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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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