Destroying the earth for our amusement
February 12th, 2010 by Alan
The Daytona 500 will soon be off and running, combining everything that Americans love — speed, danger, sex (Danica Patrick), alcohol, pageantry (featuring lots of boobs and buns), and the internal combustion engine.
If the President or any other notable personage were to kick off the event with a speech, here is my suggestion:
Ladies and gentlemen, loyal fellow-Americans, it’s an honor to be here! Thank you for inviting me.
I am here to ask of you an exceedingly patriotic act, an act of selfless self-sacrifice for the greater good of our great nation.
I am here to ask you NOT to run this race. I am here to ask you to look into your hearts, and ask what all the Stars and Stripes that so many of you are wearing in one form or another…ask what they really mean.
What is better for our country — to become energy-independent…or to burn fossil fuels for our own amusement and continue to kowtow to mediaeval dictatorships, just because they have oil?
I think you know the answer.
Let us not pretend there is any similarity between the cars at this race and those with the same brand in the dealer’s showroom. The vehicles in this race are most certainly not “stock” cars.
These cars were built for speed and excitement. Indy cars get 1-2 miles per gallon. A NASCAR vehicle gets 4-6. That, my fellow Americans, in times like these, is nothing short of shameful!
My fellow Americans, just as we did with killing endangered animals for sport, so should we do with the burning of fossil fuels for amusement. We should shame it out of existence, starting now.
The fuel that would have been burned today…goes right into the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Now THAT is true sacrifice for America! The cars — into a museum, in a wing entitled “Last Cars to Burn Fuel for Amusement.”
Do this, my friends…do it for America. And next year, run NASCAR with some alternate fuel, as we’ll do with every auto race, until we find the best alternative.
Our great nation needs you to set an example and make a stand. Will you do it?
Thank you very much.
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There’s a brilliant South Park episode in which American peacenik/liberals and redneck militarists admit that they need each other: the left needs the right to kick ass around the world so that nobody dares to provoke America, while the right needs the left to protest and make America seem a peaceful nation.
We can say one thing and do another, and that’s what America is all about!
Similarly, we’ve got environmentalists saving obscure species and wetlands but mostly looking the other way on the burning of fuel for amusement. I’m not sure why these two groups need each other, or even if they do, but for the most part, they happily co-exist. We can have our auto races – and our jetskis, snowmobiles, private aircraft, and boats, boats, BOATS – and act like we’re saving the environment too.
Hypocrites
No, we can’t.
It’s bad enough that we still depend so much on cars, partly because of the requirement that so many of us put in “face-time” at the office (picture thousands of cars, idling bumper to bumper, day after summer day, as repairs are done on the numerous “expressways” in this great land of ours).
But it is unconscionable to burn fossil fuel for amusement. No society that is serious about fuel conservation and energy independence can burn this much gasoline for amusement.
How many gallons of irreplaceable fossil fuel will be vaporized during this racing season? During Danica’s illustrious career? The Indy 500 must use thousands upon thousands of gallons. Daytona, NASCAR, I can’t even begin to name them all…there’s immense social approval for it, as well as lots of logos and money (and with Danica, sex), so gentlepeople, start your engines.
And you, the idiot buzzing around on the jetski, disturbing everybody who came to the lake for peace and quiet! What is it with you and power motors? Get a paddle boat or sail boat. Better for you and the environment.
The American Way of Life
I once read that some so-called naturalists of the 19th century, amazing as it seems, took pride in killing off the last of a species. Is that what’s going on there? Is it true that, as George H.W. Bush said some years ago, “the American way of life is not up for negotiation”? Do these people just not give a shit?
Humanity has now gone through half the world’s resources, there are now over six billion of us, and, despite decades of promises, plans, and protestations by windbag politicians, we in America are not one step closer to energy independence than under Carter. The government’s TWO fucking wars are certainly not helping.
And the race cars go round and round, ravaging the planet for our amusement. Yee-HA!!
An immensely symbolic issue
Maybe auto racing consumes only a small fraction of America’s overall fossil fuel usage. It doesn’t matter. This is a symbolic issue: they are ravaging the planet for their amusement, just as the Romans did, slaughtering wild animals in the Coliseum.
It’s pointless to try to tax boating or motor sports out of existence. They have too much social approval and political influence to allow that. Maybe someday we could shame them to the margins of society, as we’ve done with cockfighting, dog fighting, and, to a large extent, smoking.
Danica’s role
Here’s where Danica Partick comes in. What better place to start, what better spokesperson for the obscenity of auto racing than a reformed environment-ravager herself? She could be the poster child for transitioning motor sports to alternative fuels and turning the races into competitions to find the best one.
Nah, forget it…she’s got more important things to do.
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Alan M. Perlman is a secular humanist speaker and author — most recently, of An Atheist Reads the Torah: Secular Humanistic Perspectives on the Five Books of Moses. For information, go to www.trafford.com/06-0056. He is the founder of Positive Humanists International/PHI ©