By making “IC”
cars impossible – legislatively – electric cars are to be made inevitable. In
this way, the practical and functional deficits of EVs become irrelevances.
Just as the Fourth and Fifth Amendments are irrelevant as a practical and
functional matter.
The commonalities
– the tactics – are interesting.
Naturally, they
emanate from the same place.
In the case of
the Fourth Amendment, the government simply decreed it had a “compelling
interest” to override it at will, whenever it felt like doing so. The
amendment’s crystal clear prohibition of any unreasonable search, absent
probable cause wasn’t denied. It was simply swept away because it was in the
way . . . of exactly the police state tactics those prohibitions were enshrined
to forbid.
The EV Fantasy
Similarly, there
is now a “compelling interest” to force-feed electric and automated cars to the
public, which hasn’t asked for them. The analog of the Fourth Amendment
impediment is the free market, which exists to prevent exactly such
force-feeding (and profiteering, which always attends the funnel in the mouth,
with the gun pointed at the victim’s temple).
Thus, the free
market must be suppressed. In its place, a command economy – Mussolini (or
Goring) style. The edicts about what shall be manufactured are decreed; price
signals become . . . irrelevant. It is probably only a matter of a handful of
years before there is an official Five Year Plan – complete with pronouncements
about the overfulfillment thereof.
Electric cars
have to be force-fed because there are not enough takers on the merits. It’s a
simple statement of fact; no elaboration needed. If this were not so, the
force-feeding wouldn’t be necessary. No one puts a gun to people’s heads to buy
Starbucks coffee or for that matter, Toyota Corollas – because it’s not
necessary. They sell on the merits.
EVs
don’t.
Coming soon. . .
It is a bitter
pill for their proselytizers – and profiteers – to swallow. In a moral
universe, they’d go back to the drawing board, come up with something that
could sell on the merits. But that has proved not possible thus far, which
drives the proselytizers batty and fails to line the pockets of the profiteers
(which includes but is by no means limited to Our Friend Elon).
Thus, the
legislative and regulatory attempts to get rid of IC-engined cars. If you can’t
build a better mousetrap, illegalize your competitions’ mousetrap.
They tried using
emissions regs – but that failed because IC-engined cars got clean. Nearly
“zero emissions” clean. That is, almost electric car clean. Very possibly,
cleaner in the aggregate than electric cars – which haven’t got tailpipes but
do have smokestacks. The government hasn’t – and never will – tally all the
emissions produced by electric cars. Unless, of course, they become
functionally and economically viable – at which point it will. But that is
another story, saved for later.
And so, the
government changed the rules. Better example, pulled away the football,
Lucy-style, that Charlie Brown was just on the verge of kicking through the
goalposts.
Carbon dioxide
became a “pollutant.”
Almost at once –
and as one – the media orchestra (which is funded by the same philanthropy)
began to play the specified tune. It happened in much the same way that – if
you were there and recall – the post-911 tune very suddenly changed from a
libretto about Afghanistan to eructations about Iraq. It seemed very odd – to
those plagued by a capacity for discernment, who knew that Afghanistan was one
country (and home, apparently, to “enemies of freedom” who’d attacked the U.S.)
and Iraq another – filled with people who had nothing to do with it.
No matter. Switch
gears. Oceania is at war with Eastasia. Oceania has always been at war with
Eastasia. Eurasia is our ally – and always has been.
Just so, with
C02.
It relies on
similar stupefaction – and a reflexive capacity to accept the New Story.
LIke the Iraqis,
who played no role in the attacks of 911, C02 plays no role in the problems
heretofore attributed to internal combustion, such as smog and respiratory
problems. But just as there was a predetermined agenda to “regime change” Iraq,
which the 911 attacks provided the necessary hysteria to set in motion,
so also the conflation of inert, environmentally inoffensive C02 with things
like carbon monoxide, unburned hydrocarbons and so on.
All of which have
been dealt with. Are no longer meaningful issues, as regards smog or human
health.
Enter C02.
Like the “war on
terror,” the war on carbon dioxide is a strategically brilliant tactic because
it’s impossible to define and just as impossible to win. Both are forever wars
which provide an endless pretext for any affront the government cares to rain
down upon us.
It will not just
be cars, either. Your house has a “carbon footprint.” Have you been using too
much electricity? Wait and see.
Eyes should be
opening now, even if only a few. It was never about “the environment.” If it
had been, there would have been a happy press conference about ten years ago at
which a beaming EPA administrator would have said, in effect, mission
accomplished – and let’s move on to other things.
This might even
include electric cars, assuming they can ever be made economically sensible and
practically plausible. There is always a market for a better mousetrap. The
problem is the EV isn’t it – and may never be.
And if it ever,
by some miracle of chemistry or physics, becomes economically sensible and
practically plausible, it will at exactly that moment become a problem. The
orchestra’s tune will change again. As quickly as the Tele-Promp-Ter switched
from Afghanistan to Iraq, we will begin to have stories about all the Bad
Things coming out of the smokestacks that power electric cars. The “free”
electricity now available at government-sponsored Fast Charger stations won’t
be anymore.
Because the point
of the exercise isn’t a better mousetrap, or even “clean air.”
It is shoring up
the matrix, maintaining the integrity of the pyramid . . . with guess who
at the apex and the rest of us you know where.
. . .
Got a question
about cars – or anything else? Click on the “ask Eric” link and send ’em in!
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