Common Sense and Oil Prices
June 12th, 2008 at 11:05 am by CrankyVictor Davis Hanson eloquently, as usual, talks about the insanity of fighting against domestic energy production.
One is fairness to the poor and middle class. Like it or not, radical environmentalism appeals to an elite not all that worried when gas prices rise or electricity rates go up – since fossil-energy use goes down.
But a paradox is that most environmentalists think of themselves as egalitarians. So, instead of objecting to the view of a derrick from the California hills above the Santa Barbara coast, shouldn’t a liberal estate owner instead console himself that the offshore pumping will help a nearby farm worker or carpenter get to work without going broke?
Another paradox: US laws ensure a rig off Florida has far less chance of springing a leak than one in the Persian Gulf. If there’s really a shared “planet earth,” aren’t we all its stewards? By locking out energy exploration here, we’re encouraging it everywhere else.
That bolded sentence strikes me because I was discussing this very topic with a liberal co-worker friend about this. He flatly said that is was better to mess up the environment there than here. There being the lesser of the two evils. The evils being the necessity to produce and use the pollution causing oil.
I don’t ridicule him because I was young once and believed, courtesy of my professors and ABC news, that the 90s would be the last generation on earth.
Should we personally choose to not drive ten mile per gallon vehicles just to prove we have the biggest dicks? Sure, that I what I personally believe (apologies to my well endowed friends). But I think it is abhorant that others feel they ought to force you into subcompacts and busses. The perception that we all have our thermostats set to 72 is an elitist myth. We need more energy and we do need to use it a bit more wisely.
With a combination of the “not in my backyard” mentality and knowing what is the best for us Democrats and the do-nothing Republicans, the reality of domestic “energy independence” will remain a myth as well.
June 12th, 2008 at 3:36 pm
Gord-o,
My penis takes no offense at your choice of metaphor. I happen to be in the negotiation phase for a large, gas guzzling, 2006 Ford Expedition (Freddy Bowzer Edition), that seats 8, with only 26k miles and has all the bells and whistles for my asking price of just $12,000.
June 12th, 2008 at 8:02 pm
Hey Yid. Congrats. But are you really cool with $100 tankfuls?
June 12th, 2008 at 9:41 pm
I’ll take a $100 tank-full of 87 octane vs. compromising my kids’ safety on these streets lurking with mental midgets and soccer fraus licensed to operate a motor vehicle and text message and maintain a 3 second span of attention to the road conditions.
June 13th, 2008 at 7:57 am
If you are concerned about penis length, whip it out!
June 13th, 2008 at 8:03 am
Nah, I’m secure enough in my masculinity that I don’t need to.
But not so secure that I don’t drive a fire-engine red Toyota Solara V6.