The Conservative Edge

The BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has led to a host of environmental zealots trying to make us all feel guilty about using oil. As the director of legislative and public affairs for Ohio’s Environmental Council put it, “You turn the key to the car, you’re part of the problem, and you’re part of the solution.” Undoubtedly, there is a short-term toll on the Gulf ecosystem. The results would be even worse if not for the efforts to contain and dispose of the oil that has already reached the shorelines. However, the guilt, and blame, lies squarely with BP and whoever else might have been responsible for the accident.

One of the primary reasons that oil companies have been drilling in the Gulf of Mexico is that the environmentalists have successfully convinced enough people in Washington that there should be no oil drilling on the U.S. mainland. Nearly all of the areas of the country that hold any substantial oil reserves have been deemed off limits. As a result, much of our domestic oil production comes from offshore drilling. Furthermore, while other countries are busily securing oil supplies wherever they can, the United States has neglected to develop its own resources.

Which doesn’t make any sense at all. There is always someone on television talking about the need to “reduce our dependence on foreign oil.” That’s tough to do if we insist on buying our oil from other nations. Even Adolf Hitler realized the need for a steady supply of petroleum that would keep the German army mobilized. By the time World War 2 had started, Germany was able to make hundreds of thousands of barrels of synthetic oil, reducing the need to find a supply of fuel from distant sources. These synthetic fuel factories were prime targets for Allied bombers. When the factories were destroyed, it devastated the German mobile army.

It remains unclear why our government can’t use similar foresight. Instead, the liberals and Democrats resort to their core ideological beliefs. They believe that the individual has no right to succeed or fulfill any self-interest. The well-being of society takes precedence over the development of the person. As a result, we are all made to feel guilty for our normal and daily activities. We must not acquire wealth, because it is to be dispensed to the poor. We must not own firearms, because we might injure or kill another person. We should not enjoy the automobiles we own, lest we selfishly destroy the environment by burning fossil fuels. We must measure our self-worth by how much money we send to impoverished people in faraway countries. Meanwhile, as we suffocate our self esteem, the government grows larger in size and authority, and puts us under its dictatorial rule.

Nobody should feel guilty for using the gasoline that allows them to keep a job, feed a family, and maintain a home. Neither should any American feel remorse for using this country’s natural resources that would prevent us from being so dependent on a foreign supplier of energy. We should only demand that the producers of energy be efficient and responsible in their operations. And we should demand the same from our government.

Unbelievable. That’s the word that kept coming to mind.

I visited three different sporting goods stores this weekend looking for some .40 caliber pistol ammunition. I have never before seen such prices and restrictions on ammunition. One store clerk told me that he only had some .38 Special and .45 ammo. He didn’t expect any new deliveries of the other semi-auto products. Another store had restrictions on .40 caliber, 9mm, .380 auto, and .45 auto—3 boxes per customer, if the product was in stock. The third store I went to was selling a 50-round box of .40 caliber for $44.95 AND restricting purchases to 2 boxes per customer. Unbelievable! Just a few months ago, I purchased a box for less than 20 bucks.

The reason ammo costs are sky-high is due to extreme demand. There is a shortage of the materials that go into making ammunition, which can increase the cost of the final product. But with such a demand by the retail customer, prices have gone through the proverbial roof. It makes sense, in a way. After Barack Obama was elected President, there was a marked surge in gun purchases across the country. One store here in Ohio has a picture of Obama displayed, with the phrase “The best gun salesman ever” or something to that effect. So, it stands to reason that if gun sales go up, ammo sales will follow.

My concern is that ammo prices will remain high for some time. Meanwhile, the liberals are working on legislation to add taxes on ammunition, intending to make it so expensive that we can’t afford to use it. Hey, that sounds familiar—that’s what they are doing with tobacco, and planning to do with gasoline and oil products. So, we need to keep pressure on our elected officials to prevent the anti-gunners from taxing us into submission.

In the meantime, buy your ammo when you get a good deal. Keep the shotgun handy. Or, you might start practicing with a slingshot and a longbow. Until you can’t afford them, that is.

Have you ever been thinking about an issue that is important to you, and then see that issue expounded in a magazine or newspaper? Maybe you feel that nobody else could ever have the same viewpoint on a particular subject. But when you see an article that expresses your own point of view, it feels good, doesn’t it?

I’m having that good feeling this weekend. If you have read any of my previous posts (feel free to check the archives) concerning American energy production, then you know that we’re giving up on crude oil way too soon. I know that runs contrary to liberal thought. Those liberals evidently think that we should solve the foreign oil problem by just getting rid of cars altogether. And with the government now practically running GM, and with Chrysler in bankruptcy, we can see that the automobile is doomed. This administration is set to dismantle the car industry and the freedom of personal transportation.

Until that happens, we will continue to rely on the auto as our primary mode of transportation. Which means, of course, that we will need plentiful supplies of gasoline at reasonable cost. (No ethanol, please; that’s a terrible waste of corn that could be otherwise used to feed hungry people.) Crude oil must remain a vital part of our energy policy. Not only do we use it to make gasoline, but crude oil is also used in the manufacture of paint, plastics, rubber, and hundreds of other products we take for granted.

My regard for crude oil was reflected in the special Monday, May 4 edition of the Investor’s Business Daily. Within the editorial pages, Robert J. Samuelson writes “Wind and solar (power) mainly produce electricity. Most of our oil goes for transportation; almost none—about 1.5%—generates electricity. Expanding wind and solar won’t displace much oil; someday, electric cars may change this. For now, reducing oil imports requires using less or producing more.”

That’s been my position, and it makes me feel good to see similar thoughts expressed in a pro-American newspaper like the IBD. I’ve listened to Obama and the other liberals talk about job creation, but they are castrating American industry, especially oil companies and car makers. If we developed more resources here at home, think of the jobs that would immediately be created. There would be a demand for geologists, engineers, truck drivers, and refinery workers. This demand might be enough to give the economy the “jolt” that Obama promised.

We will never be able to wean ourselves off foreign oil by building more solar panels or wind turbines. Samuelson notes that in 2007, wind and solar generated less than 1% of U.S. electricity. Increasing that ten times will still have those industries contributing only 10% of our electricity needs. And that still would do nothing to reduce our consumption of oil.

Even though some resources, like oil shale, would take time to develop, that’s no reason to avoid getting started now. Remember, it’s also going to take a lot of time to establish that tenfold increase in solar and wind output. There is still the electric car that needs refinement, and fuel-cell technology that should be explored. Until these and other advancements become practical and affordable, we shouldn’t let crude oil fall out of favor. Two dollars for a gallon of gas is still a pretty good deal.

Not too long ago, I wrote a commentary titled “Why Liberals Hate Us.” I referred to a column written by Brock Yates, published years ago in Car and Driver magazine. In his column, Yates cited some other writers, who said that the automobile represented one of the last bastions of unregulated freedom. And that’s why liberals have always hated cars. They resent ordinary Americans who derive such pleasure from driving, collecting, restoring, and hot-rodding their favorite cars. Since the late ’60s and through the ’70s, the car haters sought to regulate the automobile and anything connected with the industry.

So, they made seat belts, air bags, ignition interlock switches and 5-MPH bumpers mandatory equipment on all autos sold in America. While countries such as Germany had brilliantly engineered autobahns, superior driver training, and high driving speeds, the liberals here decided we should crawl down the road at 55 miles per hour. We have also been taxed like the colonists were under King George. We pay more in gasoline taxes than the actual cost of the fuel. We have to pay sales tax every time we buy a used car, much less a new one. Every year, it seems like we pay more and more for our car registration fees and driving license fees. All of this is done because liberals hate us and our cars.

Now, in 2009, we have a President who is just as eager to dump on the auto industry as the rest of the liberals in Congress. With the perfect storm of high oil prices in 2008, a collapse of domestic car sales, and an economic crisis, the Obama administration gets what other Democrats before him could only dream of. He now has the opportunity to dictate to the car companies exactly what kind of cars they can make, and how to make them.

This is confirmed by a recent report made public by the Environmental Protection Agency. As reported by Yahoo!, the EPA has concluded that carbon dioxide and five other greenhouse gases are a major hazard to Americans’ health. “In both magnitude and probability, climate change is an enormous problem (and) the greenhouse gases that are responsible for it endanger public health and welfare,” said the EPA. It was the first time the federal government had said it was ready to use the Clean Air Act to require power plants, cars and trucks to curtail their release of climate-changing pollution, especially carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels.

This opens the door very wide for Congress, especially the car-hating liberals, to regulate the automobile right out of our lives. Pay attention to the following quotes: It’s “a wake-up call for Congress” — deal with it directly through legislation or let the EPA regulate, said Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., who chairs the Senate committee dealing with climate legislation. If Congress doesn’t move, Boxer said she would press EPA to take swift action. Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., whose House Energy and Commerce subcommittee hopes to craft legislation in the coming weeks, called the EPA action “a game changer.” “It now changes the playing field with respect to legislation. It’s now no longer doing a bill or doing nothing. It is now a choice between regulation and legislation,” said Markey.

For years, the liberals have been trying to convince us how bad the automobile has been, and how we are guilty for loving such terrible contraptions. Never mind that cars sold in California, for example, have been practically emission-free for years. The liberals have been trying to stigmatize the automobile for a long time, the same way they demonize tobacco and firearms. They are getting set to take it all away.

The Investor’s Business Daily recently quoted Czech President Vaclav Klaus in an editorial piece. Klaus said “As someone who lived under communism for most of his life, I feel obliged to say that I see the biggest threat to freedom, democracy, the market economy, and prosperity now in ambitious environmentalism, not communism.” Klaus told the Cato Institute that “environmentalism is a religion” that accepts global warming on faith and seeks to exploit it to reshape the world and economic social order.

I couldn’t agree more.

“War—what is it good for?” is a line from a classic rock song. There aren’t too many people who can tolerate even the thought of war or conflict. But, wars have been fought for centuries, and for various reasons. Some wars have been waged in the name of religion, which we are seeing right now. Other conflicts have arisen because one man or nation wanted to control the rest of the world.

But there are times when fighting, without declarations of war, can bring about desired results. Sometimes, a mere threat of rebellion, or news of some trouble brewing between two countries, can affect a society far removed from the area of crisis. Let me explain what war is good for.

On December 17, 2008, the oil cartel OPEC agreed to cut 2.2 million barrels of oil from its daily production. It was OPEC’s single largest reduction ever. Iran, especially, was a vocal proponent of such cutbacks. When asked whether the size of the cut was enough to get oil prices up again, OPEC President Chekib Khelil said, “I hope we surprised you.” He also added, “If you’re not surprised, we need to do something about it.”

However, the oil markets did not react as OPEC had hoped. Crude oil sank to $40.20 after the announcement. The fear of world recession, and lower energy consumption, was enough to override OPEC’s reduced production, which is to be put into effect January 1, 2009.

Is it a coincidence, then, that Hamas started firing rockets from Gaza into southern Israel, within 2 weeks of OPEC’s announcement? Hamas is supported by Iran, which is part of the OPEC cartel. When OPEC saw that oil prices weren’t moved by the threats of reduced supply, it put in force the statement made by Mr. Khelil: “…we need to do something about it.” That “something” is an old tactic used time and again by Mideast countries. Make war, and threaten the supply of oil to the Western countries, and the price of oil will go up. And one of the surest ways to start a war is to fire some rockets into Israel, because Israel almost ALWAYS retaliates.

Hamas doesn’t care if Gaza citizens get killed in the process. In fact, they hope for civilian casualties, because it then emboldens other terrorist organizations, and other countries, drawing them into the conflict too. Before you know it, you’ve got fires burning all over the Mideast, and oil markets in chaos. That is exactly what war is good for!

If the United States truly wants peace in the Mideast, then perhaps we should be pumping our own oil. Then those other countries would have fewer reasons to fight. I wouldn’t be surprised to see a lot more violence, initiated by Iran, Lebanon, Hamas, and Hezbollah against Israel. We’ll see how this unfolds in 2009.

I thought I would add some data to go with the arguments I made in my previous post concerning the global warming theory. I personally feel that America will be held economically and socially responsible for cleaning up the environment, even while India, China, and other countries are still considered “developing nations”. Americans are upset at the prospect of bailing out banks and automakers, but we will be liable for trillions of dollars going towards environmental cleanup and “going green”, if Al Gore and others have their way.

Consider this: the Las Vegas Valley had over 11 inches of snowfall this past week. It added up to the most snow recorded for the area in December since they began keeping records 70 years ago! Even Malibu, California experienced some snowfall as well.

David Deming, a geology professor at the University of Oklahoma recently stated, “The mean global temperature, at least measured by satellite, is the same as it was in the year 1980. In the last couple of years, sea level has stopped rising, hurricane and cyclone activity in the Northern Hemisphere is at a 24-year low, and sea ice globally is also the same as it was in 1980.”

According to the IBD, global temperatures stopped rising after 1998, and have dropped in the past two years by more than 0.5 degrees Celsius. Furthermore, the 2007-2008 temperature drop was NOT predicted by global climate models. The drop was, however, predictable by a decline in sunspot activity since the year 2000 and by a cyclical ocean-current phenomenon known as the Pacific Decadal Oscillation. That is just too logical—when the sun gets hotter, the earth heats up; when solar activity decreases, the earth cools off. Most Americans can comprehend that, but it seems Al Gore hasn’t gotten the message yet.

Also, we need to remember that James Hansen, Al Gore’s main scientific “advisor”, had been doctoring some of NASA’s data that was used to identify the warmest years on record. In fact, the 10 warmest years have NOT all been since 1996. The corrected numbers from NASA show the 10 warmest years as follows: 1934, 1998, 1921, 2006, 1931, 1999, 1953, 1990, 1938, and 1939.

Finally, consider a point made by Jay Lehr, a science director at the Heartland Institute. He stated that, “If we go back in really recorded human history, in the 13th century, we were probably seven degrees Fahrenheit warmer than we are right now.” He added, “If we go back to the Revolutionary War, it was very, very cold. We’ve been warming out of that cold spell from the Revolutionary War period. And now we’re back into a cooling cycle.”

I’m all for keeping pollution low, and the environment clean. I’m also glad to see figures that show Americans decreasing their demand for gasoline, even as oil prices continue to fall. It means that we’re understanding the need to adjust our lifestyles to become more energy-efficient. What we don’t need is a dictatorial government, influenced by a would-be messiah, making us shell out trillions of dollars to preprare for a crisis based on a flawed theory. We did it once for the Y2K fiasco—we shouldn’t make the same mistake twice.

I’m sure people aren’t thinking too much about the high price of gasoline right now. It’s as cheap as it’s been in roughly 2-3 years. Here in southwest Ohio, we’re paying $1.89 for a gallon of regular gasoline. It’s funny how, when gas was costing $4 a gallon earlier this year, everyone was blaming George W. for the high prices, but nobody now will associate him with bringing prices down.

Actually, oil and gas did start declining in price after President Bush made a public statement about expanding U.S. exploration and drilling efforts here at home. When he made the statement in July, oil dropped every day during the following two-week time period. Apparently, the mere threat of increased supply was enough to cause oil speculators to begin pulling money out of the futures markets.

And now, we are seeing that the spectre of decreasing demand for oil is having the same effect on prices. But what’s going to happen when demand goes back up? Are we increasing our supply capabilites in anticipation of future use? If not, then we will surely see another spike in prices. I don’t think the current price levels will remain for long.

As other countries cut back on production and exporting, we should be endeavoring to find and secure more of our own energy supplies. Some countries like to routinely stage some kind of oil crisis, just to have an excuse to withhold oil from the evil United States. We shouldn’t let them affect us so much.

Here’s an example of what regularly happens abroad (from Yahoo Finance):

“Prices this week fell even as militants in Nigeria resumed attacks on the country’s oil installations. The military said it killed eight people while guarding a facility in the oil-rich south of the country.

Militants frequently attack oil facilities, seeking to hobble Africa’s biggest petroleum industry and force Nigeria’s federal government to send more oil funds to the southern states where the crude is pumped.”

Just click on the link for the full article:

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Gasoline-continues-plunge-apf-13535926.html

The American government should allow Americans to use energy provided BY Americans. What could be more patriotic?