> We live an itinerant life, and we would be hardpressed if we had no car.
Yeah. Most people have to have a car; there's really no choice. No freedom there.
But there are good things that can happen in cars -- conversations that couldn't occur anywhere else, for example. As you note.
Still: everybody who drives a car can choose how he drives it: fast or slow, deferential to peds and cyclists or insistent upon every right the Vehicle Code grants him or her.
To the extent that cars confer any 'freedom' at all, that's the extent of it. We're free to be heavily-armed assholes, with a considerable advantage over the non-motorized; and free to decline the opportunity.
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Michael J. Smith mjs at smithbowen.net
http://stopmebeforeivoteagain.org http://fakesprogress.blogspot.com http://cars-suck.org
When one does a foolish thing, it is right to do it handsomely.