Date: Tue, 2 May 1995 14:17:14 -0700
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From: wabbott@townshend.Corp.Megatest.COM (William Abbott)
Subject: Ethics:
I think it was Thomas Aquinus who wrote on those who fear to
act because they fear to sin, even unintentionally. "Act", he wrote, "and sin."
Drive your bus, and accept it, or give it to someone else who will. If your
bus is really public domain, when was the last time you changed the oil?
Its just 2000lb of metal and plastic and rubber and toxic waste unless
YOU or someone else takes responsibility for it. Its refuse, a blight on
the landscape, the worst symbol of 20th century civilization UNLESS
its used and cared for. Its a spiritual and physical danger to all beings
around it unless it is cared for.
I've included some detailed observations below:
>I've got a dillema that I am hoping you can all help me solve. Here's the deal.
> I, and I hope, most of you, believe that all microbi should be public domain.
Dear GOAH,
WOAH Bro! We've already parted company. microbusses and transporters
and Vangons and EV's are all products of VW gmbh, are registered trade marks,
used by permission, etc. Furthermore, the only one's I've seen maintained
*belonged* to some specific individual or group. Someone made their bread
making the thing- it didn't just grow, it isn't natures bounty or a mango
found on the side of the road. Someone keeps it running, fills it with gas.
Heck, many of us, if not you, have built relationships with
the *particular* bus/etc. we care for.
> Microbi are a symbol of love, harmony, and peace with fellow man.
Sorry, we've gone further appart. VWs are felicitously designed
and built tools for moving peole and stuff from point to point on roads.
They are associated in the USA and perhaps Europe and Japan with the
youth culture of the 60s and 70s. The key is focus. What's important are
the ideals some bus owers and operators have and had, the successful
translation of those ideals into what the Buddists call "Right Action"
and the nice feeling many of us get from our busses, either by those
associations or by the way busses feel to drive, to use, to own and work on.
> Therefore, it seems to me a hideous crime to lock a microbus. At the same time,
> however, I do have tools which I keep in her which I consider to be only mine.
> I need them while I'm driving for when she breaks down, of course; and I don't
> want to have to carry my tools in and out every time I drive her. Yet I'm
> afraid that, where I live, my tools will be taken if I leave her unlocked.
>
> Does anyone have any valuable insights?
Yeah. If you don't feel comfortable owning, and taking ownership,
of your bus, give it away or sell it to someone. Ask the person who takes
it from you if they consider it public domain, and whether you can borrow
it once in a while. You seem to be comfortable owning your tools and want
to keep them. Your bus is apparently a tool you aren't sure you want to own.
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