steve-in-kville 

I think what he meant was... they never worked in the "system." Outside of the system would be paid cash under the table, self-employed or as a "limited partner" or private contractor instead of a regular employee. Arrangements like that are pretty common, as it saves the employer a lot in expenses.

Why do I have this feeling this thread is gonna drift??!!

McBTC

The feeling I think comes from what is talked about versus underlying beliefs that are not discussed. While there seems to be a controversy about the legitimacy of car ownership, given alleged viable alternatives to the use of cars -- bikes being just one possible alternative -- the fact is that the LCF sub-forum is motivated by an undisclosed agenda: undisclosed because the LCF-faithful cannot be honest about their motives without landing their comments in P&R as being ideologically-motivated beliefs that have nothing to do with the love of bikes and the sport of cycling.

Ridefreemc

Maybe I'm incorrect, but it seems as though talking about the love of riding a bicycle here (i.e. LCF - replacing a car entirely) and not occasionally discussing the dislike for cars should not land the discussion in P&R. Why so protective of the opinion on cars. Doesn't make sense. Oh, I'm sure there are those that are LCF that are fine with the car world, but my guess is a lot of LCFers don't like cars for one reason or another and want to talk about that here. Why should that go to P&R, that is "POLITICS and RELIGION" right? It's cars we are talking about, not anything personal (unless you make it out to be personal, then that is an issue you might want to work on in yourself).

steve-in-kville 

Dude... I get you, really I do. But posts like that are exactly why I hesitate to participate in the LCF forum. I'm simply tired of conspiracy threads.

ETA: I'm not attacking you as a fellow BFC member.... I'm just at the end of my rope with some of the threads here lately.

I-Like-To-Bike

Six pages of "drift" already posted?

steve-in-kville 

Quite actually... reading back on this one, this thread was derailed since day one.

I-Like-To-Bike

Disagree; the issue is that the P&R based, so-called underlying beliefs are raised ad infinitum by the same cast of characters, using the cover of being part and parcel required beliefs for truly living car free.

Actually living car free (ya know, without a car in the household) in many cases is secondary to repeatedly espousing the appropriate PC P&R underlying beliefs on this list.

Walter S

I wish you would quit calling me a liar. I've said why I'm car free and you continue to make blanket statements about the stated reasons being a deception. I find that personally offensive and uncalled for.

Why is it unbelievable to you that some people enjoy using their bicycles as their main transportation?

Ekdog

A love for the sport of cycling is not a prerequisite for participating here, and I think most of us who are enthusiastic about LCF are quite open and honest about our motives. Just what are those "ideologically motivated beliefs" you think we're hiding?

B. Carfree

Hmmm, I'm kind of a LCF-faithful. However, I am motivated almost entirely by my love of cycling and the associated sporting aspects of cycling. Nothing makes my day like a nice long, challenging bike ride, particularly one with a good deal of climbing. My vacations always center around riding, usually because my typical vacation is a bike tour.

Yes, there's an environmental component, but if cars were suddenly found to be enhancers of our environment rather than destroyers, I'd still use my bikes for the overwhelming majority of my travel desires and fill most of the remainder with walking and train rides (don't really care for buses).

Perhaps I'm mistaken, but it looks to me like there are numerous participants on LCF who feel the same way about bikes that I do.

cooker

Your misunderstanding of the purpose of bike forums and your apparent rage at people who don't share that misunderstanding is quite tiresome. The main purpose of bike forums is for the owners to make money off ads, and for that they want people spending time here,and likely they don't care much what is discussed. Sure, bike forums is primarily for discussions around cycling, but you don't have to "love bikes and the sport of cycling" to participate, any more than you have to "love cars and motorsports" to post in an automobile forum asking whether you need snow tires or can make do with all-seasons. Enough people wanted to discuss car-free living on this bicycle forum, that management accomodated them by setting up a subforum for that purpose, thus increasing participation and generating more revenue for the owners. Your obsession with how this somehow violates some necessary homage to the "love of bikes and the sport of cycling" reflects your failure to understand the purpose of the overall forum and this subforum.
As for "agendas", I would say you are the one driven by some kind of agenda - why don't you come clean, why are you really here? Clearly you're not here to discuss your love of bikes - you don't even bike to work, as far as I know - you're just some hobbyist when it comes to cycling, who treats bikes as toys. Amateur.

McBTC

This thread obviously wasn't started by a representative of the LCF movement. But, it has to do with the reality of the LCF movement which isn't so much about being car-free or carfree-ish as it is about being, kid-free, permanence-free (a transient lifestyle), suburban(country)-free (vs. living in the city) and/or freeway-free (most people who drive cars do not live, "ridiculously close to their jobs"). Being car free has it's appeal but not because cars are bad and something to be avoided. Rather, it's because most of us love bikes and the sport of cycling and, as the OP captures pretty well, we'd all at least like to entertain the thought that living in the real world, earning a living and doing the things we want to do was as easy as doing something we all enjoy a lot, like riding a bike...

Roody

Many Amish work off the farm, typically in a factory making furniture or edible goods. They are required to pay FICA taxes just like any other worker. And if they work enough years, they become eligible to collect Social Security benefits just like anybody else.

McBTC

IRS Form 4029 (faq.ssa.gov)

Are members of religious groups exempt from paying Social Security taxes?

Members of certain religious groups (including the Amish and Mennonites) may be exempt from paying Social Security taxes. To become exempt, they must:

willydstyle

I firmly believe that cars are objectively bad and something to be avoided. I don't see how anyone can look at the pollution they cause, the lives they take, the resources they use and don't pay for fully (roads and gas are both heavily subsidized by *all* tax payers, those who drive and those who don't), the personal financial expense of owning, driving and maintaining a car, and say, "yeah that's a really good thing."

For many they are a necessary evil due to the realities of living in a society that makes it difficult to live without one, so I recognize that not everyone *can* live car free, but the world would be a better place if they could.

McBTC

Obviously, a personal belief having zero to do with why people come to the bike forums but pretty much what I see are beliefs that not only animate the LCF movement but are useful to those who with other ideologically-motivated beliefs that have zero to do with cars or bikes -- i.e., as proxies that as Mike Hulme observed, highlight "conflicts between alternative visions of what society should be like and about who has authority to promote such visions."

willydstyle

How is it a "personal belief" when the cold hard facts of widespread car ownership are easily accessible?

Walter S

Because what's less accessible and universally acceptable is what will replace the cars? Whatever murky mix of things that is.

B. Carfree

Gee, I just don't fit any of your straws. I've got a child and while we had a pick-up when he was young, it sat unused so much that not only did flowers sprout in the bed (after soil formed from the dust), but an ant colony also moved into the bed. 99% of our family travel when my child was a minor was car-free.

As far as permanence-free goes, well we have been homeowners for the past thirty years. There was one five-year period when we rented our home out and rented a place while trying out living in an adjacent state (it worked out ), but we then purchased another home and have been in it for over a decade. This is well beyond the national average for staying put.

Suburban-free? Well, sort of, but not the way you think. While trying out that adjacent state, we lived forty miles from the city out among the tree-farms. The safest route by bike was sixty miles. Remember that love of riding? Yes, I routinely rode 100 mile days between home and work. Fantastic commute! Forty miles of hilly rural highway at Oh-dark-thirty on the way in and sixty miles of hilly forest road along the river on the way home. I couldn't have been happier. (My wife developed a health condition and my son developed a chess condition that led us to relocate into the city for the amenities they needed/wanted; both better now).

Yes, I love riding my bikes and I still live car-light. (I like your term car-freeish, by the way.) However, that does not blind me to the simple demonstrable fact that cars are indeed evil. At least over-reliance on cars is evil, and our culture is currently rather over-reliant on them to such an extent that our environment and public health are suffering severely. But, like I said, if cars were suddenly transformed into something that was great for the environment, I'd still be riding my bikes.

Again, I see a lot of folks on the LCF forum who clearly are in love with riding their bikes. They bring a smile to my face every time they share something they have found. Please stop trying to bring them down.

McBTC

It is impossible to use science to make a case against Western industrial man and cars are nothing more than a very visible symbol of modernity-- we're all immeasurably better off than our ancestors. Being LCF while still living "the good life" is actually a byproduct of modernity and a testament to the myriad opportunities that it provides.

3alarmer 

.
...I just wanted to wish you all a Merry Christmas, except for @cooker. (note car free holiday theme)..Happy holiday season, cooker.

Ekdog

So am I. Note that he alleges that we LCFers are motivated by "an undisclosed agenda," yet he refuses to state just what that supposed agenda is, even when asked to do so. He's just trolling.

cooker

Best to you as well.

Walter S

I agree we're way better off. As I see it that's more about science than cars though. The cars make many things more convenient - at a cost that helps motivate some of us to live car freeish.

Ain't it the truth! The modern world with all its shipping and manufacturing infrastructure and trains, trucks, etc make so much of the world easily accessible. Almost anything you want is only a few miles away, in the city anyway.

McBTC

My guess is that >99% of all the bicycles sold in the US over the last 30 years were probably sold to enthusiasts who drove to bike shops in a car...