Atomic Razor

Glancing through my morning blogs, as I am wont to do, I came across an article on Transterrestial Musings entitled "We have ways". The post concludes with:

"We will change our lifestyles to conform with the state religion of our moral betters, regardless of the economic madness of it, or the impact on our personal freedom."

What interested me with this was when cars and freedom actually become equated?  It also got me thinking about the geography of many US cities and how bad it actually was.  Huge Ass City, another Seattle Blog, covers this quite well.

I suppose what interests me with this is the logic/reasoning that makes you think that cars equal freedom when, at least in my mind, the problem is that cars have created a bizzare form of prison for people where everybody has to have a car just to do the most mundane human activities: socialize, get food, get to work etc...

Couple that to a country which, arguably, now makes some of the worst cars in the world to drive and I'm left wondering is this some kind of of practical joke they decided to play in the 50s and we're still waiting for the other shoe to drop.  

I suppose my problem is the hard wiring in my brain parses the statement above and reaches the following conclusions.

If cities were well thought out and planned then you wouldn't need a car to be free.  The ultimate freedom isn't gained by getting into a car and playing with the traffic on the huge and often clogged road networks.  It's gained by being able to walk to the shops, get a coffee, perhaps a few beers, read a book and walk or get the train/bus/whatever home.

Now, I like my car.  I do like the freedom it gives me for taking the dog to hard to reach parts of the local wilderness or carry a large load of shopping etc...  but for day to day purposes I'd much rather be able to walk to the high street and get what I need.  It's one of the reasons I live where I live.  What saddens me is that I have driven through huge housing estates without any form of amenity at all.  No shops, restaurants, bars - nothing.

That kind of situation, coupled to turning parents into an unpaid taxi service for their offspring isn't freedom.  It's a prison.

It might have nice lawns but it's still not freedom.