One of the great myths of modern American politics is the one about the supposedly all-powerful environmental lobby. Spurred by the skillful propagandizing of corporate polluters, their high-priced lobbying and P.R. firms and loyal lapdogs over in the far-right think tanks, many Americans have come to accept the fairy tale that every lawmaking body stands at the ready - waiting for orders from a large and monolithic cadre of well-heeled environmental advocates.

There's only so much you can do to make the lottery respectable. No matter how open or honest the people are who run it, the game still boils down to a hard and dirty truth: a public entity is administering a program that seeks to separate citizens from their cash.

Last week in this space, we explored the right wing's ongoing effort to characterize any public solutions to societal problems (especially publicly funded solutions) as "assaults on freedom." Their simplistic syllogism goes something like this:

It’s quiz time. Imagine you are a visitor to North Carolina from another country and have been presented with the following facts about an issue of great importance that confronts the state – transportation: