You May "Fly Over" but you Cannot Stop a Train

In Fruita, Colorado, on a sunny day you can look overhead and see the paths that  large aircraft have taken as they rushed their passengers and cargo from one coast to the other. Air travel is an amazing American invention where hundreds of people can climb into an metal tube and in hours travel across this great land.   A journey which took months on horse and wagon, weeks in a train and days in an automobile. A sure sign of progress. The trip is fast, relativity inexpensive (for how many miles are traveled) and efficient.

Also in Fruita, Colorado several times a day you can hear the rumblings of  hundreds of tons of locomotives and train cars passing through town. They are also efficient, but  it is a different kind of efficient. While an aircraft can get you from one point to another quickly a train can carry more weight from "point A" to "point B" than an airplane can, even though this mode of travel is much slower.

This is analogy is representative of how I think the American political spectrum is shaping up the last 4 or 5 years. The liberal left is representative of the pretty, new, and shiny aircraft. The conservative right is representative of the mechanical, aged and dark locomotive.

Four years ago the country wanting a quick escape from economic hardships, and trials of battles fought abroad they leaped at the chance to board the "Hope and Change" airliner that promised to whisk them out of their current doldrums and take them to a new and exciting place. A place where all things promised were shiny and new and the their problems could be solved in a speedy journey into the "wild blue yonder".

As the 747 zipped across the country the passengers could look out the sealed windows from the climate controlled cabin and witness the checkerboard pattern of rural American farms as they zoomed to their promised destination . Unquestioning his abilities and experience, they trusted their pilot and let him take control of their journey.

At train stations located 30,000 feet below there was another type of American boarding the "Liberty Special". A 100 ton steam locomotive, billowing black smoke and cinders.   The "Liberty Special" passengers boarded feeling confident that the locomotive would arrive at their destination safely and securely because the Liberty Special had made the journey many times over a hundred years.

As the Liberty Special  lurched forward to start her journey, the Hope and Change airliner had already traveled hundreds of miles passing legislation like the "Stimulus bill", the automaker bailout, "Cash for Clunkers" and "Obamacare". The pilot rushing to his destination, never opened the cockpit door to check on the status of his passengers. With the high speed of the aircraft and the lack of experience of the pilot the passengers were getting ill. They started to realize they had made a mistake on how to travel to the destination.

The Liberty Special was slowly creeping to speed in 2009 when Chris Christie was elected Governor of New Jersey, Scott Brown elected to the Senate and the birth of the Tea Party movement. By 2010, the Liberty Special was approaching full speed with the sweeping Congressional election. The passengers of the train know that the safest way to arrive at your destination was to rely on Liberty. The path they take is trusted and secure.

While it is true that the passengers on the Hope and Change may be on approach to land, the passengers are violently ill then they realize that one of the large engines on the plane had failed due to poor spending habits of the airline company. The pilot, in an effort to comfort his ill passengers, let them know that the reason for the failure of the engine and reason for their illness was due to the negligence of a locomotive engineer that was was operating a train four years ago. Then through the window the pilot notices a large flock of Canadian Geese.....


The moral of the story is take your time, enjoy the trip and always take Liberty over Hope and Change

A little video of the Silverton Train with music by C.W. McCall both in the Great State of Colorado.