What a car can teach us about the Moral Compass of each Council Member.
What are these Sin Taxes again?
Vice or excise taxes can be very effective tools for implementing social policies. They are issued to discourage the manufacture, sale, and consumption of certain products deemed harmful to people.
We are talking about products such as alcoholic beverages, tobacco, vaping products, sugar, cannabis, gambling, firearms, tanning beds, coal, and motor fuels. They are often related to substance abuse or behavioral addiction.
Motor fuel is part of a double whammy here. It could be called “substance abuse” for the gasoline itself, but also ‘behavioral addiction’ when it comes to the act of driving.
“Excise taxes are designed to discourage the use of products linked to health risks by making them more expensive and less attractive to consumers. The revenue generated should ideally be used to improve public welfare.” [Zarathustra]
These products and behaviors aren’t great for society either. So this requires some serious political action.
BUT WE NEED OUR CARS!
Have humans ever really needed cars?
Hominids have been roaming this planet for at least 4 million years. The use of fire might go back some 2 million years. Homo sapiens go back some 300,000 years. The wheel was invented, maybe some 6,000 years ago, in the area of Kazakhstan. We domesticated our first horsepower around 4,000 BCE in Mesopotamia. It took easily another 1,000 years to bring the two together in fast war chariots.
“Humans conquered the whole world with our own two feet and things that float.” [Zarathustra]
The biggest strength of humans might just be our bipedalism (“these boots are made for walking“) and that thing with the opposable thumbs. That allowed us to build tools, which increased our brain size and made us smarter.
It seems we managed quite well for millions of years without cars. We didn’t need wheels with horsepower for human survival. They were often tools of war and used for human destruction.
What would All Saints be driving?
“When man invented the bicycle he reached the peak of his attainments.”
[Happiness here and now]
One horsepower is all we humans needed to conquer the world in style. Any horsepower after that became excessive and turned us into sinners. And that is why we pay excise taxes, or sin taxes, on motor fuel and airline tickets. Maybe California’s new transportation currency shouldn’t be Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) but Vehicle Miles Sinned (VMS).
We can’t really check on All Saints here. But we might have some future saints we can check on. Pope Benedict owned a modest VW Golf before his appointment. Pope Francis has been known for his modest car choices (Renault 4, Ford Focus, Fiat 500) and donating a gifted Lamborghini to charity. Pope Leo XIV plans to use a VW Multivan for business and a golf cart for around the house.
These popes made the modest and saintly choices urban environments would like to see more. The reason California moved from ‘congestion‘ (aka Level Of Service) to Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) – over 10 years ago – was meant as a sign to local leaders to adapt their city plans.
“Bicycles are the indicator species of a community, like shellfish in a bay.”
[P. Martin Scott]
Are Cars the New Tobacco?
The Journal of Public Health certainly thinks so:
“Car dependence is a potent example of an issue that ecological public health should address. The public health community should advocate strongly for effective policies that reduce car use and increase active travel.” [Journal of Public Health]
America was very successful in reducing smoking-related lung cancer by reducing smoking itself. Smoking became more expensive and non-smoking was incentivized in many places. Non-smoking became way more convenient than keeping up the unhealthy habit.
Case in point. Belmont was the first US city to ban smoking almost anywhere. That was a very ‘progressive’ policy for Belmont at the time. These days, not so much. Children in Moab, UT, can ride safely in bike lanes to two famous National Parks. But a child in Belmont can’t even ride safely to any smoking-outlawed city park. Now that is very ‘backward’ for a ‘sustainable’ town like Belmont.
“If you plan cities for cars and traffic, you get cars and traffic. If you plan for people and places, you get people and places.” [Fred Kent]
Car Choice as a Moral Compass
Now, the reason Belmont council members stood up for non-smokers but won’t stand up for pedestrian or bicycle safety might be simple. We can assume all of the city council members back then were non-smokers. In that case, making things more convenient for themselves came naturally—we could even call it ‘selfish’. These days, they are all heavy drivers and even sponsored by the fossil fuel industry – no way they want to inconvenience themselves. We could call this ‘selfish’ as well. And just like that, we found the moral pattern.
“It’s easy to recognize other people’s sins. It’s much harder to see one’s own.” [Zarathustra]
All these city council members are sinners themselves. And we can even tell which one of the Seven Deadly Sins is their favorite. Just look at their cars:
- Lust – The Sports Car. What is sexier than a sleek sports car?
- Wrath – The Muscle Car. It even looks like the evil twin of the sleek sports car.
- Greed – The Luxury Sedan. Most likely to buy a new car again next year.
- Envy – The Pickup Truck. If I can’t afford the luxury car, how about going bigger instead?
- Gluttony – The Large SUV. Parking space be damned when you own one of these.
- Sloth – all of the above …. except the next one …
- Pride – The Classic Car. Who puts more work into their car? No sloth here.
“If God wanted us to drive, why weren’t we born with wheels?” [Zarathustra]
More Information
- ISHN: The Seven Deadly Sins of Driving
- YouTube: A more hopeful look at the Seven Deadly Sins
- YouTube: Medievalists and historians dive into the 7 Deadly Sins
- RWCPulse: The Seven Deadly Sins of Driving
Editor’s Note: The views and opinions expressed in all blog posts are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the Redwood City Pulse or its staff.
