Explaining high speed rail

Americans prefer to drive

Here at South of 5 and 20, we've been obsessing over the feds' high speed rail fever since our former Democrat Congressman Mike Arcuri got weak knees over the idea, then was booted out of office by our current rep, Republican Richard Hanna. 

Experts of all persuasions have declared Obama's $53 billion proposal an insane boondoggle, the most recent being newgeography's widely respected Joel Kotkin.  But we suspect all the demographic analysis and cost accounting is irrelevant.  Writing about Kotkin's learned article, Connecticut real estate blogger Christopher Fountain hits the buzzer beater:

The author thoroughly debunks any idea that high speed rail could ever make economic sense, but I think he misses the point when he tries to understand the liberals’ love affair with choo choos. It’s really all about power. Liberals hate, absolutely hate the automobile, because it allows individuals to travel alone, when they choose and where they choose. Trains and other forms of mass transit tell people where they will go, when they will go and by God, they will travel together! It’s the mass in mass transit, and that’s what sends a tingle up liberal’s legs.