This purely political talking point should be put to sleep once and for all.
America made this decision in the 50's, well actually, even earlier than that. America fell in love with our automobiles, the intimate friends that we share travel time with. How many of us have talked to our cars while driving? While I understand that not all people form a relationship with our transportation, many of us do. Drive around most any neighborhood in America and you will see the evidence of a long enjoyed form of relaxation, tinkering with that pile of metal we fell in love with. An old Camero, a Corvette, maybe a vintage Mopar, or that one model that the automakers got right. In my younger years, before you needed a degree from M.I.T. to be a mechanic, I put together a few myself. It was great fun. It was also a direct result of my uncle being a mechanic and me being right under his nose when he fixed the family's cars, (we did that sort of thing back then). The point is, we the people don't really want no stinkin high speed rail! What we want, is the means to continue our love affair with our cars. Give us gas at an affordable price and stop politicizing America's energy needs. When we can run our cars on nuclear power, or Unicorn farts for that matter, then we can stop using fossil fuel. Until that time, get out of the way and allow Americans to do what we do best, innovate. Look, we get it, we don't want to pollute the earth, or the ocean. I believe we've learned a lot of good things from the environmentalists, (or conservationists as we used to call ourselves). We know what's bad to do now and for the most part, we're not doing them anymore. High speed rails may be the answer for Europe, but America has forged a standard of living that makes the auto affordable to every citizen, and to me, that's not a bad thing.
