[Superman]

I've mentioned this before. It's Friday. Most of you are starting your weekend but Legion is still here to joust with. What the heck.

There are several roadways in my daily travels where you need to be in the right, exit only, lane in order to get where you are going. Lots of other folks going there too. Traffic in other lanes is smooth, but the exit only lane gets plugged. Why? I'll get to that in a moment.

I'm in the slow, exit-only lane. In a substantially healthy, fairly light 911. Cars are whizzing past me in the next lane. Guess what their agenda is? Yup. They need to take the exit I am waiting for. Sadly, they know there will be cars near the front of the line who are following at more than one car length. That's all these asshats need, and they slip into that spot. Because of this, I'm stopped on the freeway. There is plenty of flow along the exit I need to take. The only reason I'm stopped is because of the extra cars that are inserting themselves into the line up front. But for those aggressive asshats, traffic along all lanes, including the exit only lane, would flow smoothly.

This is analagous to socialism versus capitalism. I'm the socialist. I'm wishing everyone could cooperate toward a smooth traffic flow. If they would, there would be no bottleneck. I'm not willing to get aggressive (I do my aggressive driving on tracks, not public roads) in this instance but if I did, I'd have an easy time robbing the space up front that I'm not really entitled to, at the expense of other drivers. I drive tiny car with ferocious brakes.

We applaud the winners. Someone takes a few liberties and as a consequence, they enjoy a commute that is shorter than the rest of us. We might stand up and applaud, as this is the kind of aggression we value. Nevermind that it's not necessary and just causes traffic for everyone to get balled up.

BTW, if you drive in the Seattle area and you're one of these drivers, my mirrors work well. The car is a sort of dark, metallic bronze. I can see you coming. I know your agenda. And while I'm not going to brake HARD or accelerate HARD in order to cut you off, I'm going to deliberately deny you the space you're hoping for. And I will laugh my ass off if this causes you to continue to the next exit. Unfortunately, it won't do that. You'll plug other freeway lanes if you have to, and someone will eventually let you in. And so.......there is a clear opportunity for you to take space and time away from other people. Which is why you do it. Because you can. And because we value greed, here in America. Not cooperation.