More on SUVs

I'm not the only one to comment on Tim F.'s post. Amanda Marcotte had this to say:

For people who wanted to engage in wishful thinking about the relationship between oil and environmental problems, right wing pundits, car companies, and oil companies did all the hard psychological rationalizing work for people. They painted critics as effeminate hippies that are just trying to tell you what to do because they’re sanctimonious and nosy. (That some really are sanctimonious only made the situation worse.) They gave people pseudo-scientific explanations they could latch onto. They were the ones who started offering the opportunity to marry that bad boyfriend and show everyone how wrong they were: halve your gas mileage and show those hippies! It’s a P.R. strategy that only had to work on enough people, and it did.

Atrios took off on that:

I don't own a car because I don't need one and don't like driving. I don't look down on people who buy SUVs, except those assholes who think that a green light plus their giant vehicle penis gives them the right to make a turn into the pedestrian crosswalk without paying attention to the existence of pedestrians. They're useful for some people and even if they're just toys or conspicuous consumption, who cares? I have toys too.

Frankly, I do look down on people who buy SUVs, because it's a stupid move. (Quite aside from my anecdotal observations that those who drive them probably shouldn't be allowed to drive at all.) And it has consequences for the rest of us -- it's not like the pump price per gallon is less for hybrids than it is for SUVs. This seems to me a fundamental issue: the point is, we're all too interconnected for the decision to buy an SUV (which, please understand, is symbolic of a lot of other behaviors) to be purely private. I wonder what Atrios thinks of non-smoking laws, which, after all, are founded not so much on consequences for smokers as on consequences for non-smokers.

(Like Marcotte, I've made stupid decisions in my life, but they haven't normally damaged other people. Like, don't get me started on my record with boyfriends. I think I'll let the next one pick me, rather than the other way around. Probably work out better.)