There's a book, In The Secret Service, by an agent, Jerry Parr, who was the main guy on hand when Reagan was shot. At one point Parr says, "I learned to trust my own instincts. We all had to improvise . . . we learned to make do with what we had."
It seems that in every technological country, fewer and fewer people are able to act on their own, and on instinct, to do something good.
Can't remember where I first read the comment that, people who wait in an emergency for an authority to tell them what to do, are more likely to die. Don't wait. Take what action is needed to protect you and your family. Figure it out.
I keep a car, well okay multiple, and probably always will until the collapse. However, I am 100% favor of making cars second class citizens everywhere but on freeways.
I'm not what it is called a 'libertarian' but I probably agree with the anti-mechanisation, pro-personal responsibility Machen (and would doubtless find him to be a hoot once a month at the bar). If we're going to have automobiles, though, as you suggest, crosswalks seem to be a perfectly reasonable exercise of state power. In any case, here in Oregon all intersections and meetings (Ts and Ys etc) of public thoroughfares are presumed to have them whether or not they are painted onto the road surface (although good luck encountering motorists who keep this in mind). If I went to bars; if Dr Machen was a drinking man.
Probably one way to see it would be, in Machen's time, the roads were for EVERYONE, and adding crosswalks, he could tell, was leading to a place where the roads would be for automobiles, only rarely crossed by humans.
Today, we're on the other side of that, the cars have already won. Everyone does believe the roads are for automobiles. So NOW, adding crosswalks is actually reclaiming a little bit of ground for people. So maybe under current conditions he would be in favor of them.
Seems right to me (Machen's is a name I know but I think I've never read any of his writing). Some people behave as if the absence of a sidewalk has a meaning tolerably close to 'pedestrians forbidden' or 'pedestrians strongly cautioned against...'. I don't keep a car anymore so walk most of the time: motorists' range of behaviors is very broad, isn't it: there are people who will wait at stop signs when I'm still a hundred feet distant and then there are those who _need_ to turn right at an intersection at speed without stopping first. :-)
There's a book, In The Secret Service, by an agent, Jerry Parr, who was the main guy on hand when Reagan was shot. At one point Parr says, "I learned to trust my own instincts. We all had to improvise . . . we learned to make do with what we had."
It seems that in every technological country, fewer and fewer people are able to act on their own, and on instinct, to do something good.
Can't remember where I first read the comment that, people who wait in an emergency for an authority to tell them what to do, are more likely to die. Don't wait. Take what action is needed to protect you and your family. Figure it out.
I keep a car, well okay multiple, and probably always will until the collapse. However, I am 100% favor of making cars second class citizens everywhere but on freeways.
I already like you, you don't have to flatter me.
How about a technocrat solution? Jet packs. Let the cars and bikers fight over roads and regulations. I'll be flying free.
I'm not what it is called a 'libertarian' but I probably agree with the anti-mechanisation, pro-personal responsibility Machen (and would doubtless find him to be a hoot once a month at the bar). If we're going to have automobiles, though, as you suggest, crosswalks seem to be a perfectly reasonable exercise of state power. In any case, here in Oregon all intersections and meetings (Ts and Ys etc) of public thoroughfares are presumed to have them whether or not they are painted onto the road surface (although good luck encountering motorists who keep this in mind). If I went to bars; if Dr Machen was a drinking man.
Probably one way to see it would be, in Machen's time, the roads were for EVERYONE, and adding crosswalks, he could tell, was leading to a place where the roads would be for automobiles, only rarely crossed by humans.
Today, we're on the other side of that, the cars have already won. Everyone does believe the roads are for automobiles. So NOW, adding crosswalks is actually reclaiming a little bit of ground for people. So maybe under current conditions he would be in favor of them.
Seems right to me (Machen's is a name I know but I think I've never read any of his writing). Some people behave as if the absence of a sidewalk has a meaning tolerably close to 'pedestrians forbidden' or 'pedestrians strongly cautioned against...'. I don't keep a car anymore so walk most of the time: motorists' range of behaviors is very broad, isn't it: there are people who will wait at stop signs when I'm still a hundred feet distant and then there are those who _need_ to turn right at an intersection at speed without stopping first. :-)