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[quote user="Matt Van Hattem"] This is a great thread! Some of you may be following the struggle to get a passenger train running between Milwaukee and Madison, Wis. What started out as a good idea has turned into a politicla football. I just wrote a blog about this for the Trains Web site: <A href="http://cs.trains.com/trccs/blogs/trains-talk/2010/08/20/my-night-with-the-train-haters.aspx" mce_href="http://cs.trains.com/trccs/blogs/trains-talk/2010/08/20/my-night-with-the-train-haters.aspx">http://cs.trains.com/trccs/blogs/trains-talk/2010/08/20/my-night-with-the-train-haters.aspx</A> It was my first experience first-hand with this. Your comments, and examples from around the country, have been fascinating to read. Matt Van Hattem Senior Editor[/quote]    Matt, <?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /><o:p></o:p> I think your use of the term “train hater” is a politically inflammatory cheap shot.  It implies that anyone passionately opposed to publicly funded rail projects has a character flaw.  The political left is always referring to the political right as “haters,” as a way to demonize the right’s opposition to runaway government spending and expansion, which is often predicated on compassion.  It is very similar to the left’s use of the term “global warming denier” as a way to link opposition to the anti-carbon agenda to the seeming stupidity and unreasonableness of denying the holocaust as in the term, "holocaust denier," which is the only other popular use of the term, denier.   <o:p></o:p> When I read your piece, I don’t see many examples of what I would call NIMBYISM.  NIMBYS oppose projects because they object to the impact, noise, dust, danger, and the affect on their property values.  Instead, what I read in your piece are many examples of the political objection to the runaway expansion of government, which is leading us away from a free market economy, and toward a socialist, redistributionist system.  If the country were chugging along with a balanced budget, a government living within its means, economic growth, job creation, and an optimistic future, I doubt there would much opposition to a publicly funded passenger rail project. <o:p></o:p> Where is the hatred in opposing public funding of rail projects that people don’t think are the best use of taxpayers’ money?
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