Honestly, I have no fucking clue what's good for the economy and what's not at this point. SO many different people are shouting different things in my ear I can't make any of it out.
Economics just baffles me :tongue:
I do support public over private transportation as well. I think the issue is public transportation is not good enough, at least in it's current state. Not having a license, I am severely limited to the job selection I have; I do not believe this to be right. I disdain the fact it is expected for me to own a car. I believe public transportation should be present to serve the public.
I do not support the banishment of private transportation of course; doing so would send us back 120 years. At the same time, constructing society around private transportation rather than public simply encourages materialism and depression. The more private the lives of the citizens of a society are, the more lonely they become I think.
Hopefully, we as a culture can change society so that the big car companies are not necessary to prevent an economic depression.
I've often drawn a link between public rudeness and other forms of anti-social behavior with the automobile. Of course, some people are just socially retarded, but the decline in common courtesy is due in large part to the fact that people consider themselves discrete, individual units rather than part of a larger social fabric is due to self-imposed isolation while driving.
Besides, I detest driving and cars in general.
This sounds positively ridiculous! It's still quite difficult for me to understand any political views; the very reasoning I have so few. I just read through a list of values of "The John Birch Society" and still don't completely understand (what's wrong with me?) All I can hope to accomplish is go through specific beliefs, and figure out if I agree with them or not. Afterward, I can adjust the concept to what I believe instead. I am no where near being able to compare that to politicians around me, or even the "average joe's" I live around.
Politics shift as one ages and experiences things from differing perspectives. If it's true that all politics are local, then it's even more true that all politics are personal.
Either way, this sounds very suppressive, as if you were being forced into a specific lifestyle. I cann't imagine having such a specific perspective forced on me. I attempt to focus on expanding my horizons on the issues I care about, therefore giving me a better view of the issue overall. It gives you a framework you can reference as you discuss or debate about said topic with other people. It's at this point you can really begin to form your own opinions, right?
They eventually gave up trying to mold me into something I obviously wasn't interested in.
I try and keep myself as bias-neutral as I can be when gathering information, and I'm open enough to overlook an obvious bias (even those opposed to me) in attempting to understand someone else's POV. That's not always easy, though. And I've come to much prefer reading other's opinions than hear them bloviate their rhetoric and polemics in videos. There are plenty of gasbags on all sides, just like there's reason to be found, too. It just seems as though it's easier to verbalize snark than to type it out.
This must have been frustrating. Did you try to enoy yourself anyways? Form the descriptions I have heard from you elsewhere, it sounds as if you did.
I must add, this counts as anecdotal evidence. I still do not know how easily accessible college was dring the 70's and 80's.
I knew some kids who managed it. Scholarships were important, and having a marketable skill that paid more than minimum wage ($1.85 per hour in 1978, if I remember correctly) sure helped. Several people I knew at the time lived at home with their parents while they were in school. As my education didn't prepare me for a thing but college, my job choices were pretty limited. And even if I'd have wanted to (and I didn't), living with my parents simply wasn't an option at the time.
I made a great lemonade with the lemons I had; there were great challenges and enormous opportunities to have fun. I took the former in stride and regaled myself on the latter.