SUV Luv

[Environment]

If there's one thing that irritates conservatives, it's being told that their self-indulgence is unseemly. All the worse when someone points out that it supports despots and tyranny, as owning SUV's do. This, observed by Fareed Zakaria and commented on by Andy Sullivan (sounding more and more like a liberal):

My only solace is thinking of how many of these SUV owners are pouring money away to keep their mobile homes on the road. Pity that same money goes to finance Islamist terror. And please don't give me all this guff about how I don't have a car (hey, I'm not indirectly donating to al Qaeda), having to take kids here, there and everywhere, with all their stuff and the dogs and suburbs and soccer practices and on and on. All of this took place before SUVs; kids were just packed into back seats and trunks were stuffed full if necessary. Parents coped. Kids thrived. If all else failed, people could even have less stuff. . . . We are in a war. As far as I'm concerned, those people driving SUVs are aiding and abetting the enemy, and helping to finance the terrorists that want to kill us all.

Within minutes, the emails were coming in:

The car seat laws are much stricter now. And the car seats are much bigger. And the kids are required by law to sit in them until they are much older. There is no way you could fit even one of today's car seats in my mother's old Ford Maverick. I wouldn't want to try. Kids are much safer in today's cars, with today's car seats, than they were when I was a kid.

Whenever cornered, conservatives play the family card. Hey, I wouldn't support the despots of Iran, but I have the safety of my children to consider. I got news: hiding your own self-indulgence behind your kids is poor form. Get a Jetta wagon.