Sir,

As always, No. 25 was interesting and informative. And stimulating. Enough so, this time, to elicit a response. A mad cyclist's answer to: Bicycles: The New Menace [Free Life No. 25, May 1996].

How do you view cars and bicycles? Is the automobile, for you, a shining triumph of free market economics? What is the bicycle? A hindrance to traffic? A children's toy become leftist statement?

Neither Danny Frederick nor l drive much. He walks. l ride a bike. We share the same free market sympathies. But while he doesn't like tax money used for bike lanes etc, l love bike lanes Contradiction on my part?

He's right when he says that "the emergence and spread of the reprobate cyclist has been coterminous with the growth of state hand-outs to cyclists in the form of large chunks of our tax money being spent on special cycle lanes in roads (or instead of roads), cycle paths beside pavements, and other cyclist-friendly pro visions."

It's true. Government handouts tend to promote renegade activity. Still, I'm not beating the drum for an end to my handouts. l joyfully grovel for the meagre scraps tossed me from the statist table where King Car dines. When the King leaves the table I'll start beating my drum. Government builds roads for cars. When that ends I'll accept that bicyclists don't need handouts either.

One of the least recognized and most important events of the 20th century happened in 1916 when Washington decided it was government's place to redesign the world for the smooth functioning of the automobile. The actual world we live in today owes more to that decision, in some ways, than to the Russian revolution of the following year, to Naziism, to the Great Depression, or to nuclear weapons. Those big events recede into the settling dusts of history, but that decision was the one that built the world you see out your window.

This, the biggest intervention in the marketplace (outside of slavery) my country has known goes generally unnoticed by libertarians and other believers in small government. They don't make the simple connection between philosophical point A and real life point B, not because it's a difficult connection but because the Divine Right of Kings is still the law of the psyche and Car is our Sovereign. But' believers in freedom need to think about this.

A world built for cars has nothing to do with a free market and everything to do with a government infatuated with taxes, grand projects, and power, everything to do with community functions spun off miles in every direction to free up space for car roads and parking, everything to do with the resulting gutted communities, everything to do with crime rates soaring and communities crumbling as the centres collapse.

Cars in 1916 were destined to become no more than one relatively small but attractive component of a complete, healthy transportation system. Free people making free choices about where to put their transportation dollar choose mass transit, bicycles, and walking a great deal of the time. They also choose to live close to job, school, shopping, entertainment etc. in whole communities where the greater part of the welfare and crime prevention activities now taken on by government can fall easily and naturally to non-governmental social structures. In other words, people who know their community and the other people in their community, and feel connected to their community, can solve community problems based on common sense, common knowledge, and good will.

The physical pieces of that kind of community must be scattered to the winds if we redesign society for the smooth running of the car. Which is what we have done. So laws, rules, and regulations must replace common sense and common knowledge. Authoritarianism must replace individualism. Bicyclists AND drivers become renegades, the first in an irritating sort of way, the second in a murderous sort of way.

I appreciate Danny Frederick's appeal for civilized behaviour, and agree that government social engineering tends to reduce civilized behaviour. But think we should raise our sights. It's not the bicycle, it's the automobile.

Thanks for taking the time to read this. Thanks for your great magazine. Keep up the good work.

Mark Ledbetter
Kawasaki 214
Japan

Huh?!?!

That's about the nicest thing I can say about the Editorial written by Sean Gabb in the latest issue [Free Life No. 27, September 1997]. The idea that a family that has amassed power from plundering and looting people all over the world should be admired by libertarians is just too much to take quietly.

I'm no big fan of the English, but I'll grant that their culture has led to some very fine systems of law, and that includes the US government. But let's give credit where credit is due: The monarchs of England were a detriment to its freedom, and only when the monarchs were pushed out of power was the nation ever blessed with freedom.

Nothing positive of substance has ever, or can ever come from a monarchy. It is this absurd idea of an inherited right to rule that has caused more bloodshed in England than any other cause.

To claim that all vestiges of freedom in Merry old England are symbolized by the Queen is gibberish, and to put forth the offensive concept of the divine right of a monarch to rule over subjected people makes me ill! "Long may she reign over us" indeed! Thankfully I'm not English, because I'll be damned before I'll allow anyone to "reign" over me!

And let's remember this: Diana, the latest example of the depravity that results from an aristocracy and monarchy, was not one to admire. I'm amazed that anyone could think well of her at all with all of her scandals, affairs, and her tendency to think she was above the law.

Please don't print garbage like this. I like to get your newsletter because I'm interested in libertarian principles. Defense of its opposite, despotism and monarchy, is common enough without being included in your newsletter.

Other than that, thank you for resuming your newsletter. I always looked forward to each new issue, and I've really missed it the past few months.

Mike Rentner
 <rentner@bga.com>