In Muslim countries like Saudi Arabia and Iran, girls are forbidden by law from being on the street without their parents or brother escorting them. Many parts of the USA are just like these Muslim countries – teenage girls have no way of getting around without their parents or older siblings driving them.

I have a 12-year-old daugher and a 10-year-old son. If we lived in Tehran, Iran, they could go all over the city together. My son would be deemed by the Religious Police to be an adequate escort for his sister.

In most of the USA, they cannot go out together, because no car means they are not going anywhere.

My children would have more freedom if we lived in Tehran, Iran than in most of the USA.

I believe that freedom should be a core conservative value. To see one example of what freedom looks like, take a look at this video of Dutch children going to school at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=NL&hl=nl&v=2n_znwWroGM&feature=channel

And at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTzfEWzDpVw&feature=channel

I know many who still loved Bush and stood by everything he said even after his administration had made so many obviously poor choices and turned a fiscally conservative party into a liberal spending one. Why? Because he’s Republican and so are they. They overlooked the problems in the interest of maintaining the status quo and avoiding change.

That’s what we’re up against for most people, Republican or Democrat. They’re stuck in a rut with their cars and are afraid to get out and walk.

—– Agreedddddddddddd

It was interesting to read a conservative mention how sprawl wasn’t caused by the “free market” as much as government subdizing road and other development (see the movie “Chinatown”.)

Fred Camino had a really great essay on Socialist Libertarians when it comes to “free market” roads and “socialist” public transit. (Please come back, Fred.)

http://metroriderla.com/2008/04/03/exposing-socialist-libertarians/

I know people who own a car, but feel forced into a suburban-within-urban, automobile-based lifestyle because they (feel they) do not yet have options in Los Angeles yet and cannot wait for the Purple Line extension. They want the choice that subsidizing roads did not give them.

I suspect much of the hostility there is on the right to public transit has less to do about “freedom” and “independence” and a lot to do “those people” and having to sit next to a stranger of a different race, class or culture.

Certainly in the 80′s there more than a few “liberals” who tried to thwart the subway and other rail because of their underlying fear of “those people” and liberal politicians such as Henry Waxman thwarted the Purple Line for 20 years on their behalf.

Having lived in multi-cultural New York and London, I don’t fear people of other races and cultures as much as someone who never meets them or who simply drives past them.

Big oil has tended to skew this debate by casting their lot with campaign contributions on the political right. However, big oil has no problem funding politicians on all sides of the spectrum.

There is also the tendency to view someone elss’e government assistance (such building transit infrastructure) as an unfair subsidy, but the one you benefit from (expanding roads) as a wise and well-deserved entitlement.

There is a danger of seeing this a left vs. right issue, especially as it is unnecessary. There are many conservatives who respond well to the ideas of more liveable communities, more liveable streets, and economic prosperity that increased mobility via transit brings. For example, increasing Metrolink commuter rail can be sold as a manner to help suburban conservatives spend more time with their family and less time isolated in traffic.

http://fortworthology.com/2009/01/16/traditional-urbanism-and-conservatives/

Same thing for certain types of health care, not including prevention and general good health, which has less political power.

In any event, even ignoring that fact that today’s political groups are in favor of who pays them not what they are theoretically for, I would associate “conservatives” with a desire for freedom from non-voluntary entanglements with other people, NOT broader community.

So what they really ought to be in favor of is bicycles. You can ride a bicycle by yourself, or with others you have chosen, and get around without being at the mercy of the unionized public employees that provide mass transit (which you must ride with others with whom have have not voluntarily chosen to associate) OR the foreigners and big corporations that provide oil/autos.

Ironic then that many culture warrior conservatives have stopped knocking transit (perhaps seen as a place to herd up other people if not for themselves, kind of like housing projects) and started knocking and mocking bicycles. Because objectively the bicycle is something liberals and conservatives, as they pretend to be, ought to agree on.

Same thing for home-ownership.