Political potpourri
 

Originally posted by nastyn8 :

Quote:

MR 50 what is your opinion on Ralph Nadar and the Green party? I was told that they were against coal mining and a lot of other industry, also that they were responsible for emissions laws and trying to do away with the big block engines. When the last election was up a bunch of the dopers at my school were talking about that if Ralph Nadar was to get elected as president he was going to legalize marijuana. Can you imagine what chaos that would cause.

I'm not an expert on Ralph Nader and/or the Green Party but I do know that both take environmentalism to extremes.

The Green Party certainly hates cars on principle and considers them to be the tool of Satan (or something akin to that). Emissions laws have been around for decades - long before the establishment of the Green Party, however, they always want more and more restrictions on auto emissions - to the point of absurdity as well as unfeasibility.

Ralph Nader, now 70 and an attorney by trade, gained fame with a 1965 book about the 'dangers' of the Chevrolet Corvair, an early front-wheel drive econocar. He helped speed the car's demise and it went out of production in 1969. Not a great loss. That launched his career as a consumer crusader, mostly focused on the evils of American automobiles and their safety issues, which - back in the '60's and '70's - were plentiful, to be fair about it. Nader went on to be involved in many other 'consumer' issues over the decades and has always opposed 'big business', which he considers the focus of evil in the modern world. (O.K., I'm exaggerating a tad, but I'm not THAT far off). These days, he's playing politics and running for president, just to piss off the Democrats, which he considers - right along with the Republicans - to be effectively 'owned' by those eeeeevil 'corporate interests'.

'Big business' is a major contributor to both political parties because political decisions made in Washington in the form of tax laws and regulations can make or break any large company, so the investors and executives of the large corporations shovel tons of money to both Democrat and Republican candidate's campaigns in order to gain 'access' to the politicians, if he or she is elected. Take away Washington's power to tax and regulate business as it does and that money would dry up, fast. It's a system that is flawed but probably not about to change anytime soon, no matter who is elected in November.

The Libertarian party is against the drug laws on a broad principle of individual freedom that, in my view, ignores the wider and equally important concern for a functioning society that isn't encumbered by a higher level of drug addicts being drugged and cared for by us non-druggie taxpayers. Ralph Nader believes that 'marijuana is a medicine' so at best, he's 'soft' on drugs, at worst, he's all for them. We have to take our 'medicine', y'know.

Fringe party candidates have always appealed to either special interest groups (anti-business, pro-drugs, you name it) and will always have some attraction for some people. Those who don't like the major party candidates always have another party to vote for, even if that candidate has no chance to win. It becomes a 'protest' vote. In our form of democracy the fringe parties (there are about a dozen on the presidential ballot this year) have a right to exist and to try to persuade as many people as possible to vote for them, for whatever reason. Collectively, they get a tiny percent of the total vote and rarely make a statistical difference, except in razor-close elections, such as we had in 2000. Nader's candidacy (on the Green Party ticket that year - he's an independent this time around) very likely hurt Al Gore and so, helped George W. Bush. This time, Nader is a very, very minor factor and while he'll drain some votes from Kerry, he probably won't affect the outcome of the election, which I predict will be a decisive win by Bush.

I hope this helps clarify things for you. :)

Re: Political potpourri
 

Actually, the Chevrolet Corvair was a rear engine, rear drive vehicle with an aluminum, air cooled, pancake 6cyl. engine. Some of the later "Corvair Spiders" (Monzas?) had 2 carbs, 4 speed and dual exhaust. I think they were rated at around 180 HP and were pretty quick for the day. Nader did pretty much kill it with his book "Unsafe at Any Speed", that SOB.

The American public was not used to the weight distibution of a rear engine car and accidents did occur. Swing-axle rear suspensions didn't help either. Same with Volkswagen beetles and some Porsches that had the swing axle rear susp[ension. The Corvair may have had some other handling issues as well, but it was kind of a neat little car IMHO. The Falcon was introduced by Ford as a direct result and as a competitor to the Corvair.

I think the Corvair came out in about 1960.

Rev

Re: Re: Political potpourri
 

Originally posted by Rev :

Quote:

Actually, the Chevrolet Corvair was a rear engine, rear drive vehicle with an aluminum, air cooled, pancake 6cyl. engine. Some of the later "Corvair Spiders" (Monzas?) had 2 carbs, 4 speed and dual exhaust. I think they were rated at around 180 HP and were pretty quick for the day. Nader did pretty much kill it with his book "Unsafe at Any Speed", that SOB. The American public was not used to the weight distibution of a rear engine car and accidents did occur. Swing-axle rear suspensions didn't help either. Same with Volkswagen beetles and some Porsches that had the swing axle rear suspension. The Corvair may have had some other handling issues as well, but it was kind of a neat little car IMHO. The Falcon was introduced by Ford as a direct result and as a competitor to the Corvair. I think the Corvair came out in about 1960. Rev

Right on all counts, Rev and I thank you for the correction regarding the ill-fated Corvair.

The Chevrolet Corvair did come out in '60 and I believe that it was quite popular for awhile but in an era of huge cars that used mass to 'protect' the occupants in a crash, an accident with a Corvair and, say, a '57 Chevy would usually mean serious injury or death to the occupants of the tiny, rear-engined Corvair. That and the 'handling issues' you mentioned were the basis of Ralph Nader's book. He blamed the GM corporation for knowingly producing a 'dangerous' car that was really only dangerous for an inexperienced driver or because of the prevalence of much larger vehicles on the road at that point in time (early 1960's). Once 'cheap' gas became scarce in the 1970's and federal gas mileage requirements became more stringent, smaller cars began to become more popular and we all know where it went from there. By the 80's, the big cars of yesteryear were already dinosaurs and the small but peppy and efficient cars from Japan were the rage.

The Chevy Corvair was ahead of it's time and the Ford Falcon was simply a forerunner to the Escort, which sold millions.

Corvair
 

No biggy there. to be honest with you I hate these cars. they look like they're made so cheap. A neighbor of mine has 3.
I get tired of looking at the damn things

Re: Corvair
 

I think the earliest ones sold for $2000 or less. There were some rather cheap aspects to the car, however it was supposed to be an economy car as noted earlier by Mr 5 0. The gear selector for the Power Glide 2 speed auto trans looked more like a heater vent control. It was mounted vertically on the dash. That flimsy little lever connected to a cable that operated the gear selector in the transaxle. It was cheap looking.

Rev

I believe the hotter versions were called Monza's. They were capable of about 115-120 mph. The rear weight did cause the rear end to slide around in a sharp corner at speed. Once side ways they were likely to roll.

I was around in those days and couple of my young friends did flip these cars.

They weren't nearly as much fun as the later Chevells and Camero's, Fairlanes and Mustangs. But more fun than a Chevy II

I always thought they were trying to produce a sporty VW bug with the Corvair