Frustrated wannabe authoritarians

It’s refreshing to see Democrats tear their hair out over the blessings our freedoms give us. Just look at their goal of “transitioning” from fossil fuel vehicles to electric vehicles (including airplanes and construction equipment). The whole plan is based on the unproven connection between the use of fossil fuels and climate change.

Whatever their motivations, it’s not working out as they hoped it would. Don’t be surprised if they soon switch crusades from climate change to some other “emergency.”

As is often the case, Democrats were smitten with a cause — in this case, electric vehicles to rescue the climate — and assumed everyone else would fall in love with it, too.

Then, when President Joe Biden proposed rules that would require 60 percent of new cars sold to be battery-powered by 2030 and 66 percent by 2032, what happened?

Unfortunately for these aspiring socialists, the U.S. economy is still predominantly based on that economic freedom known as voluntary exchange.

So far, auto buyers have not voluntarily exchanged enough of their hard earned dollars for E.V.s. The vast majority continue to prefer fossil fuel alternatives. At this point, only about 7 percent of cars sold are electric. Furthermore, according to a McKinsey & Company survey, 46 percent of electric vehicle owners say they intend to switch back to internal-combustion cars.

A Catch-22 the E.V. enthusiasts are struggling with is the need to maintain a rough balance between the number of E.V.s and the number of charging stations. Unless the number of E.V.s grows, there will be no incentive to build more charging stations. A scarcity of charging stations is already something that E.V. owners complain about.

Democrat policy-makers believe they are far more clever than the rest of us. They don’t seem to think it’s necessary to determine how many car buyers are perfectly happy with their gasoline and diesel vehicles and unimpressed with E.V.s.

In order for their electric vehicle dream to happen, let alone work, they would have needed unlimited power from the git-go. Their precious transition would have required not just subsidies, but brute force as well. Their plan would have necessitated doing away with, in advance, our preference for voluntary exchange.

Democrats are against voluntary exchange because they don’t approve of what we do with it, such as producing and consuming fossil fuels. Fortunately for the rest of us, these incompetent Marxists neglected to emasculate us prior to springing their E.V. fantasy on us. They mistakenly left us free to say, “Thanks, but no thanks.” Thanks to voluntary exchange we did just that. ____________________

◼ Frustrated wannabe authoritarians - American Thinker August 27, 2024

Ron Ross Ph.D. is a former economics professor and author of The Unbeatable Market. Ron resides in Arcata, California and is a founder of Premier Financial Group, a wealth management firm located in Eureka, California. He is a native of Tulsa, Oklahoma and can be reached at rossecon@gmail.com.