Amid the confusion of the looming presidential elections and an
unsettled war against terrorism, a subversive fifth-column movement
is taking the United States in a new direction. The direction is
inequality and socialism. The fifth column is the carpool lane.
For decades the carpool lane has sabotaged the political and
moral course of our land. It has ingrained the red values of the
Soviet Union into the subconscious of the American spirit. In doing
so, it has caused Americans to accept and perpetuate the values of
such socialists as Pol Pot, Fidel Castro, Robin Hood and John
Kerry.
The directors of this nationwide scheme seem like ordinary
citizens, totally harmless human beings with no political agendas
whatsoever. But what these urban planners hide, and what I will
here disclose, is that they are consciously and passionately
involved in the U-turn of the American way.
Of course, when confronted with these accusations, urban
planners readily plead no contest, often calling the accuser
“absurd” and sometimes even “a conspiracy
theorist.” When I accused an acquaintance from UC Irvine of
being complicit in a red revolution, she flat out denied the charge
and even hung up the phone. Allow me to remind you that these were
the same tactics President Nixon used in denying knowledge of the
Watergate scandal.
But blanket name-calling IS not enough, and this the urban
planners understand. So they present to the public a list of
supposed benefits that carpool lanes have to offer. By giving more
incentive to carpool, they claim, carpool lanes reduce traffic,
help the environment, and save people money.
The whole premise, however, is wrong from the get-go. The
carpool lane mainly helps those who happen to share a ride, not
those who share a ride to help the environment or reduce
traffic.
More than this, the carpool lane champions two principal
socialist doctrines ““ a pseudo-affection for the masses and a
psychotic worship of the environment.
Carpool lane advocates optimistically assert that the lane will
save people gas money and cozily claim that they help the common
man the most. But in claiming to help the average American, urban
planners end up doing the exact opposite. First, they usurp their
freedoms ““ the freedom to drive alone, its corollaries and
its consequences. Also, they don’t help them save money.
Traditionally it is the average person who drives to and from
work alone ““ after laboring all day long to put food on the
family table. What happens is that John Doe is stuck in rush-hour
traffic, waiting and spending more money because of the tourism
buses and Suburbans on his left. While soccer moms take their kids
to practice on the fast track, working women must weather the
traffic.
Environmentalism is a sneaky response, too. Cars that exist in
the United States, whether driven by one person or occupied by
five, will still be driven. Many people who drive alone often have
no other choice. Penalizing individual drivers does not necessarily
reduce the number of cars driven and does not help the environment.
Furthermore, even if the premise were correct, the consequences
still wouldn’t be. It would take a lot more than a carpool
lane to significantly change the impact of cars on the
environment.
In short, my comrades, the carpool lane is at once a
crystallization of socialist values and a devious way to implement
them. At times their sheer convenience may delude even the
staunchest of capitalists into thinking that socialism might be
mighty after all.
The diamond that stands as the emblem of the carpool lane might
not be as obvious as the hammer and sickle of the U.S.S.R. But the
diamond speaks to the driver, in a hypnotic and often seductive
voice, saying, “You are on the road to a bright future, a
future that is affluent, a future that is forever.”
It is this illusory dream of socialism that the carpool lane
defends, a dream and a lane that must be crushed if America is to
be free ““ and without division lines ““ ever again.
Hovannisian is a second-year history and philosophy student.
E-mail him at ghovannisian@media.ucla.edu. Send general comments to
viewpoint@media.ucla.edu.