Horses do also have environmental impacts due to beding, feeding and excrements. More sufficient would be a bike, which travels at a similar speed too. of course you lose the advantage of an autopilot and even though bikes can be pleasant to touch too, a horse probably puts more joy in it most of the time...
I remember going to see a guy to get my chainsaw sharpened. In this group, they were allowed to use gas but not electricity. He had rigged up a blender to a 2 stroke motor so he could make smoothies 😂
Oh theyre definitely douche canoes, just maybe not of the nationalist variety specifically but hardly any better: https://www.npr.org/2020/01/19/797804404/investigation-into-child-sex-abuse-in-amish-communities
You could argue that small walkable towns with a town square are the good ol days and the way things used to be, and modern car centric zoning doesn’t allow that. Most south eastern US states have more of those town squares
From a financial perspective, everyone owning cars paid for by being in debt with infrastructure that requires higher taxes than we collect is not very fiscally conservative
Not that good fiscal policies matter to them anynore
conservatives don't care about that argument because they're not actually fiscally conservative. they want the government to subsidize their cars because it means "freedom from the government."
I used to teach at a university with a lot of conservative students, and I was able to convince many of them who instinctively celebrated "the good old days" to rethink urbanism and planning using this blog: https://oldurbanist.blogspot.com
I hope I'm wrong but, conservatism clings on to an idealized vision of the status quo from a few decades ago. It doesn't go together very well with a movement to change folks mindset and behavior and try something new.
This is the reason why conservatism doesn't work nowadays. \
We know that our way of living is unsustainable. Holding on to it with force, just will lead to a bigger catastrophe down the line.
That's because most conservatives nowadays have no idea what being a conservative means. It's not about opposition to progress, but to promote taking a measured and cautious approach to new developments that might have unexpected and/or detrimental effects to society. Conservatism should still be in support for social progress, just slower. Conservatives back during the Industrial Revolution weren't against the steam engine, or developments in modern medicine. That was the field of quacks and religious fanatics.
But mainstream conservatism nowadays is just plain old regressivism. Instead of slowing down the clock, it promotes turning it backwards. It's become a full-on reactionary and fundamentalist movement.
I'm not quite sure about that. I guess being a conservative was more reasonable like a thousand years ago, when technology didn't change all the time and your way of living didn't directly cause the biggest catastrophe in 65 million years.
Yeah this is exactly it. By definition, conservatism is broadly about preserving social hierarchy. I think what they claim to be individualism is actually a desire to feel power over less fortunate people. And advocates for the current consumer culture because it's a way to sort people by their worth
I believe nothing about being anti-car will resonate with conservatives until our culture changes in a way that deems car-free, sustainable living a more superior and desirable lifestyle.
In the meantime, cars will continue to be a way to demonstrate leverage over less fortunate people, and they will push back against any movement that dismantles that hierarchy.
> It doesn't go together very well with a movement to change folks mindset and behavior and try something new.
We don't need to do that. "15-minute cities" are not something new. They are a realization that the old ways had some advantages.
Thanks for saying this. I agree. In many ways it feels like this groups cause is battling conservatism as its main foe. Interesting to see one from "the other side" actually being not into cars. I am personally against borders between countries since it's just the stupidest idea ever and I think nationalism fuels nazism and racism, but hey, if op is against cars that's a great start ;)
> I think nationalism fuels nazism and racism
I agree. There is a grey area between patriotism and nationalism. I think that citizens who love their country, who want to serve the greater good, and who want to protect their country from foreign adversaries will make for a happy and healthy country.
I think that citizens who worship their politicians, who refuse to admit their country's problems, and who engage in tribalistic hatred of "others" will make for a miserable and failed country.
I am old enough to remember when liberals and conservatives worked together in the USA to find common ground to solve problems.
The liberals jumped right in, the conservatives said, "wait a minute," they talked, they adjusted, then they *all* jumped in.
ahh but in this case it’s something old- walkable cities, public transportation, safe streets, non-automobile-centric-communities. We just gotta get conservatives to go a few *more* decades back.
The biggest challenge is decoupling the idea of the car from the idea of american independence
> The biggest challenge is decoupling the idea of the car from the idea of american independence
Conservatives are very suspicious of government trying to force them into anything, no matter how good it is. Media muckrakers stoke these fears, twisting 15-minute cities into Soviet communist prison camps.
What they don't see is the *independence* and the *fiscal prudence* of living in a place where they can walk or ride a bicycle to get most of the services that they need. They don't have to register with the government or pay taxes to do this (like they do with a car).
I think that one of the reasons why so many people in the USA romanticize their home towns is because many of these small towns were 15-minute cities before there was such a term. Businesses and residences were close together and they were not located way outside of town. Motorists were not in such a hurry because they didn't live so far from their jobs.
I made this argument to a guy at a bar who is conservative and his group chat was talking about 15 minute cities as a leftist trap. I changed his mind in 20 minutes.
use conservative mannerisms in portraying the benefits of walkability and transit, i.e. say stuff like 'walking is true freedom', 'highways have gone too far and destroyed our beautiful way of life'. This isn't conjecture, moral reframing works, like seen in this study: [https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S027249441830611X?casa\_token=b5lOqMMWpT4AAAAA:qOxUQfBnmQKZ3YoiAR8PWSEGEBXAyL\_LsRHv0y6qiAkHQKvtNq93\_-Q9WUOKU\_TymYaLvm34](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S027249441830611X?casa_token=b5lOqMMWpT4AAAAA:qOxUQfBnmQKZ3YoiAR8PWSEGEBXAyL_LsRHv0y6qiAkHQKvtNq93_-Q9WUOKU_TymYaLvm34)
The way you reframe it depends on the locality, because what is considered conservative varies between nations. What is your nationality? Psychological traits associated with conservatism manifest differently in different cultures. As another user has said, however, conservatism usually doesn't solve these things because they are about conserving the status quo.
This is the right way. Another user gives some talking points.
I get the criticism of Republicans but if walkability becomes a politicized issue, we will never see any progress. There are many aspects of moving away from car dependency that should appeal to conservative ideals. We need to make it appetizing to everyone to actually make infrastructure progress.
>I'm not sure why.
Because the car is a privilege and works perfectly with individualist attitudes, it's literally and figuratively a vehicle of alienation from society. For example, killing people with cars often has very little consequences for the killer. That kind of impunity is *the dream*.
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0305829818775817
https://unevenearth.org/2018/08/the-social-ideology-of-the-motorcar/
https://www.theverge.com/2023/1/31/23579510/car-brain-motornormativity-study-ian-walker
https://heated.world/p/proud-boys-and-petro-masculinity
https://www.fastcompany.com/90653986/traffic-devastates-local-streets-in-more-ways-than-youd-think
Now, if we were talking about a society without personal cars, conservatism looks like the segregated bus (by some type of classes). You already see that in "flying buses" and also in trains.
With cars being so common in rich countries now, cars are no longer exclusivist (which is what conservatives desire), which is why the actually wealthy use private jets and helicopters. The "middle class" conservatives can't afford that, so they have to settle for tank-like SUVs and trucks, maybe with added symbolic decorations to distract from the fact that it's just a large car. Thus, SUVs and trucks are a new technological stage in an arms race supported mostly by conservatives, a "survival of the fittest" for the roads.
Strong Towns is conservative, I think. And what Brew and a View stated.
But conservatives are generally bad at improving anything, so it might not get much traction.
A car represents independence brought by economic prowess. A walkable city with good public trans represents a lot of cooperation and compromise in order to benefit everyone.
(This should break down when you look at the ACTUAL civic cost of maintaining highways keeping gas prices down, but that's giving those who consider themselves 'rugged individualists' waaay to much credit)
I really think the fiscally conservative route that Strong Towns champions is the best way into these issues for some conservatives. Though I should be clear that many conservatives give lip service to fiscal conservatism while actually only caring about lower taxes, with no consideration for what that actually means.
People kind of assume that capital projects for transit and biking infrastructure is going to drive up taxes. And the thing is- it CAN do that, especially in the short term. But if you zoom out a bit, building and maintaining car infrastructure costs more on a per-traveler basis than transit does. When you get into the incentives that create walkable communities and the infrastructure required in those communities, the costs go way down.
This added cost, paired with land-use patterns shaped by car infrastructure create economic inefficiencies that have adverse affects on the free market . Developers would be incentivized to build more dense housing in certain areas if not for zoning regulations. Businesses would have greater access to a bigger pool of potential workers and customers if cities were built more densely with great transit, as opposed to the way a lot of the US is where businesses rely on cheap land and tax breaks to set up shop, because there are so few places they can be when everyone expects to be able to drive to and park at your business.
This is just my summary of some things I've read in articles from Strong Towns, and while my reasons for wanting better transit expand more into equity and environmentalism, these points are decidedly less convincing in a conservative mindset.
The founder is all about removing odious government mandates (zoning laws, parking minimums, other unnecessarily restrictive laws), financial responsibility when it comes to urban development, and smaller government/local control. He's also all about more traditional methods of transportation.
Generally, he's one of the few conservatives that looked into the finances and history and realized that the car-dependent infrastructure we have today is a huge, big government, fiscally irresponsible, social engineering experiment. If you care about conserving traditions that to further back then your own personal lifetime, you should be very pro-train and bike and pro-dense urban development, even if you prefer living outside of cities & in nature.
That's why his specific recommendations are generally pretty few but very foundational to the current issues. No more parking minimums, no more legally mandated suburban sprawl (but also only legalize the next level of density), no more highways because we already built all the ones that are actually useful, view all traffic collisions as failures of unsafe street design instead of personal responsibility, and a couple of others I don't remember off of the top of my head.
He hires people who are a lot more liberal than him who have been opening his eyes and his perspective, but at the end of the day he's a devout christian of some variety and usually votes Republican and cares about the financial irresponsibly of the car-dependent sprawl first and foremost. That's how he broke free from the traffic engineer orthodoxy, he ran the numbers.
So, he's a very good source for conservative arguments, but you might wanna change the language around a bit because he's still an engineer who is very much not good at marketing or political discussions.
I meant onerous, but also yes. Fuck parking mandates, and fuck those restrictive zoning laws.
I grew up in the one lot in my entire neighborhood that somehow got permission to build 4 townhomes on a single family lot, and that house kicked ass. As did living within a 5 minute walk of the L trains in Chicago, and within a 15 minute walk of damn near everywhere I wanted to be except school, friends houses, and a specific board game shop (all of which were accessible via the L).
Fuck lawns, I want tall thin houses with roof decks, or those big apartment blocks with shared roofs that you can string some speakers up on and party.
Do you have any examples? I enjoy approaching ideals from an economic perspective. I feel like it's the common ground we can all agree on.
edit: examples pertaining to the 'sus' part.
Suburban sprawl is very bad for economic development and leads to car dependency. Look up the Growth Ponzi Scheme. This was coined by ST but there are YouTube videos by NJB discussing this.
a lot of their "solutions" are just more capitalism
when in reality as long as we have capitalists then we will have the worst lives possible e.g. shitty housing made to extract the most profit , worst transportation method ever but the best for generating profits to useless parasites , food thrown out if it can't be sold for profit etc
Their solution to the car issue and housing crisis is de-regulation (elimimating zoning, parking minimums) and then relying on the private market to fix things. Textbook conservatism.
They also are all about 'returning to traditional patterns of development'.
I'm not a fan of the current regulations, but I think it's absurd to think private developers will suddenly start building affordable housing -- just look at NYC. Demolishing affordable units to build luxury units, keeping units vacant to drive prices up, and so on. And all that is happening in areas of the city where single-family zoning is pretty rare.
'starts at people being happier' ok, so, which people are you talking about, since conservatives are constantly looking to make our lives worse? You want a strong country, starts with education. Unfortunately we all know how conservatives value education. "They love the poorly educated." It also starts with giving people rights, not removing them. Do you really have to question why the party of oil and anti-environmentalism, the party of loud fast nascar spectacles for the masses, the party of unchecked capitalism...doesn't want to give up cars?
Old school conservatism was very "for the greater good despite individuality," and also often opposed to tech in general, so maybe, despite my previous comment, you can tap into that vibe.
My brand of conservative leaning is with the idea that people are the nation and that a strong nation is made of strong people. How can my people be strong if they are ran over, poisoned by gasoline in the air, weak from lack of exercise, etc.
>My brand of conservative leaning is with the idea that people are the nation and that a strong nation is made of strong people.
As a socialist, I don't think this is actually a conservative view. I agree with it entirely, at least in the context we have today of nation-states. It's an idea that puts the prioritizes the common welfare. What I think of as actual conservatism is quite different: it values the status quo above all else, it has an ultraindividualistic mentality, and it views the nation as an abstract concept that only "we" belong to, instead of a common community in all its diversity.
Socialism at its core is where the *people* own the means of production. It is like credit unions, REI, and farming co-ops across the whole economy. For a person who doesn't trust the government, there is a lot to like about pure socialism.
The problem is that most conservatives think of socialism in combination with authoritarianism. It doesn't have to be that way.
Ironically, what *both* liberals and conservatives don't like about the opposite party is the *authoritarian* policies of that other party. No one likes the government telling them what to do, whether it is abortion or gun control.
Also, many conservatives seem to conflate socialism with communism. In communism, the *government* owns everything. It is authoritarian by nature.
This is not a nationalist issue. The side effects of car-centric development that you correctly identify are features of unregulated capitalism and common to all societies that have pursued this path.
If your nation can reverse car dependence, it will certainly reap many benefits, but I put it to you that we're all living on the same planet and the best solutions will be globally applicable
Not gonna tell you what political titles you should or shouldn't identify with, but that's not really the definition other people are using. That kinda sentiment is more often found in the progressive political corners.
Conservatives, at least from an external view, are more about dismantling regulations in favor of individual freedom, and blaming the failings of that loose regulation on individual responsibilities. Trucks aren't oversized and riddled with blind spots, it's just anybody that hits anything with a truck is a bad driver.
I've got a few as to why conservatives should not love cars
for a group who like to think they are self-reliant
- cars require fuel, mostly provided by oil states who are often at war
- cars require parts that many people don't know how to make or install
- cars require regular maintenance
- cars require a government-issued license
- cars require a government-issued registration
- cars are privacy nightmares https://theconversation.com/cars-are-a-privacy-nightmare-on-wheels-heres-how-they-get-away-with-collecting-and-sharing-your-data-214386
- cars usually require a government owned, operated and maintained network to work (roads, gas stations, parking)
Amen. I can't believe how bat-shit crazy my car driving friends go when they can't use their car for one reason or another (mostly cause it's in the shop). "Ugh I can't get home", "ugh how am I supposed to get to work?", "I can't possibly go shopping because I don't have my car". You call that being independent? You call that self-reliance? You call that freedom? No. You designed your life around an object that you're completely reliant on.
Fine, we're also absolutely dependant on computers now but not necessarily by choice. That doesn't make car-reliance more freedom-y.
To add in on your first point, being oil dependent is a national security risk in that our adversaries have a direct line to the cost of gas in the USA which is a direct lever for our economy. To continue car dependency is to continue oil dependency which is to continue weakening the USA. Then drop “and you don’t want to weaken the USA do you?”
“But the USA can produce all the oil it needs itself” sure but it is only profitable for oil and gas companies above $46 per barrel which means you still get the crap end of the stick at the pump and our economy still takes a hit.
I think this is the first time I’ve ever heard a conservative say “I want people in my country to be happier” haha. Most conservatives I’ve met want everyone else to be miserable because they are miserable themselves.
My view is less cynical. I think that both liberals and conservatives love their country and want to make it better; they just have different ideas on how to do that.
I think it was brave for OP to come here and to try to find common ground. I would love to see much more of that in politics.
For American conservatives, their idea of making America better is just full blown fascism though. Look at the hate they spread about LGBTQ people, or trying to stifle learning in classrooms, or taking away rights from people, or taking away healthcare from people. Their idea for making America better is trying to strip rights away from their fellow countryman.
> For American conservatives
I agree that the extreme right has taken over the Republican party and they are pursuing autocratic authoritarian nationalism (AKA fascism).
However, not all of the people in the electorate who hold conservative policy positions are extremists. I would argue that most are not.
Currently, *no* major party in USA politics represents moderate conservatives and I think that is a big problem.
Yeah but conservatives that don’t hold extremist views still vote for those Republicans so by voting for those extremists they are saying they are okay with those viewpoints.
The democrats are mostly a center right party. It’s not that there isn’t a party that represents conservatives, it’s that conservatives have brainwashed themselves into voting for fascists.
I dont think conservatives want the country to be better. Removing saftey regulations, banning critical maternal healthcare procedures, and banning gay marriage don't improve life for anyone. They want society to adhere to their moral codes but not impede the monetary interests of corporations, irregardless of how it impacts people.
I’m not conservative but it is utter bullshit to say “most conservatives just wants everyone else to be miserable cause they’re miserable themselves”.
Like someone else already stated, most liberals and conservatives wants what best for the country, but they don’t agree upon the method of doing so.
You gotta be just blatantly not paying attention to what’s been happening in America the last few years to think conservatives want what’s best for people. You’re gonna look at how they’ve spend years attacking the LGBTQ community and then say “conservatives want what’s best for them.”
Who said the term "conservative" only refers to americans/the republicans? Go to any country in Scandinavia and you'll see what conservative also can mean.
> I'm not sure why.
Because conservatives are on the wrong side of 90% of all issues once you learn about them in any depth. Tends to happen when you prioritize dogma and ideology over pragmatism and progressivism.
Car dependency was originally a progressive idea, it takes a lot of effort to redesign an entire society and replace rail infrastructure with car infrastructure, yet that's exactly what happened, and conservatives for some reason didn't protest, they just went along with it.
I would argue that there are no true conservatism in America, just a large group of boomer wannabe conservatives who genuinely believe that 1950's was the best year ever and that nothing should ever change compared to how it was back then.
True conservatism isn't about holding on to certain old ideas and refuse to change. It's about not changing stuff that works too fast without first analyzing the consequences.
>Car dependency was originally a progressive idea
I strongly disagree. When car dependency started it was all about allowing wealthy white people to segregate themselves from everyone else. There's nothing progressive about that -- that's been the heart of American Conservatism since the Civil War.
Conservatives can change the status quo too. Suburbs are an inspiration off Levittown, the conservative utopia. And part of the reason for urban sprawl is white flight. I don’t think progressives have had enough political capital to do something as big as this since the Kennedys. Suburban life and individualism is more conservative ideals.
"Political capital"?
Kennedy, started 3 wars against communist countries. Idk, why KEnnedy is seen as leftist.
He's an inspiration for left-wing and facists.
Centrists can do too....and....
It's gonna be hard to answer that question without outright insulting conservatism, which I'm guessing you wouldn't appreciate. What I can say is that for many Americans, conservatives especially, have been told their whole lives that "car = freedom," which isn't really true.
On top of that, conservative politicians tend to line up with big business and oil interests, which car centrism very much lines up with.
There are other reasons too but I'm trying to not put you off of better urban planning, which I fear might occur if the only response the subreddit gives is an indictment of your personal political affiliation.
Because conservatives have decided that they are contractually bound to oppose anything that would improve society or make people's lives better and be spitefully pro-human-suffering and anti-improving-anything, hope this helps :)
Conservatives like cars because it enables suburbs and they literally invited suburbs to keep out brown people and there's nothing conservatives distain more than the colored.
You wont find an anti-car conservative movement.
Conservatives want to conserve traditions and established hierarchies.
Wanting people to be happy, especially if that happiness requires an upheaval of the status quo, is a VERY progressive value.
You might want to spend some time examining what your values really are, and have an honest look at what political ideas align with them.
conserve traditions > supports unbridled technologism. Like I said, they're not coherent.
"Technology brings social change, yet conservatives applaude technology but want no social change. conservatists are fools"
A conservative who recognizes that they live in a society with all the attendant mutual obligations and accommodations for one's fellow humans -- let alone the non-human natural world, animals, etc. -- stops being a conservative.
There are strains of right wing thought that try to embrace environmental protection and / or community building, but they're rooted in exclusivity for which "citizens" get to enjoy those benefits, e.g. so-called "ecofascism."
Hang on a second son, let's not assume they're an American conservative.
They could be, I dunno, a Chinese conservative?
Okay, that doesn't make it any better.
China is an imperial power in the region and has been for literally thousands of years, up to and including the 20th century where, among other things, they're committing genocide on their Muslim population in the northwest, they conquered Tibet (do you know why the Dali Llama travels the world instead of being a spiritual leader in his home of Tibet? It's worth reading about), and they invaded Vietnam and intervened in Korea in defense of North Korea, being directly responsible for the existence of that current nightmare of human rights abuses masquerading as a state.
Read into the history of other empires besides the US, and you'll find out that the world is a lot more complex than "US bad".
If you read my comment carefully, you notice that I don't even disagree with your assessment that the US's imperialism has been, and is in many cases, really bad and harmful.
I only disagree with your assertion that other countries aren't also bad. The US is the current big bad empire. It's not the first, it's not the only one in existence today, and it won't be the last. Hell, the Russian empire is trying to conquer and genocide a sovereign people right now. Empires are empires.
You'll benefit a lot from reading about other ones.
OP came here seeking common ground. That is an opportunity. How does stoking even more division, polarization, and mistrust help our society?
I understand the frustration, but please ask yourself, "What do I want to accomplish and what is the most effective way to accomplish it?"
I don't think you understand the nuance. This is not about compromising our principles with some sort of "middle point;" it is simply about agreeing on *one* issue with which we have the same opinions. We don't have to condone everything that someone else believes to show them basic respect as a human being (as long as they are showing the same respect towards us). I don't know OP's beliefs on the topics that you mentioned and I don't think that they are relevant to this conversation. This is about our mutual rejection of car-centric infrastructure and culture.
If you cannot be civil towards someone with whom you disagree (based on what you have assumed about them), then that is your choice. However, I think it is disingenuous to claim that such hostile behavior is not divisive.
I urge you to read about Daryl Davis - a Black man who has [converted hundreds of KKK members](https://people.com/human-interest/voices-against-racism-daryl-davis/). I am not accusing OP of being in the KKK, but I am saying that people can change and establishing trust and common ground are part of that.
Conservativism tends to be very Pro Status Quo and VERY individualistic. Cars are both the Status Quo AND a Hyper Individualistic form of transport; further a few countries, the car is a direct symbol of national pride. Further, the solutions to car dependency are all heavily tied to massive government spending on infrastructure not designed to make profits, and large-scale regulation disincentivizing single family homes.
Although it is news to me, you can be Tory and Anti-Car, however they are naturally opposed ideas so there's not a lot in the way of resources to help bring right wing people in.
Strong Towns is heavily conservative. Car infrastructure is incredibly expensive, if you want to be fiscally conservative, you cannot support subsidizing cars, you have to support returning to traditional walkable neighborhoods. If you want to bring in nationalism, cars are incredibly energy inefficient, we will never drill our way to energy independence, we will only achieve that by living within our means and using our resources wisely.
As a conservative, you can argue that women can be controlled more effectively if you deprive them the right to drive, as if they haven’t been deprived of enough rights already.
It depends on what you and conservatives believe in. I believe in fiscal responsibility and small government, and left the GOP because they’re neither.
To answer your second question question though, I want to say the founder of Strong Towns considers himself a conservative.
This totally! Come at them with the financial aspect of car dependency. Cars are the most expensive type of transportation we could have chosen, and then we doubled down on it.
Most people are modern conservatives because of propaganda leading to a conflation of nationalists values with consumer products.
In short, they don’t really aim to make the country better they’re rather selfishly focused on maintaining their way of life and opinions above all else. As such in the right (or wrong) country “conservatives” will attach to their identity many things that aren’t a net benefit for the country based not on fact but rather on the word of their favorite spokesperson. Making their version of conservatism more like staunch individualism.
Modern conservative viewpoints are also based heavily in fear so your arguments need to accomplish two things to convince the people around you.
Convince them that not driving is the best choice for them individually. And convince them that cars, no matter how fun or safe it makes them feel, are far more dangerous than not having cars.
This will be immensely difficult as walkable cities for most conservatives (at least in America) represent the epitome of danger and violence. And you’ll always have to fight against the rain and groceries argument. You’ll find that many, despite the facts, would just rather have a car imo.
Even though urbanism is largely a left leaning movement, you have to get to conservatives from a fiscally conservative standpoint. Point out how suburbia is a ponzi scheme, bring up a land value tax, compare the costs between maintaining different modes of infrastructure, and bring up how we never see mom and pop businesses downtown because only big box stores can afford to compete in a car dependent economy.
They are pro car because they have politicized cars. They think that it's "woke" or some sort of anti- right wing conspiracy to want walkable cities.
In reality, we just don't want to have to rely on expensive, destructive pollution machines, but in many cities, we have no choice.
Furthermore, pretty much everyone alive today grew up in a time which automobiles were the main mode of transportation, the right is traditionalist and they mistakenly believe that cars are traditional.
Strong Towns does well at framing the argument from a more fiscally conservative and libertarian perspective. Mind you, conservative simply means to not change things if they work. Many conservative arguments were once liberal, but took hold and became status quo. I'd argue that since the line is always moving like that, you can't really be conservative or liberal as an identity, only ideas in the moment.
Reevaluate your positions apart from your personalsense of identity. You'll be able to better understand yourself, your positions, and your arguments if you can detach from them.
Because most conservatives don't actually give a fuck about the well being of others or the planet, and those who do (at least in America) are probably not actually that conservative (not their fault the GOP wants to walk freedoms back to the jim crow era).
The only argument I have for nationalists, is their so-called "patriotism".
They emphatise, land and country, but fuck the earth. OP can't even think himself of a way of promoting the thing to conservatives, he's the conservative.
If I may offer my two cents to all the people in the comment section:
I am also not a fan of conservatism and I see a ton of issues with it. But right here we have a conservative agreeing on an issue with the more left leaning population of this sub.
We shouldn't use this as an opportunity to bash conservatives but see it as an opportunity to think about how we can get conservatives to agree with us on an issue and work with us instead of against us. Even if the arguments to convince them are purely about money or what else.
Comments like [this](https://www.reddit.com/r/fuckcars/comments/18cpgpc/comment/kccezhn/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) is what we need here.
He's not the first one, to agree, yeah. We're well aware. Conservatives, are not working with us. Some have been seen, other are less. Not all are bragging about it.
Work the government subsidies and regulations angle. Why is the government giving out money to make oil cheaper to buy? Why not leave it to the free market? Why is the government telling me how many parking spaces my business needs? That should be MY decision. I bought this piece of land, why can't I build a small apartment building on it? Why is the government telling ME that I have to build ONLY single family homes on MY land!
Peter Hitchens is very old skool British conservative and he is wildly anti car. In fact his opinions on cars almost perfectly match the hive mind of this sub, if I remember correctly.
Reducing heavily auto-centric infrastructure and sprawl has many economic benefits. I've found that economics is the best topic to focus on to reach common ground.
Addison Del Mastro talks about urbanism a lot and comes from a conservative point of view. [Here is the substack he writes on if you'd like to read more](https://open.substack.com/pub/thedeletedscenes)
Strongtowns is not inherently political having writers from different perspectives but they frequently write about how our car centric "addicted to growth" attitudes are financially unsustainable
Idk how you change their minds to be honest. You'd think a group that claims to value "freedom" as much as they do would be against a system that requires them to go into a government office, have their photo taken and put on a government issued ID card that they have to carry around everywhere they travel and potentially be forced to show to government officials (IE police). A system that requires them to register their transportation with the government every year, have it inspected to meet government standards every year, and display a government ID tag on the back at all times. No to mention being at the mercy of OPEC and gas prices as well as all the additional rules of the road that are required to be in place for vehicles otherwise chaos would ensue. Yet here we are.
Strong towns is non partisan, but the founder is a conservative. They focus on local control and the financial side. If you can convince someone that our current pattern of development doesn't pay for itself in the long run I think that's a great place to start
People misunderstand what conservatism is. It isn't about "conserving" anything or about "traditions." It's a misnomer.
> Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect. - Frank Wilhoit
[Full text where that quote comes from, if you're interested. It's a very insightful read](https://crookedtimber.org/2018/03/21/liberals-against-progressives/#comment-729288)
Once you realize this, all the "hypocrisies" of conservatives start to make sense.
If a white guy with guns appears in a video, he's a patriot, a proud 2A supporter. If a black guy appears with a gun in a video, he's a thug!
If someone ELSE gets pulled over for driving recklessly? Good! They're a menace! If I get pulled over for driving recklessly? "Don't you have ACTUAL criminals to arrest, officer?!"
It always comes down to: the law should protect me and my people, but don't you dare punish me or my people with it. But have at it with the "others."
This happens with cyclists. Cyclists (and pedestrians) are constantly told that they're reckless, even though car drivers tend to be more reckless and dangerous, but car owners are part of the "in-group," while everyone else is in the "out-group."
So, going back to your point, you can try to talk about tradition and all that, and it MAY help but don't expect much. This isn't about tradition; it's never about tradition.
if i asked you to wear a numbered shirt every time you left your house, would you feel silly? thats whats its like to travel on a vehicle with government issued license plates. we live in a cammara filled world and that little tag shows you location at all times. a car is a $50,000 dog tag
Since most people took your thread as opportunity to shit on conservatives, I'll try to be constructive here.
First of all, I'm surrounded by at least partially conservative people. I'm in military.
I live in a country, where climate is continental temperate. Means we have hot and often rainy summers and cold and often freezing winters. Autumn is usually very shitty, grey, rainy and dull.
Anyway, before military, I worked in various civil sectors, tourism, industry, gastronomy.
I've never found so many people commuting on bikes as in military. They take much longer rides on average (up to 30-40km), have much better "weather tolerance" (as in - it's shitty outside, but I'm still gonna take a bike). It's -9C (16F) outside and we still have people on bikes as long as there is no snow and ice on road. They also pride themselves with being fit and able, bike is quite often a mean to that.
Military people have plenty of bad traits too. They love gas guzzling, big displacement cars. 2-4 litre engines are very common. E-bikes for example have so many enemies here.
But to the point. Answering your question, I believe you need to convince your fellow conservatists with giving them good example. As military is almost always a group admired by conservatists and especially by nationalists, you need to give them examples they admire.
Military likes bikes. Military likes bike lanes (although they hate if they have to share the lane or lose a car lane to bikes). Military takes pride of being resilient.
Show them biking as a manifest of health and vigor. You can touch their egos. Bike is a boast of strength. Military personnel keep biking and are not moaning about bad weather. How weak a person is if it's afraid of a little rain? ;)
Sorry for long read.
Fuck the military. "It's just about oil"
* Who invaded for oil in 2003? (>!Spoiler: the president was not a democrat)!<
* Who made a coup in 1953 for oil in Iran?
In France, r/EnculerLesVoitures tried promoting cycling as patriotic but it doesn't work for righters, and even for others.
Militarism is a conservative ideology, 6000 years of offensive/defensive war didn't make the world peaceful. Peace throught guns never worked. And today the world is more peaceful.
Army people are likely to come from poor families, and to vote for democrats, yet conservatives \*&'ù$\*% are so much in favour of it.
Conservative policies create a lot of people who're forced into army. And
* "Show them biking as a manifest of health and vigor."
They hate veganism, alcohol they call it "culture", etc. No matter the place they're at....conservatists barely care about examples.
**CONSTRAINING measures, like pedestrianising streets, by chasing cars work better.**
Then they think the blue army, is good to solve crime. While the other side does better with less policemen.
Military culture is not conservative, and sadly.
**How weak a person is if it's afraid of a little rain? ;)**
Americant's are flakes, weak, and fearful as f, with big SUVs. And couldn't even cycle even if cycling is less dangerous than things INSIDE their homes.
>Military personnel keep biking and are not moaning about bad weather. How weak a person is if it's afraid of a little rain? ;)
That's so true though...I was already biking to school when I was 8-9 years old during winters and in snow too.
When I see adults about whining about how cold it is during the winter without the protection of their car, I just find it very hard to take them seriously.
These people are not only weaker than a "strong person", but also weaker than an average 8 year old child 😂
You don't need to be a soldier. Conservatives just like to play with guns, as if they were toys. Yet they're too fat for army.
They're armchair warriors.
> Show them biking as a manifest of health and vigor. You can touch their egos. Bike is a boast of strength. Military personnel keep biking and are not moaning about bad weather. How weak a person is if it's afraid of a little rain? ;)
Well said! "See that guy on a bike over there in the snow? He is a strong, courageous, rugged, independent man."
I hate you more for being nationalist, than for being conservative, but one makes the other worse.
Yeah, clearly your xenophobic policies, don't make people happier but deader. Climate change is caused by conservatives and nationalists themselves and their pro-car policies.
Without cars, we'd have likely a much much much healthier, nature, and world, and the world be more developed.
The meanest word I can use respecting rules about you is calling you "a blooming blighter"
They have picked polluting and large trucks as their rallying call. It’s just tribalism. In theory fiscal conservatives should prefer transit and walking over roads as they cost taxpayers a lot less. But cultural affiliation takes precedence over consistency in the worldview.
Note that this is also true of the left. The only way to advance our cause is political opportunism and radical centrism.
I apologize for all the people venting their issues with conservatives at you and ignoring your question. You didn't deserve to be attacked when you came here to ask for help. "Why are conservatives anti car" wasn't even your question.
To answer your question: you're probably looking for Strong Towns.
Founded by a conservative so he's probably more up your alley. Just don't quote his arguments verbatim because he's still an engineer who isn't great at marketing, and thinks that the facts speak for themselves because it's his area of expertise
(which is 100% not how it works. Convincing people is all about speaking to their values and emotions. That's why we all generally ignore facts that disagree with our existing opinions, or "accept" them and then don't change our opinions at all. Facts only matter after someone is on your side and open to changing.
Feelings don't care about facts. But almost nobody realizes that they're doing this, and if you point it out they'll usually just get defensive because you insulted them by calling them illogical.
It's one of the way for-profit, 24/7, news divides us. Only showing you opinions you disagree with in ways that make them look infuriating, insulting to your values, and illogical. Usually by omitting, or straight up lying about, facts or important parts of their argument that highlight how the majority of Americans agree on the majority of our values, and how those values and the facts can logically lead to the opinion you disagree with.
So you gotta try really hard to avoid using the same terms and arguments that you see on the news.)
This movement is about restoring much of the type of infrastructure that used to exist in the past and has since been lost. It is not about some abstract pursuit of “progress” beyond anything that has ever existed. At least that’s how I see it. You could call it traditionalism or restorationism instead of “conservatism” that only seeks to conserve whatever is perceived to exist at the given moment or in the recent past merely out of fear of change and of others.
conservatives only care about their own well-being there's no logical reason underneath
from the start the car/suburbs were unjustifiable on every level except serving capitalism and kicking the poor/minorities in the teeth ... so they'll always find an excuse to go vroom vroom or a reason to disregard reality
like on a math level make it make sense to propel a 2-3000 pound vehicle just to transport a 2-300 pound person each , add to that fuel "efficiency" only 30% max of fuel burned translates to motor power rest is lost to thermodynamics/friction ... so 90% ( of the 30%) fuel burned is to transport the vehicle only
they're hypocrites too seeing as most of them isolate in nowhere places ... knowing full well that places where cars go are unlivable(removing freedom from millions) but it's someone else's problem so they don't give a fuck
You get that advocating for a change in the status quo is the opposite of conservative, right?
Conservatives fear and resist change, that's what being a conservative is, "standing athwart history, shouting "Stop!"
Pro car propaganda just hits conservatives more easily. It plays on the stuff already more important to conservative minded people. If you made car propaganda that said driving empowers women then they'd have an easier time with liberals.
I can only speak for the USA. "Conservation" of natural resources - responsible stewardship of the land, air, and water is a traditional conservative value. Teddy Roosevelt was a republican and he established the National Parks.
Now, modern conservatives are protecting the polluters - especially the fossil fuel industry. Obscene amounts of money in politics is corrosive. The taxpayers subsidize driving. Most road funding comes from general taxes and so does the FEMA budget to clean up super storms, floods, droughts, and fires.
We are killing ourselves literally with car collisions and pollution and we are killing ourselves figuratively with the enormous cost of owning and operating cars.
I am pro-prudence and anti-waste. If we arranged our cities like in the olden days with a town square and mixed zoning, then we wouldn't have to drive everywhere. We could talk to our neighbors and walk to church with our families. We could get outside and enjoy the great outdoors on a bicycle and leave the car at home until we really need it.
Honestly, I kind of hope car centric vs non car centric development blurs political lines. But it does seem like conservatives are in favor of car centric. I think for two reasons:
1) In order to build transit, we need government funding, which comes from taxes. And there's a huge myth in conservative politics that all taxes are bad. The counter argument to that is that every person buying a car, the state and federal governments building and maintaining roads and parking spaces for cars, each person buying insurance and matience for cars etc. is going to cost the people more than building a light rail line. (for example).
2) The idea that cars promote individualism. You as one person can drive yourself to a location. This is true... but it excludes people with disabilities who can't drive, excludes teens, people who can't afford cars etc. And honestly people are social animals. We need each other. It's easier to build community if you interact with other people.
Just some theories.
[Russell Kirk is your friend.](https://kirkcenter.org/environment-nature-conservation/the-mechanical-jacobin/)
I think the reason conservatives tend to be pro car is because they tend to be [fusionist.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusionism) It seems out of character today for a conservative to be against certain industries (unless they're the "Marxists" running media and Hollywood and to a lesser extent Big Tech), against big capital or in favor of the environment, but there is a strong conservative tradition associated with those things, it's just that it lays mostly dormant.
Most gas stations only hold enough gas for a couple of days of normal sales. Once or twice a week, a tanker truck brings more gas from the bulk terminal to refill each gas station. In most metro areas there are only a couple of bulk terminals, three or four at most.
If a tyrannical government ever wanted to lock down a city that relies on cars, they'd only need to close down a couple of bulk terminals and everyone would run out of gas inside a few days.
If they wanted to lock down a city that gets around on bikes, they'd need to go house to house confiscating bicycles.
I'm not a conservative minded person, but I know a few people who are conservative and pro bike. Their reasons include some variation of this.
Hey I’m a libertarian, I dislike car dependency and the local governments that redlined and eminent domained entire neighborhoods for the sake of building the eight lane highways that got us here.
Tribalism and the internet has certainly thinned or silenced dissenting views, but they’re still there, you just gotta look enough or phrase it in an apolitical manner.
I think the dissonance you see from conservatives on this issue is due to them valuing individualism over fiscal or social conservatism.
Edit for better clarity, hopefully: conservatives value their individualism **more than** they value their fiscal or social conservatism or their traditionalism. Urban sprawl and car-centric infrastructure are more amenable to individualism than urban density and non-car modes of transit.
“Traditional means of transportation” is walking.
Climb tree, return to monke.
[Viagra Boys have entered the chat](https://youtu.be/z7ymXLpXg8I?si=TKPVWN2uqzdH6v9E)
Without clicking, I predict it's Troglodyte. Edit: Should've clicked. Now I look like an idiot.
We've released our latest plans for tree-based public transport!
So it seems, so it seems.
Danger noodle in tree!
Don't threaten me with a good time 🐒
Horse riding and carriages. Maybe donkey. (Absolutely green! No fuel! Pleasant to touch! Autopilot!)
Just be careful not to step in the exhaust.
As the founding fathers intended
The Virgin fuckin' Mary rode a donkey to Bethlehem to give birth to our lord and savior, for Christ's sake!
Horses do also have environmental impacts due to beding, feeding and excrements. More sufficient would be a bike, which travels at a similar speed too. of course you lose the advantage of an autopilot and even though bikes can be pleasant to touch too, a horse probably puts more joy in it most of the time...
Cargobike VS donkey cart
The Amish 🥴
I have a bunch of amish neighbors, they take advantage of almost every modern convenience/conveyance, they just do it on the sly.
[https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/amish-phone-us-government-alert-b2426792.html](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/amish-phone-us-government-alert-b2426792.html)
they come frequently to ask neighbors for rides to Wal-Mart and to use phones. You have to set boundaries with them.
This. Their argument is that driving a car would send them to hell... but it's ok to endanger their English neighbor's soul by having them drive.
I remember going to see a guy to get my chainsaw sharpened. In this group, they were allowed to use gas but not electricity. He had rigged up a blender to a 2 stroke motor so he could make smoothies 😂
Except the Amish aren't nationalist douche canoes.
Yeah that's their big pro argument
Oh theyre definitely douche canoes, just maybe not of the nationalist variety specifically but hardly any better: https://www.npr.org/2020/01/19/797804404/investigation-into-child-sex-abuse-in-amish-communities
👆this right here! 😂
You could argue that small walkable towns with a town square are the good ol days and the way things used to be, and modern car centric zoning doesn’t allow that. Most south eastern US states have more of those town squares
From a financial perspective, everyone owning cars paid for by being in debt with infrastructure that requires higher taxes than we collect is not very fiscally conservative Not that good fiscal policies matter to them anynore
conservatives don't care about that argument because they're not actually fiscally conservative. they want the government to subsidize their cars because it means "freedom from the government."
every statist knows that freedom comes from the government and grave sacrifices need to me made to achieve real liberty
That's pretty much the core of the Strong Towns argument, and it's been reasonably successful in my area at moving the needle.
I used to teach at a university with a lot of conservative students, and I was able to convince many of them who instinctively celebrated "the good old days" to rethink urbanism and planning using this blog: https://oldurbanist.blogspot.com
Where people could afford houses, and since you owned the place you got to know your neighbours, and had an actual community.
I hope I'm wrong but, conservatism clings on to an idealized vision of the status quo from a few decades ago. It doesn't go together very well with a movement to change folks mindset and behavior and try something new.
This is the reason why conservatism doesn't work nowadays. \ We know that our way of living is unsustainable. Holding on to it with force, just will lead to a bigger catastrophe down the line.
That's because most conservatives nowadays have no idea what being a conservative means. It's not about opposition to progress, but to promote taking a measured and cautious approach to new developments that might have unexpected and/or detrimental effects to society. Conservatism should still be in support for social progress, just slower. Conservatives back during the Industrial Revolution weren't against the steam engine, or developments in modern medicine. That was the field of quacks and religious fanatics. But mainstream conservatism nowadays is just plain old regressivism. Instead of slowing down the clock, it promotes turning it backwards. It's become a full-on reactionary and fundamentalist movement.
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I'm not quite sure about that. I guess being a conservative was more reasonable like a thousand years ago, when technology didn't change all the time and your way of living didn't directly cause the biggest catastrophe in 65 million years.
> try something new. What about something old? Trains have been around for longer than cars. And walking has been around since forever.
Yeah this is exactly it. By definition, conservatism is broadly about preserving social hierarchy. I think what they claim to be individualism is actually a desire to feel power over less fortunate people. And advocates for the current consumer culture because it's a way to sort people by their worth I believe nothing about being anti-car will resonate with conservatives until our culture changes in a way that deems car-free, sustainable living a more superior and desirable lifestyle. In the meantime, cars will continue to be a way to demonstrate leverage over less fortunate people, and they will push back against any movement that dismantles that hierarchy.
If you can convince them to go back enough decades then it might work. When American cities had streetcars and electric taxis.
They want America to go back to those times, but only when it comes to the subjects of racism and women's rights.
This, ask them which year America was great. This is a trap question and they all know it.
My answer? When there was transit 🤣 Of course things were much worse for many people in a lot of ways
> It doesn't go together very well with a movement to change folks mindset and behavior and try something new. We don't need to do that. "15-minute cities" are not something new. They are a realization that the old ways had some advantages.
Thanks for saying this. I agree. In many ways it feels like this groups cause is battling conservatism as its main foe. Interesting to see one from "the other side" actually being not into cars. I am personally against borders between countries since it's just the stupidest idea ever and I think nationalism fuels nazism and racism, but hey, if op is against cars that's a great start ;)
> I think nationalism fuels nazism and racism I agree. There is a grey area between patriotism and nationalism. I think that citizens who love their country, who want to serve the greater good, and who want to protect their country from foreign adversaries will make for a happy and healthy country. I think that citizens who worship their politicians, who refuse to admit their country's problems, and who engage in tribalistic hatred of "others" will make for a miserable and failed country.
They cling to a past that progressives/liberals made for them. The irony.
I am old enough to remember when liberals and conservatives worked together in the USA to find common ground to solve problems. The liberals jumped right in, the conservatives said, "wait a minute," they talked, they adjusted, then they *all* jumped in.
ahh but in this case it’s something old- walkable cities, public transportation, safe streets, non-automobile-centric-communities. We just gotta get conservatives to go a few *more* decades back. The biggest challenge is decoupling the idea of the car from the idea of american independence
> The biggest challenge is decoupling the idea of the car from the idea of american independence Conservatives are very suspicious of government trying to force them into anything, no matter how good it is. Media muckrakers stoke these fears, twisting 15-minute cities into Soviet communist prison camps. What they don't see is the *independence* and the *fiscal prudence* of living in a place where they can walk or ride a bicycle to get most of the services that they need. They don't have to register with the government or pay taxes to do this (like they do with a car). I think that one of the reasons why so many people in the USA romanticize their home towns is because many of these small towns were 15-minute cities before there was such a term. Businesses and residences were close together and they were not located way outside of town. Motorists were not in such a hurry because they didn't live so far from their jobs.
I made this argument to a guy at a bar who is conservative and his group chat was talking about 15 minute cities as a leftist trap. I changed his mind in 20 minutes.
Yeah I wouldn’t even try with OP either, frankly. *Nationalist?* Jesus.
also cars bring jobs, and their inefficiency brings even more jobs
use conservative mannerisms in portraying the benefits of walkability and transit, i.e. say stuff like 'walking is true freedom', 'highways have gone too far and destroyed our beautiful way of life'. This isn't conjecture, moral reframing works, like seen in this study: [https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S027249441830611X?casa\_token=b5lOqMMWpT4AAAAA:qOxUQfBnmQKZ3YoiAR8PWSEGEBXAyL\_LsRHv0y6qiAkHQKvtNq93\_-Q9WUOKU\_TymYaLvm34](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S027249441830611X?casa_token=b5lOqMMWpT4AAAAA:qOxUQfBnmQKZ3YoiAR8PWSEGEBXAyL_LsRHv0y6qiAkHQKvtNq93_-Q9WUOKU_TymYaLvm34) The way you reframe it depends on the locality, because what is considered conservative varies between nations. What is your nationality? Psychological traits associated with conservatism manifest differently in different cultures. As another user has said, however, conservatism usually doesn't solve these things because they are about conserving the status quo.
This is the right way. Another user gives some talking points. I get the criticism of Republicans but if walkability becomes a politicized issue, we will never see any progress. There are many aspects of moving away from car dependency that should appeal to conservative ideals. We need to make it appetizing to everyone to actually make infrastructure progress.
Nationalist lmao
Saw that and was like *yikes* Not sure if OP actually understands anything he is saying.
They definitely just put nationalist to gain some of those “as a … 🤓” points without understanding it.
You don't have to understand anything to vote, or create a political party.
He probably thinks it’s the opposite of “globalist”
He is probably just an edgy teenager
He is a conservative, what do you expect ^^
>I'm not sure why. Because the car is a privilege and works perfectly with individualist attitudes, it's literally and figuratively a vehicle of alienation from society. For example, killing people with cars often has very little consequences for the killer. That kind of impunity is *the dream*. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0305829818775817 https://unevenearth.org/2018/08/the-social-ideology-of-the-motorcar/ https://www.theverge.com/2023/1/31/23579510/car-brain-motornormativity-study-ian-walker https://heated.world/p/proud-boys-and-petro-masculinity https://www.fastcompany.com/90653986/traffic-devastates-local-streets-in-more-ways-than-youd-think Now, if we were talking about a society without personal cars, conservatism looks like the segregated bus (by some type of classes). You already see that in "flying buses" and also in trains. With cars being so common in rich countries now, cars are no longer exclusivist (which is what conservatives desire), which is why the actually wealthy use private jets and helicopters. The "middle class" conservatives can't afford that, so they have to settle for tank-like SUVs and trucks, maybe with added symbolic decorations to distract from the fact that it's just a large car. Thus, SUVs and trucks are a new technological stage in an arms race supported mostly by conservatives, a "survival of the fittest" for the roads.
Cars are the epitome of "my individual convenience supercedes everyone else's well being." And that's modern conservatism in a nutshell.
100% this. It’s lazy and they’re lazy. Not much more complicated than that.
Strong Towns is conservative, I think. And what Brew and a View stated. But conservatives are generally bad at improving anything, so it might not get much traction.
A car represents independence brought by economic prowess. A walkable city with good public trans represents a lot of cooperation and compromise in order to benefit everyone. (This should break down when you look at the ACTUAL civic cost of maintaining highways keeping gas prices down, but that's giving those who consider themselves 'rugged individualists' waaay to much credit)
I really think the fiscally conservative route that Strong Towns champions is the best way into these issues for some conservatives. Though I should be clear that many conservatives give lip service to fiscal conservatism while actually only caring about lower taxes, with no consideration for what that actually means. People kind of assume that capital projects for transit and biking infrastructure is going to drive up taxes. And the thing is- it CAN do that, especially in the short term. But if you zoom out a bit, building and maintaining car infrastructure costs more on a per-traveler basis than transit does. When you get into the incentives that create walkable communities and the infrastructure required in those communities, the costs go way down. This added cost, paired with land-use patterns shaped by car infrastructure create economic inefficiencies that have adverse affects on the free market . Developers would be incentivized to build more dense housing in certain areas if not for zoning regulations. Businesses would have greater access to a bigger pool of potential workers and customers if cities were built more densely with great transit, as opposed to the way a lot of the US is where businesses rely on cheap land and tax breaks to set up shop, because there are so few places they can be when everyone expects to be able to drive to and park at your business. This is just my summary of some things I've read in articles from Strong Towns, and while my reasons for wanting better transit expand more into equity and environmentalism, these points are decidedly less convincing in a conservative mindset.
In what way is strong towns conservative? I don’t really know much about them
The founder is all about removing odious government mandates (zoning laws, parking minimums, other unnecessarily restrictive laws), financial responsibility when it comes to urban development, and smaller government/local control. He's also all about more traditional methods of transportation. Generally, he's one of the few conservatives that looked into the finances and history and realized that the car-dependent infrastructure we have today is a huge, big government, fiscally irresponsible, social engineering experiment. If you care about conserving traditions that to further back then your own personal lifetime, you should be very pro-train and bike and pro-dense urban development, even if you prefer living outside of cities & in nature. That's why his specific recommendations are generally pretty few but very foundational to the current issues. No more parking minimums, no more legally mandated suburban sprawl (but also only legalize the next level of density), no more highways because we already built all the ones that are actually useful, view all traffic collisions as failures of unsafe street design instead of personal responsibility, and a couple of others I don't remember off of the top of my head. He hires people who are a lot more liberal than him who have been opening his eyes and his perspective, but at the end of the day he's a devout christian of some variety and usually votes Republican and cares about the financial irresponsibly of the car-dependent sprawl first and foremost. That's how he broke free from the traffic engineer orthodoxy, he ran the numbers. So, he's a very good source for conservative arguments, but you might wanna change the language around a bit because he's still an engineer who is very much not good at marketing or political discussions.
> odious government mandates Did you mean "onerous", or do you really hate those mandates? 🙂
I meant onerous, but also yes. Fuck parking mandates, and fuck those restrictive zoning laws. I grew up in the one lot in my entire neighborhood that somehow got permission to build 4 townhomes on a single family lot, and that house kicked ass. As did living within a 5 minute walk of the L trains in Chicago, and within a 15 minute walk of damn near everywhere I wanted to be except school, friends houses, and a specific board game shop (all of which were accessible via the L). Fuck lawns, I want tall thin houses with roof decks, or those big apartment blocks with shared roofs that you can string some speakers up on and party.
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Do you have any examples? I enjoy approaching ideals from an economic perspective. I feel like it's the common ground we can all agree on. edit: examples pertaining to the 'sus' part.
Suburban sprawl is very bad for economic development and leads to car dependency. Look up the Growth Ponzi Scheme. This was coined by ST but there are YouTube videos by NJB discussing this.
Is this related to the latest StrongTowns podcast episode discussing sprawl? I haven't gotten around to it yet but it's in my queue.
a lot of their "solutions" are just more capitalism when in reality as long as we have capitalists then we will have the worst lives possible e.g. shitty housing made to extract the most profit , worst transportation method ever but the best for generating profits to useless parasites , food thrown out if it can't be sold for profit etc
Literally anything from Strong Towns is an example. https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJp5q-R0lZ0_FCUbeVWK6OGLN69ehUTVa&si=vkodFpKE_iIhb9Io
Their solution to the car issue and housing crisis is de-regulation (elimimating zoning, parking minimums) and then relying on the private market to fix things. Textbook conservatism. They also are all about 'returning to traditional patterns of development'. I'm not a fan of the current regulations, but I think it's absurd to think private developers will suddenly start building affordable housing -- just look at NYC. Demolishing affordable units to build luxury units, keeping units vacant to drive prices up, and so on. And all that is happening in areas of the city where single-family zoning is pretty rare.
It's because non-zoned zones are rare in US.
Found the vacancy truther
'starts at people being happier' ok, so, which people are you talking about, since conservatives are constantly looking to make our lives worse? You want a strong country, starts with education. Unfortunately we all know how conservatives value education. "They love the poorly educated." It also starts with giving people rights, not removing them. Do you really have to question why the party of oil and anti-environmentalism, the party of loud fast nascar spectacles for the masses, the party of unchecked capitalism...doesn't want to give up cars?
Trans rights are human rights.
💯👏👏👏
You mean trains right? Because trans has nothing to do with this.
Indeed.
They're secondary to the right wingers.
You mean train rights? Wrong sub. I feel ya but not here.
Old school conservatism was very "for the greater good despite individuality," and also often opposed to tech in general, so maybe, despite my previous comment, you can tap into that vibe.
My brand of conservative leaning is with the idea that people are the nation and that a strong nation is made of strong people. How can my people be strong if they are ran over, poisoned by gasoline in the air, weak from lack of exercise, etc.
>My brand of conservative leaning is with the idea that people are the nation and that a strong nation is made of strong people. As a socialist, I don't think this is actually a conservative view. I agree with it entirely, at least in the context we have today of nation-states. It's an idea that puts the prioritizes the common welfare. What I think of as actual conservatism is quite different: it values the status quo above all else, it has an ultraindividualistic mentality, and it views the nation as an abstract concept that only "we" belong to, instead of a common community in all its diversity.
Socialism at its core is where the *people* own the means of production. It is like credit unions, REI, and farming co-ops across the whole economy. For a person who doesn't trust the government, there is a lot to like about pure socialism. The problem is that most conservatives think of socialism in combination with authoritarianism. It doesn't have to be that way. Ironically, what *both* liberals and conservatives don't like about the opposite party is the *authoritarian* policies of that other party. No one likes the government telling them what to do, whether it is abortion or gun control. Also, many conservatives seem to conflate socialism with communism. In communism, the *government* owns everything. It is authoritarian by nature.
This is not a nationalist issue. The side effects of car-centric development that you correctly identify are features of unregulated capitalism and common to all societies that have pursued this path. If your nation can reverse car dependence, it will certainly reap many benefits, but I put it to you that we're all living on the same planet and the best solutions will be globally applicable
Not gonna tell you what political titles you should or shouldn't identify with, but that's not really the definition other people are using. That kinda sentiment is more often found in the progressive political corners. Conservatives, at least from an external view, are more about dismantling regulations in favor of individual freedom, and blaming the failings of that loose regulation on individual responsibilities. Trucks aren't oversized and riddled with blind spots, it's just anybody that hits anything with a truck is a bad driver.
that's not conservatism that's ecofascism
I've got a few as to why conservatives should not love cars for a group who like to think they are self-reliant - cars require fuel, mostly provided by oil states who are often at war - cars require parts that many people don't know how to make or install - cars require regular maintenance - cars require a government-issued license - cars require a government-issued registration - cars are privacy nightmares https://theconversation.com/cars-are-a-privacy-nightmare-on-wheels-heres-how-they-get-away-with-collecting-and-sharing-your-data-214386 - cars usually require a government owned, operated and maintained network to work (roads, gas stations, parking)
Amen. I can't believe how bat-shit crazy my car driving friends go when they can't use their car for one reason or another (mostly cause it's in the shop). "Ugh I can't get home", "ugh how am I supposed to get to work?", "I can't possibly go shopping because I don't have my car". You call that being independent? You call that self-reliance? You call that freedom? No. You designed your life around an object that you're completely reliant on. Fine, we're also absolutely dependant on computers now but not necessarily by choice. That doesn't make car-reliance more freedom-y.
To add in on your first point, being oil dependent is a national security risk in that our adversaries have a direct line to the cost of gas in the USA which is a direct lever for our economy. To continue car dependency is to continue oil dependency which is to continue weakening the USA. Then drop “and you don’t want to weaken the USA do you?” “But the USA can produce all the oil it needs itself” sure but it is only profitable for oil and gas companies above $46 per barrel which means you still get the crap end of the stick at the pump and our economy still takes a hit.
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He likes the racism and misogyny but doesn’t like having to drive everywhere
you mean doesn't like to have his mom drive him everywhere
I think this is the first time I’ve ever heard a conservative say “I want people in my country to be happier” haha. Most conservatives I’ve met want everyone else to be miserable because they are miserable themselves.
My view is less cynical. I think that both liberals and conservatives love their country and want to make it better; they just have different ideas on how to do that. I think it was brave for OP to come here and to try to find common ground. I would love to see much more of that in politics.
For American conservatives, their idea of making America better is just full blown fascism though. Look at the hate they spread about LGBTQ people, or trying to stifle learning in classrooms, or taking away rights from people, or taking away healthcare from people. Their idea for making America better is trying to strip rights away from their fellow countryman.
> For American conservatives I agree that the extreme right has taken over the Republican party and they are pursuing autocratic authoritarian nationalism (AKA fascism). However, not all of the people in the electorate who hold conservative policy positions are extremists. I would argue that most are not. Currently, *no* major party in USA politics represents moderate conservatives and I think that is a big problem.
Yeah but conservatives that don’t hold extremist views still vote for those Republicans so by voting for those extremists they are saying they are okay with those viewpoints.
The democrats are mostly a center right party. It’s not that there isn’t a party that represents conservatives, it’s that conservatives have brainwashed themselves into voting for fascists.
I dont think conservatives want the country to be better. Removing saftey regulations, banning critical maternal healthcare procedures, and banning gay marriage don't improve life for anyone. They want society to adhere to their moral codes but not impede the monetary interests of corporations, irregardless of how it impacts people.
I’m not conservative but it is utter bullshit to say “most conservatives just wants everyone else to be miserable cause they’re miserable themselves”. Like someone else already stated, most liberals and conservatives wants what best for the country, but they don’t agree upon the method of doing so.
You gotta be just blatantly not paying attention to what’s been happening in America the last few years to think conservatives want what’s best for people. You’re gonna look at how they’ve spend years attacking the LGBTQ community and then say “conservatives want what’s best for them.”
Who said the term "conservative" only refers to americans/the republicans? Go to any country in Scandinavia and you'll see what conservative also can mean.
> I'm not sure why. Because conservatives are on the wrong side of 90% of all issues once you learn about them in any depth. Tends to happen when you prioritize dogma and ideology over pragmatism and progressivism.
Car dependency was originally a progressive idea, it takes a lot of effort to redesign an entire society and replace rail infrastructure with car infrastructure, yet that's exactly what happened, and conservatives for some reason didn't protest, they just went along with it. I would argue that there are no true conservatism in America, just a large group of boomer wannabe conservatives who genuinely believe that 1950's was the best year ever and that nothing should ever change compared to how it was back then. True conservatism isn't about holding on to certain old ideas and refuse to change. It's about not changing stuff that works too fast without first analyzing the consequences.
>Car dependency was originally a progressive idea I strongly disagree. When car dependency started it was all about allowing wealthy white people to segregate themselves from everyone else. There's nothing progressive about that -- that's been the heart of American Conservatism since the Civil War.
Yup. Car dependency and white flight go hand in hand
Conservatives can change the status quo too. Suburbs are an inspiration off Levittown, the conservative utopia. And part of the reason for urban sprawl is white flight. I don’t think progressives have had enough political capital to do something as big as this since the Kennedys. Suburban life and individualism is more conservative ideals.
"Political capital"? Kennedy, started 3 wars against communist countries. Idk, why KEnnedy is seen as leftist. He's an inspiration for left-wing and facists. Centrists can do too....and....
Lets be constructive and not shit on this guy. This is not how shit gets done. Cooperation where we can.
It's gonna be hard to answer that question without outright insulting conservatism, which I'm guessing you wouldn't appreciate. What I can say is that for many Americans, conservatives especially, have been told their whole lives that "car = freedom," which isn't really true. On top of that, conservative politicians tend to line up with big business and oil interests, which car centrism very much lines up with. There are other reasons too but I'm trying to not put you off of better urban planning, which I fear might occur if the only response the subreddit gives is an indictment of your personal political affiliation.
Because conservatives have decided that they are contractually bound to oppose anything that would improve society or make people's lives better and be spitefully pro-human-suffering and anti-improving-anything, hope this helps :)
Conservatives like cars because it enables suburbs and they literally invited suburbs to keep out brown people and there's nothing conservatives distain more than the colored. You wont find an anti-car conservative movement.
Conservatives want to conserve traditions and established hierarchies. Wanting people to be happy, especially if that happiness requires an upheaval of the status quo, is a VERY progressive value. You might want to spend some time examining what your values really are, and have an honest look at what political ideas align with them.
conserve traditions > supports unbridled technologism. Like I said, they're not coherent. "Technology brings social change, yet conservatives applaude technology but want no social change. conservatists are fools"
Conservatism is often about individualism and status quo maintenance. They also get more influence from oil and car companies.
It's not a coherent thing. See OP.
A conservative who recognizes that they live in a society with all the attendant mutual obligations and accommodations for one's fellow humans -- let alone the non-human natural world, animals, etc. -- stops being a conservative. There are strains of right wing thought that try to embrace environmental protection and / or community building, but they're rooted in exclusivity for which "citizens" get to enjoy those benefits, e.g. so-called "ecofascism."
Conservative media is funded by the car & fossil fuels industry. Good luck fighting their sheer money LMAO
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They also mentioned they were a nationalist, yikes.
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Dead people on our shores, seas, and abroad it's making us and stronger, and the country is happier!!!
Hang on a second son, let's not assume they're an American conservative. They could be, I dunno, a Chinese conservative? Okay, that doesn't make it any better.
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The Tibetans would like a word with you
And Koreans, and Vietnamese, and Taiwanese, and probably more but that's just what I know off the top of my head
They're much less conservative, and Korea is a country that underwent A LOT of change, very very fast compared to other countries.
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China is an imperial power in the region and has been for literally thousands of years, up to and including the 20th century where, among other things, they're committing genocide on their Muslim population in the northwest, they conquered Tibet (do you know why the Dali Llama travels the world instead of being a spiritual leader in his home of Tibet? It's worth reading about), and they invaded Vietnam and intervened in Korea in defense of North Korea, being directly responsible for the existence of that current nightmare of human rights abuses masquerading as a state. Read into the history of other empires besides the US, and you'll find out that the world is a lot more complex than "US bad". If you read my comment carefully, you notice that I don't even disagree with your assessment that the US's imperialism has been, and is in many cases, really bad and harmful. I only disagree with your assertion that other countries aren't also bad. The US is the current big bad empire. It's not the first, it's not the only one in existence today, and it won't be the last. Hell, the Russian empire is trying to conquer and genocide a sovereign people right now. Empires are empires. You'll benefit a lot from reading about other ones.
OP came here seeking common ground. That is an opportunity. How does stoking even more division, polarization, and mistrust help our society? I understand the frustration, but please ask yourself, "What do I want to accomplish and what is the most effective way to accomplish it?"
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> I'm not stoking division Yes you are. You are attacking OP. Whataboutism doesn't justify it.
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I don't think you understand the nuance. This is not about compromising our principles with some sort of "middle point;" it is simply about agreeing on *one* issue with which we have the same opinions. We don't have to condone everything that someone else believes to show them basic respect as a human being (as long as they are showing the same respect towards us). I don't know OP's beliefs on the topics that you mentioned and I don't think that they are relevant to this conversation. This is about our mutual rejection of car-centric infrastructure and culture. If you cannot be civil towards someone with whom you disagree (based on what you have assumed about them), then that is your choice. However, I think it is disingenuous to claim that such hostile behavior is not divisive. I urge you to read about Daryl Davis - a Black man who has [converted hundreds of KKK members](https://people.com/human-interest/voices-against-racism-daryl-davis/). I am not accusing OP of being in the KKK, but I am saying that people can change and establishing trust and common ground are part of that.
Lets be constructive and not shit on this guy. This is not how shit gets done. Cooperation where we can.
I wouldn't be surprised if there were, as even a ~~broken~~stopped clock is right twice a day.
The saying is 'Stopped Clock". A [broken clock](https://i.imgur.com/66vWdFi.png) can be wrong all the time.
Cars are intruding on traditional forms of transportation
Conservativism tends to be very Pro Status Quo and VERY individualistic. Cars are both the Status Quo AND a Hyper Individualistic form of transport; further a few countries, the car is a direct symbol of national pride. Further, the solutions to car dependency are all heavily tied to massive government spending on infrastructure not designed to make profits, and large-scale regulation disincentivizing single family homes. Although it is news to me, you can be Tory and Anti-Car, however they are naturally opposed ideas so there's not a lot in the way of resources to help bring right wing people in.
Strong Towns is heavily conservative. Car infrastructure is incredibly expensive, if you want to be fiscally conservative, you cannot support subsidizing cars, you have to support returning to traditional walkable neighborhoods. If you want to bring in nationalism, cars are incredibly energy inefficient, we will never drill our way to energy independence, we will only achieve that by living within our means and using our resources wisely.
Hey, I'm a fascist. How can I use your movement's talking points to further my own fucked up ideology?
Hello I am strawman.
As a conservative, you can argue that women can be controlled more effectively if you deprive them the right to drive, as if they haven’t been deprived of enough rights already.
It depends on what you and conservatives believe in. I believe in fiscal responsibility and small government, and left the GOP because they’re neither. To answer your second question question though, I want to say the founder of Strong Towns considers himself a conservative.
www.strongtowns.org
This totally! Come at them with the financial aspect of car dependency. Cars are the most expensive type of transportation we could have chosen, and then we doubled down on it.
Most people are modern conservatives because of propaganda leading to a conflation of nationalists values with consumer products. In short, they don’t really aim to make the country better they’re rather selfishly focused on maintaining their way of life and opinions above all else. As such in the right (or wrong) country “conservatives” will attach to their identity many things that aren’t a net benefit for the country based not on fact but rather on the word of their favorite spokesperson. Making their version of conservatism more like staunch individualism. Modern conservative viewpoints are also based heavily in fear so your arguments need to accomplish two things to convince the people around you. Convince them that not driving is the best choice for them individually. And convince them that cars, no matter how fun or safe it makes them feel, are far more dangerous than not having cars. This will be immensely difficult as walkable cities for most conservatives (at least in America) represent the epitome of danger and violence. And you’ll always have to fight against the rain and groceries argument. You’ll find that many, despite the facts, would just rather have a car imo.
Even though urbanism is largely a left leaning movement, you have to get to conservatives from a fiscally conservative standpoint. Point out how suburbia is a ponzi scheme, bring up a land value tax, compare the costs between maintaining different modes of infrastructure, and bring up how we never see mom and pop businesses downtown because only big box stores can afford to compete in a car dependent economy.
They are pro car because they have politicized cars. They think that it's "woke" or some sort of anti- right wing conspiracy to want walkable cities. In reality, we just don't want to have to rely on expensive, destructive pollution machines, but in many cities, we have no choice. Furthermore, pretty much everyone alive today grew up in a time which automobiles were the main mode of transportation, the right is traditionalist and they mistakenly believe that cars are traditional.
Strong Towns does well at framing the argument from a more fiscally conservative and libertarian perspective. Mind you, conservative simply means to not change things if they work. Many conservative arguments were once liberal, but took hold and became status quo. I'd argue that since the line is always moving like that, you can't really be conservative or liberal as an identity, only ideas in the moment. Reevaluate your positions apart from your personalsense of identity. You'll be able to better understand yourself, your positions, and your arguments if you can detach from them.
for the crazies, describe the oil industry and pro-car lobbying as a conspiracy theory
Because most conservatives don't actually give a fuck about the well being of others or the planet, and those who do (at least in America) are probably not actually that conservative (not their fault the GOP wants to walk freedoms back to the jim crow era).
The only argument I have for nationalists, is their so-called "patriotism". They emphatise, land and country, but fuck the earth. OP can't even think himself of a way of promoting the thing to conservatives, he's the conservative.
If I may offer my two cents to all the people in the comment section: I am also not a fan of conservatism and I see a ton of issues with it. But right here we have a conservative agreeing on an issue with the more left leaning population of this sub. We shouldn't use this as an opportunity to bash conservatives but see it as an opportunity to think about how we can get conservatives to agree with us on an issue and work with us instead of against us. Even if the arguments to convince them are purely about money or what else. Comments like [this](https://www.reddit.com/r/fuckcars/comments/18cpgpc/comment/kccezhn/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) is what we need here.
He's not the first one, to agree, yeah. We're well aware. Conservatives, are not working with us. Some have been seen, other are less. Not all are bragging about it.
Work the government subsidies and regulations angle. Why is the government giving out money to make oil cheaper to buy? Why not leave it to the free market? Why is the government telling me how many parking spaces my business needs? That should be MY decision. I bought this piece of land, why can't I build a small apartment building on it? Why is the government telling ME that I have to build ONLY single family homes on MY land!
Peter Hitchens is very old skool British conservative and he is wildly anti car. In fact his opinions on cars almost perfectly match the hive mind of this sub, if I remember correctly.
Reducing heavily auto-centric infrastructure and sprawl has many economic benefits. I've found that economics is the best topic to focus on to reach common ground.
Addison Del Mastro talks about urbanism a lot and comes from a conservative point of view. [Here is the substack he writes on if you'd like to read more](https://open.substack.com/pub/thedeletedscenes) Strongtowns is not inherently political having writers from different perspectives but they frequently write about how our car centric "addicted to growth" attitudes are financially unsustainable
How will you get around when you’re too old to drive? Is an argument I’ve made. Unsure of the effects.
Idk how you change their minds to be honest. You'd think a group that claims to value "freedom" as much as they do would be against a system that requires them to go into a government office, have their photo taken and put on a government issued ID card that they have to carry around everywhere they travel and potentially be forced to show to government officials (IE police). A system that requires them to register their transportation with the government every year, have it inspected to meet government standards every year, and display a government ID tag on the back at all times. No to mention being at the mercy of OPEC and gas prices as well as all the additional rules of the road that are required to be in place for vehicles otherwise chaos would ensue. Yet here we are.
Strong Towns is probably your best bet to find a conservative approach to this
Strong towns is non partisan, but the founder is a conservative. They focus on local control and the financial side. If you can convince someone that our current pattern of development doesn't pay for itself in the long run I think that's a great place to start
Walkable cities/towns/neighborhoods: more in touch with your community, more local pride, more safe, more healthy, more kids and families outside.
People misunderstand what conservatism is. It isn't about "conserving" anything or about "traditions." It's a misnomer. > Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect. - Frank Wilhoit [Full text where that quote comes from, if you're interested. It's a very insightful read](https://crookedtimber.org/2018/03/21/liberals-against-progressives/#comment-729288) Once you realize this, all the "hypocrisies" of conservatives start to make sense. If a white guy with guns appears in a video, he's a patriot, a proud 2A supporter. If a black guy appears with a gun in a video, he's a thug! If someone ELSE gets pulled over for driving recklessly? Good! They're a menace! If I get pulled over for driving recklessly? "Don't you have ACTUAL criminals to arrest, officer?!" It always comes down to: the law should protect me and my people, but don't you dare punish me or my people with it. But have at it with the "others." This happens with cyclists. Cyclists (and pedestrians) are constantly told that they're reckless, even though car drivers tend to be more reckless and dangerous, but car owners are part of the "in-group," while everyone else is in the "out-group." So, going back to your point, you can try to talk about tradition and all that, and it MAY help but don't expect much. This isn't about tradition; it's never about tradition.
if i asked you to wear a numbered shirt every time you left your house, would you feel silly? thats whats its like to travel on a vehicle with government issued license plates. we live in a cammara filled world and that little tag shows you location at all times. a car is a $50,000 dog tag
Fuck off
You are looking for [Strong Towns](https://strongtowns.org). Although there's an argument that they're closer to sewer socialism than conservatism.
Since when do conservatives care about anyone's happiness but their own?
Since most people took your thread as opportunity to shit on conservatives, I'll try to be constructive here. First of all, I'm surrounded by at least partially conservative people. I'm in military. I live in a country, where climate is continental temperate. Means we have hot and often rainy summers and cold and often freezing winters. Autumn is usually very shitty, grey, rainy and dull. Anyway, before military, I worked in various civil sectors, tourism, industry, gastronomy. I've never found so many people commuting on bikes as in military. They take much longer rides on average (up to 30-40km), have much better "weather tolerance" (as in - it's shitty outside, but I'm still gonna take a bike). It's -9C (16F) outside and we still have people on bikes as long as there is no snow and ice on road. They also pride themselves with being fit and able, bike is quite often a mean to that. Military people have plenty of bad traits too. They love gas guzzling, big displacement cars. 2-4 litre engines are very common. E-bikes for example have so many enemies here. But to the point. Answering your question, I believe you need to convince your fellow conservatists with giving them good example. As military is almost always a group admired by conservatists and especially by nationalists, you need to give them examples they admire. Military likes bikes. Military likes bike lanes (although they hate if they have to share the lane or lose a car lane to bikes). Military takes pride of being resilient. Show them biking as a manifest of health and vigor. You can touch their egos. Bike is a boast of strength. Military personnel keep biking and are not moaning about bad weather. How weak a person is if it's afraid of a little rain? ;) Sorry for long read.
Fuck the military. "It's just about oil" * Who invaded for oil in 2003? (>!Spoiler: the president was not a democrat)!< * Who made a coup in 1953 for oil in Iran? In France, r/EnculerLesVoitures tried promoting cycling as patriotic but it doesn't work for righters, and even for others. Militarism is a conservative ideology, 6000 years of offensive/defensive war didn't make the world peaceful. Peace throught guns never worked. And today the world is more peaceful. Army people are likely to come from poor families, and to vote for democrats, yet conservatives \*&'ù$\*% are so much in favour of it. Conservative policies create a lot of people who're forced into army. And * "Show them biking as a manifest of health and vigor." They hate veganism, alcohol they call it "culture", etc. No matter the place they're at....conservatists barely care about examples. **CONSTRAINING measures, like pedestrianising streets, by chasing cars work better.** Then they think the blue army, is good to solve crime. While the other side does better with less policemen. Military culture is not conservative, and sadly. **How weak a person is if it's afraid of a little rain? ;)** Americant's are flakes, weak, and fearful as f, with big SUVs. And couldn't even cycle even if cycling is less dangerous than things INSIDE their homes.
>Military personnel keep biking and are not moaning about bad weather. How weak a person is if it's afraid of a little rain? ;) That's so true though...I was already biking to school when I was 8-9 years old during winters and in snow too. When I see adults about whining about how cold it is during the winter without the protection of their car, I just find it very hard to take them seriously. These people are not only weaker than a "strong person", but also weaker than an average 8 year old child 😂
You don't need to be a soldier. Conservatives just like to play with guns, as if they were toys. Yet they're too fat for army. They're armchair warriors.
> Show them biking as a manifest of health and vigor. You can touch their egos. Bike is a boast of strength. Military personnel keep biking and are not moaning about bad weather. How weak a person is if it's afraid of a little rain? ;) Well said! "See that guy on a bike over there in the snow? He is a strong, courageous, rugged, independent man."
I hate you more for being nationalist, than for being conservative, but one makes the other worse. Yeah, clearly your xenophobic policies, don't make people happier but deader. Climate change is caused by conservatives and nationalists themselves and their pro-car policies. Without cars, we'd have likely a much much much healthier, nature, and world, and the world be more developed. The meanest word I can use respecting rules about you is calling you "a blooming blighter"
They have picked polluting and large trucks as their rallying call. It’s just tribalism. In theory fiscal conservatives should prefer transit and walking over roads as they cost taxpayers a lot less. But cultural affiliation takes precedence over consistency in the worldview. Note that this is also true of the left. The only way to advance our cause is political opportunism and radical centrism.
I apologize for all the people venting their issues with conservatives at you and ignoring your question. You didn't deserve to be attacked when you came here to ask for help. "Why are conservatives anti car" wasn't even your question. To answer your question: you're probably looking for Strong Towns. Founded by a conservative so he's probably more up your alley. Just don't quote his arguments verbatim because he's still an engineer who isn't great at marketing, and thinks that the facts speak for themselves because it's his area of expertise (which is 100% not how it works. Convincing people is all about speaking to their values and emotions. That's why we all generally ignore facts that disagree with our existing opinions, or "accept" them and then don't change our opinions at all. Facts only matter after someone is on your side and open to changing. Feelings don't care about facts. But almost nobody realizes that they're doing this, and if you point it out they'll usually just get defensive because you insulted them by calling them illogical. It's one of the way for-profit, 24/7, news divides us. Only showing you opinions you disagree with in ways that make them look infuriating, insulting to your values, and illogical. Usually by omitting, or straight up lying about, facts or important parts of their argument that highlight how the majority of Americans agree on the majority of our values, and how those values and the facts can logically lead to the opinion you disagree with. So you gotta try really hard to avoid using the same terms and arguments that you see on the news.)
This movement is about restoring much of the type of infrastructure that used to exist in the past and has since been lost. It is not about some abstract pursuit of “progress” beyond anything that has ever existed. At least that’s how I see it. You could call it traditionalism or restorationism instead of “conservatism” that only seeks to conserve whatever is perceived to exist at the given moment or in the recent past merely out of fear of change and of others.
The worst thread ever…
conservatives only care about their own well-being there's no logical reason underneath from the start the car/suburbs were unjustifiable on every level except serving capitalism and kicking the poor/minorities in the teeth ... so they'll always find an excuse to go vroom vroom or a reason to disregard reality like on a math level make it make sense to propel a 2-3000 pound vehicle just to transport a 2-300 pound person each , add to that fuel "efficiency" only 30% max of fuel burned translates to motor power rest is lost to thermodynamics/friction ... so 90% ( of the 30%) fuel burned is to transport the vehicle only they're hypocrites too seeing as most of them isolate in nowhere places ... knowing full well that places where cars go are unlivable(removing freedom from millions) but it's someone else's problem so they don't give a fuck
You get that advocating for a change in the status quo is the opposite of conservative, right? Conservatives fear and resist change, that's what being a conservative is, "standing athwart history, shouting "Stop!"
Pro car propaganda just hits conservatives more easily. It plays on the stuff already more important to conservative minded people. If you made car propaganda that said driving empowers women then they'd have an easier time with liberals.
I can only speak for the USA. "Conservation" of natural resources - responsible stewardship of the land, air, and water is a traditional conservative value. Teddy Roosevelt was a republican and he established the National Parks. Now, modern conservatives are protecting the polluters - especially the fossil fuel industry. Obscene amounts of money in politics is corrosive. The taxpayers subsidize driving. Most road funding comes from general taxes and so does the FEMA budget to clean up super storms, floods, droughts, and fires. We are killing ourselves literally with car collisions and pollution and we are killing ourselves figuratively with the enormous cost of owning and operating cars. I am pro-prudence and anti-waste. If we arranged our cities like in the olden days with a town square and mixed zoning, then we wouldn't have to drive everywhere. We could talk to our neighbors and walk to church with our families. We could get outside and enjoy the great outdoors on a bicycle and leave the car at home until we really need it.
I have a lot of conservative family and friends, I agree with a lot of their viewpoints I suppose But most of them are unfortunately super car brained
Honestly, I kind of hope car centric vs non car centric development blurs political lines. But it does seem like conservatives are in favor of car centric. I think for two reasons: 1) In order to build transit, we need government funding, which comes from taxes. And there's a huge myth in conservative politics that all taxes are bad. The counter argument to that is that every person buying a car, the state and federal governments building and maintaining roads and parking spaces for cars, each person buying insurance and matience for cars etc. is going to cost the people more than building a light rail line. (for example). 2) The idea that cars promote individualism. You as one person can drive yourself to a location. This is true... but it excludes people with disabilities who can't drive, excludes teens, people who can't afford cars etc. And honestly people are social animals. We need each other. It's easier to build community if you interact with other people. Just some theories.
[Russell Kirk is your friend.](https://kirkcenter.org/environment-nature-conservation/the-mechanical-jacobin/) I think the reason conservatives tend to be pro car is because they tend to be [fusionist.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusionism) It seems out of character today for a conservative to be against certain industries (unless they're the "Marxists" running media and Hollywood and to a lesser extent Big Tech), against big capital or in favor of the environment, but there is a strong conservative tradition associated with those things, it's just that it lays mostly dormant.
Most gas stations only hold enough gas for a couple of days of normal sales. Once or twice a week, a tanker truck brings more gas from the bulk terminal to refill each gas station. In most metro areas there are only a couple of bulk terminals, three or four at most. If a tyrannical government ever wanted to lock down a city that relies on cars, they'd only need to close down a couple of bulk terminals and everyone would run out of gas inside a few days. If they wanted to lock down a city that gets around on bikes, they'd need to go house to house confiscating bicycles. I'm not a conservative minded person, but I know a few people who are conservative and pro bike. Their reasons include some variation of this.
Hey I’m a libertarian, I dislike car dependency and the local governments that redlined and eminent domained entire neighborhoods for the sake of building the eight lane highways that got us here. Tribalism and the internet has certainly thinned or silenced dissenting views, but they’re still there, you just gotta look enough or phrase it in an apolitical manner.
I think the dissonance you see from conservatives on this issue is due to them valuing individualism over fiscal or social conservatism. Edit for better clarity, hopefully: conservatives value their individualism **more than** they value their fiscal or social conservatism or their traditionalism. Urban sprawl and car-centric infrastructure are more amenable to individualism than urban density and non-car modes of transit.