Ray LaHood, Our Lord and Savior’s Secretary of Transportation, is doing his best to fit in with the rest of the jackbooted thugs in the administration.
Now he has a plan to, in his words, coerce people out of their cars.
Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary defines “coerce” as:
- to compel to an act or choice
- to achieve by force or threat
Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has announced that federal transportation policies will no longer favor “motorized” transportation, such as cars and trucks, over “non-motorized” transportation, such as walking and bicycling.
LaHood signed the new policy directive on March 11, the same day he attended a congressional reception for the National Bike Summit, a convention sponsored by a bicycling advocacy group, the League of American Bicyclists. LaHood publicly announced his agency’s new direction four days later in a posting on his blog—“Fast Lane: The Official Blog of the U.S. Secretary of Transportation”–where he effusively described it as a “sea change” for the United States.
“Today, I want to announce a sea change,” LaHood wrote. “People across America who value bicycling should have a voice when it comes to transportation planning. This is the end of favoring motorized transportation at the expense of non-motorized.”
Think state and local governments will be able to opt out? Guess again. LaHood has a plan to “encourage” them to go along with the statist policy of imperial Washington.
Encourage? Yeah, right. Like those 17,000 Gestapo thugs will come to Americans’ homes to “encourage” them to sign up for government-run health care and pay their fines … encourage. The Mafia does a lot of encouraging of people as well.
Here’s the vision of the elitists aimed at controlling the little people:
LaHood’s policy statement envisions the development of a transportation system in which people walk and bike for short distances and rely on mass transit for longer trips. “The primary goal of a transportation system is to safely and efficiently move people and goods,” said LaHood’s statement. “Walking and bicycling are efficient transportation modes for most short trips and, where convenient intermodal systems exist, these nonmotorized trips can easily be linked with transit to significantly increase trip distance.”
Hitler loved mass transit, too. All totalitarians and elitists love it, since they exempt themselves from the mandates but force the little people to comply under threat of consequences. That way, the elitists can control the little people: where they live, where they work, where and when they go. After all, the little people just cannot be trusted to do what the elitists want them to do.
This is Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid territory:
LaHood told reporters at the National Press Club that the “Partnership for Sustainable Communities’ his department had formed with the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Housing—sometimes known as the “livability initiative”–was designed to “coerce” people out of their cars.
“Some in the highway-supporters motorist groups have been concerned by your livability initiative,” said the moderator at the National Press Club event. “Is this an effort to make driving more torturous and to coerce people out of their cars?”
“It is a way to coerce people out of their cars,” said LaHood.
The moderator later asked: “Some conservative groups are wary of the livable communities program, saying it’s an example of government intrusion into people’s lives. How do you respond?”
“About everything we do around here is government intrusion in people’s lives,” said LaHood. “So have at it.”
They are coming for your person vehicle. Go to the bank on it.
