Does this look "smart" to you? which brings me to my next point. The press is repeating the U.S. DOT talking points that "the new standards will save $8,000 in fuel over the life of the vehicle" Tell me, is what you see above worth the $8,000 in fuel savings? Because it is a proven fact that more people die in lighter, smaller cars.
I wonder where they get that $8,000 number? When you consider that "the life of the car" is a hell of a lot longer these days than in the past. But perhaps these tin sh*t boxes won't last as long. Certainly, this particular "Smart" car didn't and sadly it would appear that the occupants didn't either. But for my eight-year-old minivan with damn near 200,000 miles and probably at least 100,000 more miles in it, $8,000 over the life of the vehicle ain't worth a whole hell of a lot (2.67 cents a mile using my example). And it certainly isn't worth the life of the occupants.
But of course, my minivan isn't the ObamaBot Zombie's idea of a "green" car. It's fairly large and gets -- GASP!!!! -- about 19 MPG in normal daily driving. But in addition to me being far more likely to survive a collision with a truck in my minivan, my minivan also will carry seven people and a reasonable amount of luggage in relative comfort. I bought it years ago when I had four kids and all their stuff to haul around.How many kids and how much stuff do you suppose I could get into a car that gets 54.5 MPG? Not a hell of a lot.
Now consider this:
Several years ago, five of us piled into the trusty minivan, threw a topper on top, and took off, fully loaded on a 3200 mile cross-country vacation. On this vacation, the trusty minivan averaged about 23 MPG going 75-80 on the Interstate. How many 42-mpg "Smart" cars would it have taken to make this trip? I could have put every licensed driver (four of us) in a "Smart" car with 25% of the luggage (if it even fit, which is debatable) and averaged 10.5 MPG total for the four cars it would have taken. If I'm generous, and estimate that each of these tin little hunks of crap gets 50 MPG on the highway, you're still talking only 12.5 MPG for the four cars -- about half the fuel economy of my one van fully loaded. Do this easy calculation and you find out quickly that this has nothing to do with saving the average family money on gas.
In a country where the liberal's messiah who is beholden to environmentalist wackos refuses to tap the world's largest oil reserve sitting right smack dab under the middle of this country, this is about limiting our choices and diminishing our liberty. Under the bureaucrat's plan for 54.5 mpg cars, do you think a family of five with all their gear will have the realistic choice to hit the road on a 3,000-mile road trip? And if you think Barack Hussein Obama and the environmentalist wackos really give a rat's ass about saving you money on your gas, you're smokin' dope.
This came right from the Commie's mouth:"Under my plan of a cap and trade system, electricity rates would skyrocket" and the same thing goes for gas. Despite all the steps Barry could take to impact the price of gas (no, not tapping the Strategic Petroleum Reserve for God's sake!) Barry has done nothing. So every time a Middle East Sheik farts or a hurricane blows, the price of gas skyrockets. For anyone who doesn't think the president can influence oil prices consider what happened about this time in 2008 when George Bush signaled that he might have a plan for energy independence: Gas went from record highs in July 2008 (ironically, the exact same time my family took that 3200-mile trip) to about $1.50 a gallon by Thanksgiving of that year.
What's the problem then? Why won't Obama do the same thing? Because he hates the fact that we have so much freedom and liberty in this country. How many times have you heard him complain that we are 5% of the world's population but use 25% of the world's energy? How many times have you heard him harp on that bogus man-made global warming crap, calling those of us with the facts on our side "deniers"? Obama's vision for our country is one where urbanized Americans are forced to shun the personal transportation that is our hallmark of freedom, choice and liberty -- our automobiles -- and scurry back and forth between busses, "light rail" and other such inconvenient, and impersonal forms of transportation. As a kid, I froze my ass off at city bus stops waiting for city busses and determined that relying on a bus schedule to get around really sucked. So I made the personal choice -- at great expense -- to buy and maintain cars and live in the country. These are choices that we are still allowed to make as free Americans. But arbitrary CAFE standards are an attempt to force us in to government-mandated transportation choices that limit our freedom.
Forcing limits to Americans' transportation choices does more than limit their transportation options -- it limits our self-determination. Being forced by government regulations into tiny unsafe, impractical cars, will eventually force people to plan their lives around idiotic, inefficient and impractical mass transportation systems, which means no more houses in the country for most folks. No, you'll be forced into the European model -- packed like little gerbils into dense urbanized housing clustered around transportation hubs. This isn't American and it isn't the America we all know and love.
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