Poor Passat!

VW dropped of a new Passat TDI yesterday. Unfortunately, today, it’s at a local VW dealer.

Awaiting two new tires.

Thanks to some rocks in the road.

I was headed down the mountain – via the Blue Ridge Parkway – and encountered a pile of rubble in the road. For those of you not hip to the Parkway, this is a fairly common thing. Rocks slough off the cliff facings that line the road.

Low aspect ratio (thing sidewall) tires do not like to run over rocks.

I bobbed and weaved, but there were just too many. Lost the two tires on the passenger side, front and rear.

I gimped it off to the side and got the little scissors jack out – which actually worked very well (kudos to VW; often, these in-car jacks are downright scary flimsy and you’re taking your life – your limbs – in hand getting under a car “supported” by one). Put the space saver tire on the front right. But I had nothing more for the front rear. So – per the old song – I just limped on down the shoulder on the rim.

Had to.

Was miles from anything not a tree and forget a replacement tire.

After a long while of gimping, I got the Passat to the safety of an Exxon gas station – which of course, was not a service station. Called VW. They called The Man. Who came with a flatbed, not a spare tire.

So the Passat is on hiatus until they get the tires fixed.

Like OJ used to say: It happens.

Meanwhile, I hope you guys enjoyed the latest rant about the dangerous freedoms allowed bicyclists. My hope is to get people who haven’t thought much about the issue in general (that is, principled) terms to connect the absurdity – the tyranny – of forcing cyclists to get licensed, tagged, inspected and insured with the same things applied to drivers.

We might make some progress this way. I think it is the only way we’ll ever make progress.

Arguing particulars gets us nowhere. Worse, actually. It cedes the field before the battle’s even joined. Never debate a Clover – or a potential Clover – on utilitarian grounds. This is the error so often made by “conservatives” – who rarely if ever challenge a “progressive” (or “liberal” or whatever they’re styling themselves lately) on principled, conceptual grounds.

Theft, for example, is theft – period. Even when it’s called “taxation.” It is theft. Stick to the point.

Similarly, if it is ridiculous and tyrannical to put a gun to a bicyclist’s head (or threaten to) in order to force him to be tested, licensed, tagged, insured – and so on – then the same applies to drivers and generally.

Clovers are kind of like vampires in that exposing them to certain things – moral principles, for instance – makes them wilt. Or at least, exposes them.

Makes plain what they are. Not just their lust to micromanage the lives of others – and to punish them (with enthusiasm). But their fundamental nihilism. Their utter lack of any moral center. Just their vacuous feelings. Which of course, vary from Clover to Clover.

The only thing they is weight of numbers – which admittedly, is a considerable advantage. Marshall Zhukov, I think it was, quipped that quantity has a quality of its own. True.

But in the end, they’re nothings.

Read their posts in reply to the articles (and intelligent posters) here, for instance. Beyond their inevitable illiteracy, they never articulate a principled, logical argument in opposition. Just a spew of invective, usually. Often, at the level of a not-so-bright junior high schooler.

Zhukov had a point about the masses.

But it’s the critical mass that matters most.

And we’re getting there.

Keep the faith!

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