House of Eratosthenes

One of the commenters on Ed Darrell’s site comments way more than most other commenters; he captures nicely the spirit liberals have in mind when they speak of unification, tolerance, learning to get along together.

Which is a nice way of saying this commenter doesn’t believe in any such thing. His litanies are regularly filled with references to “my side” and “your side” and “us” and “them” — opinions like these are very important, because they’re popular. As best I can understand the mindset, it works like this: We need to stop fighting with each other and build a society that works for the benefit of everyone, and when we get that done, we need to figure who among us is not really part of this “everyone” and do everything we possibly can to destroy them.

This person recently came to learn of some remarks by Republican Congressman Spencer Bachus, who is set to become Chairman of the House Banking Committee. He was kind enough to inform me of the Congressman’s comments the way he informs me of everything else being discussed in the underworld of left-wing myrmidons: By injecting the news into a discussion that has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with it. Said underworld is going nuts over something the incoming Chairman said:

In an article yesterday from the publication, The Raw Story, Congressman Bachus intimates that his leadership role will be to keep the regulators working in a subservient role for the banking cartel.

“In Washington, the view is that the banks are to be regulated, and my view is that Washington and the regulators are there to serve the banks,” Bachus told The Birmingham News in an interview.

As I said, I know from experience that what Congressman Bachus said is no different from what regulators and auditors regularly say. There’s even a little joke about it: “I’m from the government and I’m here to help you” is one of the biggest lies, right after “the check is in the mail.” Heard that one?

I would not characterize the Congressman’s comment as a winning one. But he is right, at least about the “Washington view.” We know from the I’m-from-government-I’m-here-to-help-you joke that this is an old situation, it’s much bigger than bank regulation.

Congress makes requirements and auditors go in to make sure the requirements are met. Somewhere along the way, the government becomes a sort of aristocracy; an elite layer of noblemen who enjoy special rights and privileges, and are there to fight the citizen.

How do things get to be this way? From unhealthy, diseased thinking…and it is not deposited into the equation. Like the maggot swarming over the dead body, it is there from the very beginning. We have these twits running around who think it is the job of the Government to fight the governed — they have the same right to vote that everybody else does, and so Government is only too pleased to accommodate. When your grandmother’s golden years turn into her living nightmare of fighting with the IRS over some form your grandfather forgot to fill in properly 45 years ago, you’re looking at the result.

Roundabouts This is what inspires the odious road engineering custom we have imported from Europe, known as “traffic calming.” How does traffic calming work? Exactly the same way a progressive income tax works, by artificially elevating the difficulty involved in attaining success. By fighting the motorist, the same way the government fights bankers, or businessmen who seek to make a profit.

Traffic calming does nothing at all to calm traffic. It makes ordinarily patient, long-tempered motorists into agitated, frenzied assholes.

Still, overall it can lower congestion over the long term in one key way. If you have a trip planned that involves twenty miles and a round-about, with an alternate bypass demanding thirty miles, you’ll probably take the bypass. Now, you ponder the implications of that thinking with regard to an onerous, progressive taxation system and you’ll start to see why there was such contention about the new tax bill — and, why our economy sucks as much as it does right now. Another interesting aspect to traffic calming is: It seems to be geographically planned to thwart this one single potential benefit. Where there is a roundabout, there is considerable difficulty involved in planning an alternate route. Case in point, the last onerous roundabout encountered by Yours Truly, at 39°36’13″N 119°13’37″W.

Wherever you find any kind of traffic calming, coupled up with artificially inflated difficulty involved in taking a bypass route, you know somewhere is a civil engineer who is a complete dick. That engineer thinks like this. That the point to the exercise is to fight the driver. Make life harder just for the hell of it. Make the errand take longer. Create a real potential for an expensive collision every fucking ninety degrees of the circle. Scare the driver. Aggravate the driver. Calm (heh) the traffic.

The mindset is real, and it is out there. It is the province of dimwits. It is as old as the country itself. The mindset says that government exists to torture citizens — and it’s quite alright, you should vote for it because you’re not one of the citizens to be tortured. Government is working for you, by making life tough for that other guy over there.

Aw, but here & there you might become that other guy. Don’t worry. Probably won’t happen.

Every now and then we’ll come to find a new appreciation for the enormous and growing cost of some particular line of business complying with new regulations. What is objectionable about this is not quite so much that it is the biggest expense after payroll; but, rather, that the cost of compliance is much larger than it needs to be. And that this is by design. And that idiots like Ed Darrell’s guest mentioned above are running around, voting it in that way, fully intent on doing it again, trying to inspire others to do the same. Often succeeding at it.

The rest of us take note that ordinary everyday commodities cost many times what they used to. Bread, sugar, coffee, movie tickets — ah, and then there’s health care. Hmmmm…if your head is useful for something besides a hat-hanger, you’ll start to see a connection.

[…] Gratitude I Made a New Word XLV “If People Stop Taking Something Seriously, it Ceases to Exist” “Why do Women […]
- House of Eratosthenes | 12/15/2010 @ 07:36
[…] Preponderance Gratitude I Made a New Word XLV “If People Stop Taking Something Seriously, it Ceases to Exist” “Why do Women […]
- House of Eratosthenes | 12/15/2010 @ 07:50
Great observations, as always.

But I do take issue with the point about roundabouts. I actually kind of like them. We have 3 here in our fair city, and I find them much better than the 4 and 5 way stops they replaced, and it is prcisely because what they do is force people to negotiate with each other in real-time, based on current conditions. It actually removes some red tape from the equation in that — when there’s nobody there, you don’t have to stop at all, there’s no light to stop everyone from one direction to let one car go by the another direction, and when there’s a lot of traffic, everyone just goes when they can go, maximizing efficiency. And you don’t have to worry about it if the idiot to your left is confused as to whose “turn” it is. If he doesn’t go, you just do. Of course, if that idiot is in front of you…. well, you can’t have everything.
- philmon | 12/15/2010 @ 08:23
I suppose I should have some sympathy for the “Seattle stalemate” situation where people reaching a four-way stop gesture endlessly as each side courteously yields with the result that nobody goes anywhere.

I should have sympathy, but I don’t. I driver’s ed I recall it was a right-of-passage to learn the rules and practice them once you were on the road. If one side has a stop sign and the other doesn’t, the side that doesn’t takes precedence (of course); if both sides have a stop sign, the one that reached it first goes first; if they both came to a stop at the same time, the guy on the right goes first.

With the roundabout, it’s the yield sign every ninety degrees that I can’t quite get past. If you’re making a 270 degree turn, that means you pass two of these beasties. I’m sorry, if there’s a research paper somewhere that says this is safer, it’s just wrong.

We imported these things from England. That’s one strike. They impose a penalty on drivers who are in a hurry, who as individuals may be responsible but others in the same class have been known to malfease…speeding through a quiet neighborhood…therefore, all in the same class must be punished for the behavior of a few. That’s two strikes. Finally, not all roundabouts are level; some of the monsters impede one’s ability to visually check as one merges into the circlet, to see if yielding is necessary. In the case of Fernley, this appears to be by design — which fits in perfectly with the stated objective of fighting the motorist (although it’s not expressed in those terms, that is the objective). That’s three strikes.

I do identify with the residents of domestic areas in which the traffic should be running more slowly, and their frustrations as scofflaws regularly zip through at highway speeds. But that’s what speed bumps are for. That’s all the traffic calming we need. Folsom doesn’t have too many roundabouts, thank goodness, but it does stand as an object lesson that when it is too difficult to get from point A to point B, and the surrounding urban lifestyle demands tight deadlines, it turns the motorists into assholes. And when I see poor design, I think of a civil engineer who doesn’t live in the locality — he slaps a bunch of shit on people and then flies away someplace else. It’s a plague of modern times.
- mkfreeberg | 12/15/2010 @ 08:37
Well, you can’t outlaw stupidity, and I suppose no matter what we do we’ll still have to deal with the stupid.

I live in a less congested city… maybe it works better here.

Or maybe it’s because here in the midwest we’re less (or fewer of us are) accustomed to having to be told excactly what to do, step by step. Maybe there are more of those out in The PRoC. 😉
- philmon | 12/15/2010 @ 09:53
I’m with Phil: you’re WRONG about roundabouts. There are no “yield” signs at roundabouts in Ol’ Blighty, coz everyone KNOWS what roundabouts are about (there we go again). Roundabouts are faster than stop signs and they also offer GREAT sporting opportunities, especially where two-wheeled, high-powered conveyances are involved. Which doesn’t eliminate four-wheeled fun, obviously.

You just need to get your mind right, Morgan. Take a longish trip overseas, rent something sporting, and have fun. Stop being so damned parochial.
- bpenni | 12/15/2010 @ 10:00
Buck, you forgot “And get off my lawn!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” 😉
- philmon | 12/15/2010 @ 10:04
Okay, well I’ll certainly go along with them as an alternative to a stop sign.

I maintain my frowny-face about roundabouts when they’re proposed as an alternative to learning & abiding by the rules of the road. (Still, I suppose where they’re used, they’re circumventing both of these rather than one or the other, so the distinction is rather theoretical.)

I think you gentlemen are missing something: The post is about the thinking that inspires traffic calming in general. Isn’t this the reason gun control laws are so onerous? You have people out there who are malicious/negligent…we’re going to change the equipment and make everything right, while the people continue to carry around their dysfunctions. It is a distinctly anti-American mindset to say, oh you don’t feel comfortable learning the right-of-way rules at a 4-way stop so here is an island in the middle of the road now you don’t have to learn.

And now everyone who took the time to learn how to do this, is inconvenienced by this non-road smack in the middle of the road…

I think Buck makes a good point about not having to come to a full stop. Because of that, I’ll concede the point there are isolated situations where their introduction makes traffic more convenient than it otherwise would be. But the point remains: Traffic calming, by definition, is all about fighting the driver. That is its primary goal, and it is pursued as an alternative to teaching people how to competently navigate the more traditional juncture, which is the 3- or 4-way stop.

And as an alternative to teaching kids to stay the hell out of the street. You guys should come to Folsom and see how people behave when they want to get someplace, and they’re fought by a bad road design full of “now that you’ve gone here you have to go there.” This is not calmed traffic; I wouldn’t want a child to be playing anywhere near it.
- mkfreeberg | 12/15/2010 @ 10:41
Whenever I see something like a traffic circle, I think of John Derbyshire’s EFTA – the Easier For Them Association. It nicely encapsulates one of life’s axioms: an organization works well at its designated task for the first five minutes of its existence, after which bureaucratic inertia sets in. No matter its ostensible “mission,” five minutes later the organization’s real mission becomes “the perpetuation of the organization” — which in effect means “the perpetuation of the bureaucracy.” It’s the reason Conquest’s Second Law of Politics works (“any organization that is not explicitly right wing sooner or later becomes left wing”).

Fighting the driver / consumer/ citizen/ whatever is just another way for the bureaucracy to keep itself going. If they actually solved the problem, what would they do with their day? Similarly, endless rejiggering of increasingly byzantine regulations allows bureaucrats to claim “my hands are tied” no matter what the situation… screw the public, it’s Easier For Them.
- Severian | 12/15/2010 @ 10:57

Leave a Reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.

Recent

Items of Interest

Monthly Archives

What They Say

Links

I Made a New Word XLVWednesday, December 15th, 2010

I Made a New Word XLV
Wednesday, December 15th, 2010