cars" would just donate their money to the USO or Republican Party since it would be better spent.

You know what would be smart? Liberals voting to drill for oil in Alaska and off our coasts and ignoring their fascist base to support the energy industry building new refineries and nuclear breeder reactors to make America energy independent. Of course, smart liberal (not sneaky, manipulative, opportunistic, immoral, greedy, etc.) is an oxymoron.
-- Michael Tomlinson
Jacksonville, North Carolina

FREE RIDER DILEMMA
Re: Clyde Wayne Crews Jr.'s Less is More:

Clyde Wayne Crews Jr. is dreaming. There will be no reduction in the size and scope of the federal government -- not when that federal government costs almost half of the American public nothing in terms of taxes.
-- Arnold Ahlert
Boca Raton, Florida

There is much in Mr. Crews' article to recommend it. One could say getting Congress to take overt responsibility for its actions may be a task comparable to cleaning the Aegian stables, but that would be an unfair criticism of the hygiene of livestock. To call the regulatory mess created by the Federal Government a "ball and chain policy" is far too polite, and I congratulate him on his restraint.

Mr. Crews touches on a crucial topic: the practice of delegating lawmaking power to agencies, which has resulted in the pernicious growth of administrative law. The resulting mountain of regulation is simply a response to the incentives created by Congress for each bureaucracy to regulate, monitor, grow, increase its scope, "justifying" its continued existence, so that it can compete for increased funding at the trough filled by compliant and malleable taxpayers.

For those in Congress who have a vested interested in the growth of government, it is a very agreeable arrangement: they merely need to avoid altering the incentives while the process continues unabated. At current growth rates, the slow-motion suicide of this nation will be completed in just a few more decades.

Could it be possible that an event so outrageous in its extent would spur overwhelming popular pressure to return our government to its rightful role(s) as specified in the Constitution? At this point I rather doubt it, given the Faustian bargain most of the electorate has struck with government. To borrow a line from "Zed" (Rip Torn) in the movie Men in Black: "You're everything we've come to expect from years of government training."

Letter to the Editor

topics:
Taxes, John McCain, Barack Obama, Business, Environment, Constitution, Law, Military, Iraq, Israel, NATO, Energy, Alaska, Oil