Please clarify?

How's that working for you?

Wow! A Mustang! That is impressive! Psychologists widely recognize that lashing out at others - particularly your citing of "jealousy" - is really a reflection upon yourself and your emotions. (I am sure even Dr. Phil who owns many cars would back me up on that.)

I hope driving your Mustang gives you some self worth as you must be very lonely at your core.

Congrats on your new Mustang! This may come as a shock to you but a growing number of Americans no longer view a fancy new V8 gas guzzler as a status symbol.

You'd have a point if Aaron was going out and physically blocking people from purchasing a car, but he's doing nothing of the sort. The idea that one guy's writings on an Internet blog are infringing the freedoms of car-shoppers is ludicrous.

"Implying" (or coming right out and stating) that one is right and others are wrong is the foundation of debate, discourse, and living in a free society. You may go ahead and imply it's not, but you're wrong. "Social police" does not equate with one citizen (or a million) speaking his mind.

A fair question. There are lots of ways to respond but I'll leave you with the short list and the moral dimension:

45,000+ road fatalities per year in America. Sprawl. Epidemic obesity. Resource wars and political instability related to increasing oil demand. Climate change. The squandering of our nation's great wealth.

I think the selling and buy of this car is morally abhorrent and destructive to my neighborhood, my country and my planet. I think the buying and selling of products like this should be treated the same way we treat guns and drugs.

You raise a thoughtful point. I can't speak for Aaron N., but I will raise a few points since I am a fan of this series.

You are absolutely right, the individual freedom that allows us to do, say, buy or sell what we want (within reason) is the root of the capitalism and democracy that distinguish our society and make the United States great. The freedom of speech has given us a long history of people criticizing the purchases of others, from the housing choices of celebrities to the musical choices of fellow teenagers to the fashion choices of just about anybody. Here, Aaron isn't criticizing a particular person, but only a hypothetical person who would buy this car, as well the auto maker and the ad agency it does business with.

Here is why I think it is fine to criticize someone for buying a 500-horsepower 'Stang. Every time you hit the ignition of an internal combustion engine you do two things: 1) You help raise the price on a commodity that everyone needs not only for transportation, but for heat, electricity, agricultural production and plastics production. 2) You contribute a tiny but non-zero amount to the presence of global-warming gasses in the atmosphere. The consequences of global warming are alarming and potentially catastrophic. Both of these negative consequences are directly proportional to horsepower.

When a company and its customer freely enter into a contract for the purchase of a product, the two parties share 100% of the benefits of that transaction. The customer gets an awesome vehicle with leather seats, great pickup, surround-sound and a coffee mug holder. The company gets the cash equivalent of that. But in the case of the 'Stang, there is an equal and opposite negative externality that results from the transaction: air pollution and oil depletion (not to mention putting people at risk as seen each week in the carnage column). While the benefit is shared equally between two parties, the cost is spread thinly over billions of people.

It is in Ford's interest to try to encourage a vehicle purchase because Ford stands to gain. It is in anyone else's interest to try to prevent that purchase because everyone else stand to lose. Ford's share of the benefit is larger than any individual's share of the cost, so Ford is the much more motivated and articulate party to the discussion. Far from being a Big Brother, this series just tries to level the playing field.

As I recall there was a similar ad for Mercedes in the late 1980s, so it's not a new idea.

In Ford's defense, at least the "cool dude" went to where it is legal to drive at excessive speeds instead of doing what Spike Lee and Derek Jeter do and tear around the streets of Brooklyn in their Mustangs.

There is an enormous fuel tax that offsets many other taxes that we pay. Thats why people drive small cars for the most part. They also use that gas tax to provide a modern and efficient mass transit system that goes everywhere the autobahns go only faster yet. Also, there is a bike path that also parallels the autobahn and the high speed rail. Transporation choices all built into the high fuel taxes.

And when you get your mustang off the autobahn you better obey the posted (slow) street speed limits or the mean old Germans will take your Mustang away. There are radar cameras everywhere and street architecture that demands calm traffic.

Don't even think about a DUI in Germany, or at least don't expect to drive again. Getting a liscence to drive is not a simple or cheap thing in Germany or anywhere else in Europe. The tests take time and money.

And the high fuel taxes and prices also allow for the development of wind farming. There are wind turbines everywhere you go, thousands of them, even in the less developed Ost (east).

In my opinion (humble and respectful) it would take us fifty years to catch up to the German transportation model if we start right now which we won't. I think, each year they get another two years ahead of us.

It is in many ways our transportation model stood on its head. On the autobahns, where there are only cars, trucks and motorcycles there is no speed limit, although there are rules and unsafe driving is clearly understood even on the autobahn and severely punished when it is determined. Speed they allow, tail-gating they don't. But you better not impede traffic out there either.

We on the other hand, police the high-speed limited access roads with radar, laser and chase car. To my mind we don't do a real good job of it but that is where the traffic enforcement dollars go. In Germany they allow speed on the autobahn but nowhere else. Certainly nowhere pedestrians and bicyclists travel. They...are number one in Germany.

The incessant manipulation of people's minds is an insidious aspect of car culture. The most effective way to fight it would be to put up sexy ads showing people cycling and enjoying the outdoors via exercize, or riding the train and actually interacting with other people and relaxing on the way to work. Before a constituency to pay for them can be put together, these posts will do.