I am writing to reply to the dangerous idiocy of Linda Chavez’s Oct. 12 column, “If elected, Gore has it in for your automobile.” Chavez seems to think that if you vote for Al Gore, the environmentalist nut, he will personally come to your garage and take your car away from you. She apparently doesn’t realize that a president cannot do something like that by himself.
She also doesn’t seem to realize that being an environmentalist does not mean that one is anti-automobile. It means, instead, a desire to move away from limited and polluting fuels. While Chavez whines that she would “pay for [using public transportation] with lost sleep and convenience,” she simultaneously ignores the fact that cities like Los Angeles and Houston are literally choking in their own exhaust.
Chavez quotes Gore as writing that the internal combustible engine is “a mortal threat to the security of every nation that is more deadly than that of any military enemy we are ever likely to confront.”
But the greater danger lies in people like Chavez’s self-absorbed unwillingness to sacrifice even a shred of convenience or comfort for the good of the environment, even if it means making the world an uninhabitable place.
