It’s great to be back after a long Christmas break. Much has happened in the world since my last post. Today, however, I’d like to begin with a story that’s unfolding in New York.
There’s one thing we know: Government officials, whether they’re elected politicians in this country or despots in the third world, do not like being reminded of their failures. This is why the greatest crime in any dictatorship is noticing. You aren’t supposed to notice things that are embarrassing to the ruling regime. It’s also why comedy and satire are banned in places like North Korea, just like they’re banned on late-night talk shows in this country. Petty, corrupt and ineffective people can’t stand it when their incompetence is exposed. They’re willing to take extreme measures to prevent that from happening. Right now, in the city of New York, we’re getting a very clear sense of what those “extreme measures” look like, in practice.
If you’ve seen the news lately, you know that the subway system is one of the most obvious and unavoidable signs of New York’s decline. It’s a monument to the many failures of the city government. As of late last year, ridership on New York’s subway system is down more than 25% from pre-pandemic levels. That means that, every day, there are at least a million fewer people riding the subway in New York, as compared to five years ago.
It’s not exactly a great mystery as to why people are avoiding it. There’s a constant stream of violent attacks on the trains and the platforms — from people being pushed in front of the trains to a woman getting burned alive. Yes, if you didn’t hear about that, a woman was burned alive, on a train, in New York, in front of a crowd of people. This is what’s happening now in the third world country known as New York City. And that’s just within the last few weeks. These attacks are effectively endorsed and enabled by New York’s government, which has made the political decision not to incarcerate most criminals.
That explains why a man named Jamar Banks was able to use the subway the other day. The New York Post reports that, “A subway maniac with 87 prior arrests was just busted for two transit stabbings — carrying the large knife he allegedly used in the violence … Banks’ rap sheet includes arrests for alleged attempted murder, weapons possession, assault, criminal trespassing, turnstile jumping and petty larceny.”
If politicians in New York didn’t want to destroy the city, they’d immediately throw every criminal like Jamar Banks in prison. They’d start enforcing the law. It’s actually not hard to prevent people from getting randomly stabbed, torched, or thrown in front of trains. This is a very easy issue to address. The city could effectively end all of this madness overnight, in one fell swoop, if they wanted to. All you have to do is take all the people who are already known violent criminals and put them in prison. Then you have to ban homeless people from setting up camp in the tunnels or on the trains, and arrest anyone who causes a disturbance. This could all be done in one day.
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But none of that is happening. Instead, rather than admit they’ve failed their constituents, politicians in New York have just decided to compel citizens to use the subway. They’ve opted to make it financially untenable for most New Yorkers to avoid public transit. That’s their solution to the fact that no one in the city wants to ride the subway anymore. They’re going to force them to do it.
I’m talking about so-called “congestion pricing.” After several years of debate, this “congestion pricing” has just taken effect in Manhattan. In essence, this is a tax on anyone who wants to drive a vehicle into the heart of New York during work hours — as if it wasn’t already expensive enough to live in that diseased, rat-infested, crime-riddled, reeking, filthy, godforsaken hellhole of a city. This new tax is a very clear effort to force New Yorkers to use the subway system, which has become an international embarrassment. People don’t want to use it because they don’t want to be assaulted by schizophrenic vagrants. So the solution isn’t to get rid of the schizophrenic vagrants. Instead it’s to simply force everyone to use it, basically offering law abiding citizens up as sacrifices to the dregs of the community.
Specifically, this new tax covers the vast majority of vehicles entering Manhattan between 60th Street and the Battery, which includes Times Square, Hell’s Kitchen, the theater district, and other high-traffic areas. From 5:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. on weekdays, and from 9:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m on weekends — which is obviously a huge block of time — the so-called “peak period toll rate” is in effect. For all “passenger and small commercial vehicles,” that toll rate is $9.00 during the peak period.
To be clear about the political dynamics here, the majority of New Yorkers oppose congestion pricing, as far as I can tell. A Sienna College survey from last summer found that nearly two-thirds of people living in the city didn’t want a $15.00 “congestion toll.”
In response to the outcry, the governor of New York briefly suspended the plan. Then she said she’d lower the toll a few dollars, claiming it would save New Yorkers some money. To reiterate, she claimed she was saving New Yorkers money by taking less of their money than she was originally going to take. This was a prime example of political “girl math,” as I outlined at the time. And now it’s taken effect.
Naturally, some Left-wing New Yorkers rallied in response to their government gouging them even more. But instead of rallying against it, they actually rallied to thank their overlords for the privilege of being bilked by them. Some of these scenes are so absurd that they don’t even seem like they can be real.
Here for example is a crowd cheering as the signage for the congestion pricing is unveiled:
"3, 2, 1… Happy congestion pricing!" – New Yorkers *applaud* as the MTA unveils new regulatory tolls on them pic.twitter.com/o55GtYlw92
— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) January 5, 2025
Yes, you just heard someone shouting, “Happy congestion pricing.” They are celebrating the implementation of an unprecedented tax, as if it’s a national holiday.
This would seem to be boot-licking taken to an unparalleled extreme, and it is. But we should also understand that really they’re celebrating the fact that, because of this tax, wealthy New Yorkers will have to contend with fewer working class people on the roads in Manhattan. The same people who celebrated the assassination of the health care CEO as some kind of twisted “victory for the little guy” are very, very happy about using a tax to keep poor people away from them.
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That’s a pretty big clue that none of these people actually care about “the little guy.” If you ask them, of course, they’ll pretend otherwise. In particular, they’ll say that congestion pricing is necessary because it will help pay for improvements to the subway system.
For example, when the governor briefly halted the plan for congestion pricing last summer, this was the response:
If you want to explain to someone how cities like New York are collapsing, just show them that clip. According to the residents of New York, it’s a “great betrayal” that the government isn’t taxing them enough. That is how these people think.
To be fair, the first guy was arguably a little less pathetic. He was talking about all of the alleged benefits that will result from congestion pricing. He’s saying they’ll be able to improve the subway system to make it more “accessible,” which is a talking point a lot of these protesters used. Watch:
One of the many false assumptions these people are making is that more money will improve the subway system. But that’s not true. And we know that because the New York subway system is a comically obvious example of waste and mismanagement in government.
For example, the Second Avenue subway that was recently constructed in Manhattan somehow cost more money than any other similar subway system on the planet — by a lot. As Bloomberg reports: “At $2.5 billion per mile, construction costs for the 1.8-mile Phase 1 of the Second Avenue Subway were 8 to 12 times more expensive than similar subway projects in Italy, Istanbul, Sweden, Paris, Berlin and Spain.”
So that’s one potential way to raise revenue, right off the bat. They could stop lighting money on fire. Secondly, if you’re worried about congestion in Manhattan, you could try a lot of things besides charging people to drive their cars. You could, for example, try opening more lanes, instead of closing them for cyclists and construction. Anyone who’s ever driven through Manhattan could tell you that. Here’s one example:
Couldn’t have said it better myself.
The city caused this “congestion”. And now anti-car activists are celebrating by taunting drivers at toll gantries.#FuckCongestionPricing pic.twitter.com/nMIYOiWQLY
— The Fight against Anti-Car (@NoBikeLanes) January 5, 2025
This is something no one ever mentions as a possible solution. Get rid of the stupid bike lanes. You’ll find this same thing in cities all over the country. You have to sit in traffic because the city has blocked off entire lanes so that people can ride their bicycles in the street. As I’ve said many times, they might as well block off lanes so that you can use your ab roller or bench press in the middle of the street. If you want to exercise — that’s great, I support it. But you shouldn’t be doing it in the road when everyone is trying to commute to work.
One of the arguments you’ll hear from these activists is that, somehow, this new tax will reduce carbon emissions and change the weather and save the planet. This is science, you see. Step 1: you pay a toll. Step 3: hurricanes stop happening. The problem is that Step 2 is a bit foggy. And anyway, even if you assume that reducing carbon emissions by a tiny amount will change the weather for the better, it’s a moot point, because this won’t actually reduce carbon emissions. Instead, traffic is going to move elsewhere. People living in New Jersey understand that pretty well, which is why they’re suing to stop this tax.
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But regardless, even if you don’t buy any of the counter-arguments — even if you think that New York’s government urgently needs more money to improve the subway — it’s still not clear why “congestion pricing” is the best way to raise that revenue. Why not raise taxes on those evil corporations that the Left claims to hate so much? Why are they raising taxes on regular citizens instead?
It only makes sense when you realize, again, that the objective is to force more people into public transit, and get them off the roads.
Admittedly, this whole fiasco may seem irrelevant to anyone who has the good sense to not live in New York. But this sort of madness can be found, in varying degrees, wherever Democrats have power. The idea that Trump’s re-election would be some kind of wake up call for Democrats is a fantasy. They can’t be woken up because they aren’t asleep or in some sort of trance. They’re doing exactly what they want, and their policies are having precisely the effect they intend.
Here for example is an image from the New York subway system:
🚨 NYC subway riders are all terrified of being shoved in front of a train. pic.twitter.com/HCXmcRJ69S
— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) January 5, 2025
You’ll notice that everyone is standing against the wall, because they don’t want to get pushed on the tracks by some psycho. It’s straight-up dystopian and you have to wonder how long people will put up with it.
If there’s any waking up that can happen and must happen, it’s among the average citizens in places like New York. If they ever come to their senses and realize that the people they put in power are actively and intentionally making their lives worse in just about every measurable way, then maybe things will start to change for the better.
Unfortunately, for everyone living in New York, based on the celebrations we’re seeing in support of “congestion pricing” — which is really a tax on using your own property and going about your daily life — it doesn’t look like that will happen any time soon.
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