4 ms·

I very much enjoy my vehicle, so I am biased... BUT... Freedom of Movement is very much not a luxury. You might argue that lacking these 'luxuries' does not pr

by eximius 10y ago

I very much enjoy my vehicle, so I am biased... BUT... Freedom of Movement is very much not a luxury. You might argue that lacking these 'luxuries' does not prevent you from going anywhere, but it is very much a restriction of otherwise freer movement Also, it ignores the inherent timeliness our society has developed which make lower variance delays much more desireable.

notatoad 10y ago
Freedom of movement is not a luxury, and i never said it was. But travelling in a personal vehicle is absolutely a luxury. If you truly believe that freedom of movement is a right that should be applied to everyone, you should be arguing in favour of improved public transit and any other solution that isn't a personal vehicle, because personal vehicles aren't accessible to everybody. In addition to being financially out of reach for many, they cannot be used by the visually impaired and by people with certain motor function impairments, the young, or the old. Something as important as freedom of movement should be serviced by something that is accessible to all.
- oceanghost 10y ago
  You are grasping at straws.
  - drdeadringer 10y ago
    How?
- scythe 10y ago
  Using disabled people as a bludgeon to deprive the middle class isn't sticking up for the little guy, it's abusive. Disabled people have problems on trains, too: elevators are often broken and it's hard to move in a crowd. There are simply disadvantages to being less able, which is not the same thing as being deprived of your ability to do something by someone who holds power over you. Insisting on the equivalence of such a thing brings to mind the character O'Brien from a certain dystopian fiction. Traveling in a personal vehicle affords drastically more freedom of movement (you are literally in control of your movement) than any form of public transport and while it's not necessarily a need that should be subsidized by the state it is nonetheless a curtailment on freedom when the state deliberately makes it less convenient than it had been.
  - michaelmrose 10y ago
    It is only as convenient as it has been because the state forces businesses and apartments to provide the parking required to enable this for free out of their own pockets. Removing regulations requiring this can't be said to be curtailing your freedom. As you said paying for parking is just a disadvantage of hauling around several tons of metal, which is not the same as being deprived of your ability to do something by someone who holds power over you.
  - pg314 10y ago
    > Traveling in a personal vehicle affords drastically more freedom of movement (you are literally in control of your movement) than any form of public transport and while it's not necessarily a need that should be subsidized by the state it is nonetheless a curtailment on freedom when the state deliberately makes it less convenient than it had been. The state should make it less convenient. In the past they have been massively subsidizing it with free roads and military interventions abroad to safeguard the oil supply. Furthermore cars and gasoline should be taxed much more heavily to compensate for the negative externalities of cars: noise and air pollution and countless traffic victims (35.000 motor vehicle deaths in 2015 in the US alone [1]). Your freedom to get somewhere in a car is not absolute (e.g. you have to follow roads), it should be balanced against other freedoms. Ponder this: cars have impinged on my freedom to go certain places (e.g. highways or certain neighborhoods that no longer have sidewalks) on foot. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_motor_vehicle_deaths_in_U.S._by_year https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_motor_vehicle_deaths_i...
    - closeparen 10y ago
      And mass transit infringes your freedom to wander on to train tracks. Any reasonably time-efficient transportation system is going to deny pedestrians some space.
      - Dylan16807 10y ago
        Show me a neighborhood or city that's only accessible via train track and I'll agree the comparison makes sense.
CalRobert 10y ago
And yet freedom of movement is severely curtailed throughout the US. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_to_roam https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_to_roam

by eximius 10y ago

notatoad 10y ago

Freedom of movement is not a luxury, and i never said it was. But travelling in a personal vehicle is absolutely a luxury. If you truly believe that freedom of movement is a right that should be applied to everyone, you should be arguing in favour of improved public transit and any other solution that isn't a personal vehicle, because personal vehicles aren't accessible to everybody. In addition to being financially out of reach for many, they cannot be used by the visually impaired and by people with certain motor function impairments, the young, or the old. Something as important as freedom of movement should be serviced by something that is accessible to all.

oceanghost 10y ago
You are grasping at straws.
- drdeadringer 10y ago
  How?
scythe 10y ago
Using disabled people as a bludgeon to deprive the middle class isn't sticking up for the little guy, it's abusive. Disabled people have problems on trains, too: elevators are often broken and it's hard to move in a crowd. There are simply disadvantages to being less able, which is not the same thing as being deprived of your ability to do something by someone who holds power over you. Insisting on the equivalence of such a thing brings to mind the character O'Brien from a certain dystopian fiction. Traveling in a personal vehicle affords drastically more freedom of movement (you are literally in control of your movement) than any form of public transport and while it's not necessarily a need that should be subsidized by the state it is nonetheless a curtailment on freedom when the state deliberately makes it less convenient than it had been.
- michaelmrose 10y ago
  It is only as convenient as it has been because the state forces businesses and apartments to provide the parking required to enable this for free out of their own pockets. Removing regulations requiring this can't be said to be curtailing your freedom. As you said paying for parking is just a disadvantage of hauling around several tons of metal, which is not the same as being deprived of your ability to do something by someone who holds power over you.
- pg314 10y ago
  > Traveling in a personal vehicle affords drastically more freedom of movement (you are literally in control of your movement) than any form of public transport and while it's not necessarily a need that should be subsidized by the state it is nonetheless a curtailment on freedom when the state deliberately makes it less convenient than it had been. The state should make it less convenient. In the past they have been massively subsidizing it with free roads and military interventions abroad to safeguard the oil supply. Furthermore cars and gasoline should be taxed much more heavily to compensate for the negative externalities of cars: noise and air pollution and countless traffic victims (35.000 motor vehicle deaths in 2015 in the US alone [1]). Your freedom to get somewhere in a car is not absolute (e.g. you have to follow roads), it should be balanced against other freedoms. Ponder this: cars have impinged on my freedom to go certain places (e.g. highways or certain neighborhoods that no longer have sidewalks) on foot. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_motor_vehicle_deaths_in_U.S._by_year https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_motor_vehicle_deaths_i...
  - closeparen 10y ago
    And mass transit infringes your freedom to wander on to train tracks. Any reasonably time-efficient transportation system is going to deny pedestrians some space.
    - Dylan16807 10y ago
      Show me a neighborhood or city that's only accessible via train track and I'll agree the comparison makes sense.

CalRobert 10y ago

And yet freedom of movement is severely curtailed throughout the US. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_to_roam https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_to_roam