FAQ
Over the past month, we’ve received thousands of emails asking about what Commuter Outrage is and who we are. Below are the most common questions, and our answers.
Q: Why did you start this site?
Judd: We’re tired of paying taxes to a government that refuses to take the necessary steps to fix our crumbling transportation infrastructure and in fact makes the situation worse on a daily basis. We’re sick of highway congestion, overcrowded subways, inadequate light rail service, a nonexistent high-speed passenger train, idiotic airport security checkpoints, flight delays, and much more. Our purpose is to expose the fraud, waste, abuse, and general stupidity of everyone involved in this national embarrassment.
Lewis: Judd started the site, and I was so angry that he invited me to contribute.
Q: What, exactly, are you advocating here?
Judd: We believe in all modes of transportation – cars, buses, subways, light rail, long-distance trains, airplanes, bicycles, walking. We believe that our government should enable all of these modes through infrastructure construction, maintenance, and upgrades, which is why we pay income taxes in the first place. We don’t believe it’s the role of government to socially engineer us through additional taxation and regulation toward attitudes and behaviors it thinks would be best for us (but which we do not prefer). We believe that the government should allow us to decide ourselves how to get from point A to point B. In terms of paying for our infrastructure, we believe the government should shift existing tax dollars from pork-barrel projects, rather than levying new taxes.
Lewis: I agree with all of the above, and I advocate for less government waste in favor of investment in our infrastructure.
Q: Are Judd Wiley and Lewis Derkins your real names?
Judd: What do you think?
Lewis: You’ll never know the answer to this question. Does it matter?
Q: Is this a right-wing Republican blog?
Judd: First of all, this is not a blog. It’s a magazine scholarly journal. Second, we’re neither right-wing nor left-wing, Republican nor Democrat. We’re fed up with all sides, and are equal opportunity offenders.
Lewis: Absolutely not. I hate all political parties except the Bull Moose Party.
Q: So who funds this thing?
Judd: I do. $50 to purchase the URL. $6.95 per month for hosting.
Lewis: Judd funds, I mostly tag along.
Q: So you’re not funded by the automobile lobby?
Judd: No.
Lewis: Did you not read my posts on riding the Metro? Do you think I do that just to make a case against it? I wish I was funded by the automobile lobby. Unfortunately, since I’m not subsidized, I have to continue to commute on Metro, which is awful.
Q: So you’re not funded by some right-wing foundation?
Judd: No.
Lewis: I’ll take anyone’s money, right or left wing. But I reserve the right to be belligerent as hell and say whatever I want about whomever I want. That said, Judd owns this site, so I can’t take anyone’s money on behalf of the site without it going through him first.
Q: Do you guys have real jobs?
Judd: Yes.
Lewis: Yes.
Q: What consulting and law firms do you work at?
Judd: That’s none of your business.
Lewis: What difference does it make?
Q: How much money do you make?
Judd: That’s none of your business.
Lewis: Not enough to afford gas or mass transit.
Q: Where did you go to college?
Judd: That’s none of your business.
Lewis: I didn’t.
Q: What makes you qualified to comment on transportation issues?
Judd: We use our nation’s transportation infrastructure on a daily basis. We are the “customers” so to speak.
Lewis: I pay taxes, therefore I run my mouth.
Q: If you live in DC, what makes you qualified to comment on other cities like New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Boston that you don’t live in?
Judd: What makes you qualified to tell us we can’t comment on cities we don’t live in? Plus, we’ve lived in or visit regularly all of the above-mentioned cities, plus several others.
Lewis: Boondoggles are boondoggles, wherever they may be. It doesn’t take special insider knowledge to spot them, just a healthy application of common sense.
Q: If you don’t like your commute, why don’t you move closer to work?
Judd: Because our jobs are located in areas that are (A) too expensive or (B) undesirable places to live because of crime, drugs, poverty, bad schools, etc.
Lewis: I live 2.5 miles from work (1.8 as the crow flies), and it still takes me almost 40 minutes to get there on mass transit. I couldn’t move closer unless I lived in the building.
Q: Why do you hate the government so much?
Judd: We don’t hate the government. We hate the fact that many of the people in government - politicians, bureaucrats, civil servants, etc. - have worsened our commutes unnecessarily through boneheaded policies.
Lewis: I hate anyone who takes money that I work hard for and squanders it on crap than benefits no one. I don’t hate all government, just wasteful inefficient bureaucracy.
Q: Why do you hate environmentalists?
Judd: We don’t hate environmentalists. We love the outdoors. We hate radical environmentalists who cite junk science as proof that we need to fundamentally alter our society and economy.
Lewis: Because they are dangerous. Environmentalists are the equivalent of the apocalyptic street corner prophets standing there with a sign reading “the end is near”. They use scaremongering to get you to “act now” without thinking about what they’re doing, and they produce catastrophic results. Environmentalists have killed millions of people every year because they opposed DDT on the basis of junk science – this leads to approximately 2 million deaths per year in Africa – and there has never been a scientific study linking DDT to any harm to anything other than the lifespan of mosquitoes. Right now environmentalists are starving millions more people to death and plunging the third world into instability because of their rush to turn 1/3 of our food into fuel for cars – ethanol gets worse gas mileage, cannot cover the existing demand, and is starving people. But we just had to do something. Environmentalists have successfully lobbied Congress to outlaw fluorescent light bulbs in favor of CFLs, but CFLs are full of mercury – about which they have been doomsday preaching for decades – which will seep into groundwater once broken bulbs end up in landfills. Right now they are trying to get the government to adopt the Kyoto Protocol – an international treaty mandating reduction of carbon emissions. Every single country that has adopted this treaty has failed to meet its goals – and not for lack of trying. The Kyoto Protocol is going to crush the economy all so that environmentalists can say they did something to address their apocalyptic visions. Before you buy into global warming, ask yourself this – how many times have environmentalists been right about any of their predictions? Look it up, you’ll be surprised. Ask yourself another question - if we can’t predict the weather three days from now, how can you predict the climate, which is thousands of times more complex, 100 years from now? You can’t, and neither can environmentalists.
Q: Why do you hate bicyclists?
Judd: We don’t hate bicyclists. Lewis sometimes rides his bike to work, since it’s faster than riding the DC Metro. We hate radical bicyclists who want to force all cars off the road through taxation or regulation.
Lewis: I don’t. I bike to work sometimes, and enjoy it, but I’m not willing to sacrifice automobiles and force everyone to ride bikes.
Q: Why do you hate pedestrians?
Judd: We don’t hate pedestrians, considering that we are pedestrians ourselves on a daily basis.
Lewis: I don’t, who told you this?
Q: Why do you oppose the “bikeable/walkable movement”?
Judd: We think it’s ill-conceived, illogical, unreasonable, untested, and not in the best socio-economic interests of our country.
Lewis: See environmentalists – this is a bunch of hooey that is usually pushed on you under the guise of saving the environment. Everyone cannot currently walk or bike to work, and contrary to what the people who push this movement will tell you, all of those people cannot live close enough to the city to walk or bike to work in the future.
Q: What’s a “mugheaded yard ape”?
Judd: It’s an offensive and derogatory term for a black person, used incorrectly and ignorantly by a radical bicyclist in reference to Judd and Lewis.
Lewis: It is a term that made me cry when I first heard it, and then made me angry at the bigot who posted it.
Q: Why are you so racist?
Judd: Show us one example of racism on this site.
Lewis: How do you know I’m not a minority? As Judd says, show me an example of racism on this site.
Q: Why are you so elitist?
Judd: Show us one example of elitism on this site.
Lewis: How can I be elitist when I advocate for all forms of transportation? In fact, most of the positions I take against environmentalists or people who oppose automobiles are rooted in the fact that it hurts working class people.
Q: Why are you so thoughtless and sociopathic?
Judd: Please define those very subjective words and get back to us.
Lewis: I can’t answer this question without thinking, and since I’m thoughtless, this is a hopeless task.
Q: Why do you like to pick on the homeless, the downtrodden, and the poor so much?
Judd: Because we’re thoughtless and sociopathic.
Lewis: I don’t, but I also don’t like belligerent homeless beggars, who are obviously capable of working, getting in my face. I feel sympathy for people who deserve sympathy, not people who demand it.
Q: Who is Mr. Hiss Kaag?
Judd: We have no idea who Mr. Kaag is. Do you know who he is?
Lewis: Mr. Kaag frequently posts replies on our site, but we do not endorse him in any way, nor do we understand why he links to IHOP.
Q: Do you really believe all of this stuff you write?
Judd: Yes. Otherwise, why would we write it?
Lewis: I believe that I am supremely right in everything that comes out of my mouth, even if it contradicts something I said 10 minutes before. You will never be right when you argue with me, but I may concede points from time to time, only to prove to you that you are right because you agree with me.
