No, it is a good analogy, but this is a subjective evaluation on my part
and certainly not a "fact." Brett was able to see the relevant
parallel. Check out his post on the topic.
As to Nate's criticism that went something like, "Recreational Heroin
does not help one deal with reality but rather to deny
it. (Taken for severe pain it is another matter). Cars however do help
one
to deal better with reality. Travel across a continent is possible in
only a
handfull of days with cars (not to mention the bounties aquired in trade
for
those who don't even drive).Heroin's only destination however is the
grave."
Hmmm.... So Nate is claiming that a gradual whithering of our nation's
transportation infrastructure that leaves us dependent on automobiles
for trips that people in other countries would make by train constitutes
a healthy dependence while heroine addiction is a one-way express ticket
to the grave? My response to that is to invite Nate and everyone else
to do a little checking into the available and relavant statistics and
compare the number of heroine-related deaths to the number of
traffic-related deaths in any given year. (And, no, Tad, I do not have
the figures at my finger tips.) You may claim that traffic fatalities so
vastly overshadow heroine related fatalities becasue so few people use
heroine whereas virtually EVERYONE interacts with cars on a daily
basis. If you think that that is a point against those who make the
claim that our dependence on cars is a destructive and unnecessary
addiction then I will withdraw from the disscussion and let poor Sodom
carry on alone.
-KMO