Steven Greenhut Sr. editorial writer and columnist The Orange County Register sgreenhut@ocregister.com

It's mid-summer, and my thoughts turn to an upcoming driving vacation, along highways and byways, through the countryside, to historic sites, cities and, finally, to my in-laws' house. Or, closer to home, perhaps it's time for you to pull down the ragtop and cruise up Highway 1 from Santa Barbara to Carmel.

"Puritanism," H.L. Mencken once wrote, "is the haunting fear that someone, somewhere may be happy." Although both parties and both sides of the political spectrum have their Puritanical moments, these days the political Left has the lion's share.

Look at what energizes modern liberals: anger at fatty foods, wealth disparities, urban sprawl, population growth, consumerism, capitalism. They are sure Planet Earth is turning into a boiling inferno because of the evils of modern industrialization, and have constructed a doomsday scenario worthy of Cotton Mather to bolster this idea.

It's all so confusing. Those of us who grew up in an age that celebrated human progress, advances in wealth, the melting pot and suburban life are now being told that all those things are unsustainable and evil, a pox on humanity and a threat to life itself.

All the statistics in the world - increasing life expectancies in the industrialized world, better health, less poverty, more economic equality, better opportunities for the vast majority of people - can't uplift those downers who are convinced too many people are happy.

Which brings me to the obvious next subject ... cars. Wonderful, horsepower-laden expressions of individualism that they are, these personal mobility devices are in many ways a central feature of the above-mentioned philosophical argument.

You wanna separate the Puritans from everyone else? Ask them their opinion on the Hummer, any one of the three models. Or about the new Ford GT supercar.

Normal, non-Puritanical folks will wax poetic about sports cars, convertibles, even minivans and station wagons. They will go on and on about their first car, and associate different vehicles with different stages in their life. They associate their cars with glorious road trips, taken with college chums or the family.

We love our cars. We love looking at other people's cars. We might not choose one, but normal folk do not mind when other people haul their families and gear around in an SUV. We get a kick out of the sheer bravado of the new Chrysler 300C, a 340-horsepower Bentley-esque creation that is an understandable hit among rap stars. And we get a chuckle out of the Hummer, especially the H1.

Who needs a military vehicle to cruise around Orange County? To the neo-Puritans, that's terrible. A waste of resources and a potential danger. They would never have allowed such a travesty to ever grace the streets. To the rest of us, the excess is the point. I wouldn't want one, although I have enjoyed zooming up the Oceana dunes in one of them, but if someone else wants that style statement, more power to them.

That's what separates the Puritans from the rest of us. Their world is one of dour sameness: egalitarian, gray, environmentally conscious. No one would stand out or choose anything that didn't express a drab PC ethos. Light rail, buses and trains would be the preferred mode of transit.

SUVs are the Great Evil.

"The glitter of Hollywood stars and the power of celebrity politicians have rubbed off on SUVs, originally designed for outdoor sportsmen," argues Keith Bradsher, author of an SUV-bashing book called, "High and Mighty." Bradsher doesn't just dislike SUVs, but - in typical Puritanical liberal fashion - argues that "something must be done. ... [B]adly designed government regulations - often shaped by industry lobbyists - have created huge incentives for automakers to build ever-growing numbers of SUVs anyway. ... [T]hey have fed a highway arms race that has made the world's roads less and less hospitable for car drivers, worsening a trend that hurts safety and the environment alike."

Oh come on, it's not that bad. And doesn't that ranting sound a tad conspiratorial?

Cars, trucks and even SUVs are practical, fun, flexible. They haul lots of stuff. They allow families to travel places comfortably together. They look nice, and there's something about the sound of a revving engine. They epitomize freedom and mobility.

Even if gas prices hit the roof, we'll keep driving. I always laugh at the emails I routinely get from environmentalists warning me that our current lifestyle will collapse as soon as supplies of gasoline evaporate. I shouldn't expect environmentalists to understand markets, and realize that alternative fuels will become widely available if and when they become an economically reasonable alternative.

I don't care if my car is powered by petroleum, hydrogen or rabbit pellets, as long as it does 0-60 in under 8 seconds.

There's nothing wrong with buses. They provide a necessary service, that of transporting people who cannot drive or cannot afford cars. But they don't exactly capture the spirit of the open road or of personal choice. Light rail isn't much better, and it's a travesty that modern transit planners are wasting billions of dollars on these underused and inflexible systems for the simple reason that they find them more aesthetically appealing than buses.

An even bigger travesty is that in their zeal to change our behavior, transportation officials are downplaying road development, hoping that more congestion will force more of us out of our preferred cars and into their preferred transit vehicles.

Nevertheless, we'll keep driving, regardless of the defeatism (there's nothing we can do about congestion!) one hears at planning and transportation agencies.

Officials will keep trying to change the world in which we live, telling us that suburbia is bad and that we should live in high rises near our jobs. And we'll keep pulling our cars out of our two-car garages and driving them where we choose, dealing with whatever obstacles planners put in our way.

Even the poor - the professed subject of concern for the political left - understand the importance of automobiles. Instead of trying to re-engineer all of society to make us more transit-dependent, the Progressive Policy Institute, a liberal think tank that strays from the conventional liberal wisdom on transportation matters, argues that policymakers should find ways to make cars more affordable to the poor so they can get to jobs in or live in the suburbs.

Cars have their downside. They cost a lot in monthly payments, gasoline, maintenance and whatnot. They pose definite dangers. But there's a reason people stand outside their homes lovingly waxing their cars.

They love their cars, the mobility they offer and the freedom that mobility engenders. Cars let us live where we choose, away from the failed urban experiments that the Puritans don't want us to so easily be able to flee. And we like the rush we get when we drop the clutch and mash the accelerator on that 250-horsepower sports car (OK, on my 148-horsepower econobox!).

We enjoy them. They make us happy. Which is why they will continue to be a source of angst for the Puritans.