Traveling about in Audis and Land
Rovers, to timber-framed houses, the inhabitants have formed their own
communities, something difficult in the congested, more state-controlled city.
’America represents
wilderness and freedom, and also a big house…The United States is cool…’ Communist
Party edicts and conservative commentators have sought to demonize so-called
Western values like human rights and democracy as existential threats. Even if
the menace is seldom identified by name, the purveyor of such threats is widely
understood to be the United States.
But the campaign has done
little to dampen popular enthusiasm for foreign ideas and products. American
universities remain the top destination for students seeking an overseas
education, and Chinese consumers largely shun homegrown brands, making the
Buick Excelle, the Volkswagen Jetta and the Ford Focus among the top-selling
cars here. Imported holidays like Halloween, Christmas and Valentine’s Day
continue to gain traction among young consumers.
Jackson Hole, China, like the frontier
towns Tocqueville wrote of, even has a nondenominational church and more
than a hundred affinity clubs. Its residents even love backyard barbecues and
flock to all you can eat buffets, the former presently being targeted by the
totalitarians at the EPA and the latter the horrid example of our gluttony to
the kale and tofu crowd.
Just as some Chinese sample with pleasure
the delights of American-style suburban life and the freedom cars have given
them, Americans are seeing a push by planners and pols in the opposite
direction.
Take a look at
Pagedale, Missouri, where the government’s insatiable desire for more
revenue -- revenue most likely wasted on foolish projects, has beset its
citizens with what George Will has dubbed “a steady blizzard of capricious
fines”.
Pagedale residents are subject
to fines if they walk on the left side of a crosswalk; if they have a hedge
more than three feet high, a weed more than seven inches high, or any dead
vegetation on their property; or if they park a car at night more than 500 feet
from a street lamp or other source of illumination; or if windows facing a
street do not have drapes or blinds that are “neatly hung, in a presentable
appearance, properly maintained and in a state of good repair”; or if their
houses have unpainted foundations or chipped or aging layers of paint (even on
gutters); or if there are cracks in their driveways; or if on a national
holiday -- the only time a barbeque may be conducted in a front yard -- more
than two people are gathered at the grill or there are alcoholic beverages
visible within 150 feet of the grill……
In a similar vein, cities larger than Pagedale --
Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., to be specific -- are at work to make their
own roadways impassible for private cars and the federal government is using
your tax money to impose this pattern elsewhere………..
Maybe cities applying for these funds could
hire the streetcar geniuses in D.C. or the Metro transportation board which has
run our fine subway system into an unsafe, expensive, unreliable disaster.
I happen to think the best transportation
systems arose organically, taking into consideration the needs of the people
and their goods to move efficiently and cratering existing thoroughfares to
accommodate the 1% who can and choose to bike around cities is madness. Let me
know when you see public officials biking to work in D.C. or L.A. Send me the
pictures of them taking public transportation to work and shop. In the
meantime, I’m asking Jackson Hole, China for some brochures.
