Just Another NeoMisunderstanding
August 4, 2008
About three years ago we were returning from a wedding in Quebec. Upon reaching the US-Canadian border outside Detroit, we could see, beside us, what seemed to be a wide long line of eighteen wheelers- truck after truck after truck. My 8-year old grandson was enthralled, of course for several minutes, admiring each semi and its massive tractor-trailer.
As we inched along, suddenly a large trestle came into view in the background. Being from Florida, the little guy had never seen such a sight. In the distance he could see a large train approaching the trestle.
“What is that?” he asked his mother.
“That’s a train trestle,” she replied. “That train will travel on it over all this traffic.”
“What kind of train is that?” he asked his mom.
“A freight train,” she answered.
“What is a freight train?” he countered. His mother explained how the train carried goods and cargo rather than passengers, that it would go all the way across the country.
“Can the train carry trucks?” the little man asked.
“Yes,” his mom answered.
“How many trucks could you fit on that train?” he asked, now utterly fascinated by the prospect of such a large means of transport all the way across the country.
“About eighty, I guess.”
Then, without hesitation, the little guy asked: “Then why do we need trucks?”
I didn’t have the heart to tell him about the need for organized crime to build roads. I just couldn’t tell him how the railroad companies let the maintenance of the trucks lapse so that they could sell the millions of acres of land adjacent to the rails. I couldn’t tell him about all that free land ceded by our government to all those now “bankrupt” railroad companies so that they could establish real estate empires like Arvida. I just couldn’t tell him how we need to destroy the roads with those eighteen wheelers so we can spend as much as possible repairing them with Mafia approved labor and goods.
The little guy just doesn’t understand “Free Market Capitalism,” I guess. Unfortunately, neither do I. I’ll have to ask the Neopsychotics to explain this little “Neomisunderstanding.”
Allen Finkelstein, D.O.