"(I Think You're) Talkin' 'bout My Generation"
"My answer is to burn all the f***ing oil as quick as possible and then the politicians will have to find a solution."
TR would be the first to deputize Daltry in the Common Sense Brigade we now anoint as Bull Moose America. Daltry's comments come in the wake of some "Live Earth Concert" crap that all the Hollywood stars will burn fuel flying to in their crusade to make you think politicians are gonna save the Earth in between recesses and vacations.
Daltry gets it: we all suck from the teat of Big Oil because we let our Government and its adjacent enablers in the HillaryCrat and RomneyLican parties.
The Democrats are using Global Warming like the Republicans use Gay Marriage: It's another wedge issue designed to distract you from problems you actually give a crap about and that they could actually do something about were they not obsessed with raising money for their next elections.
At the Party Circus we've got Al Gore at the Barker's Tent telling you that Portland is much more sunnier than usual and Mitt Romney telling you Bill and Ted and their Excellent Marital Adventure will be your societal ruin.
NEWS FLASH: Icebergs melting in East Jesus and two gay dudes getting married aren't your biggest concerns. Yeah, they'll raise Hella cash. But your Country will still be pale at the hands of blood sucking politicos.
Our two parties are slaves to Oil Company contributions. Their first act of prostitution took place when they let automakers violate anti-trust laws and buy up and subsequently close the Trolley System in order to speed the demand for automobiles.
Subsequent daring acts of figuring out ways to power engines with something other than SHIT WE DIG OUT OF THE GROUND were met with disdain and bald faced ignorance.
Many people like to say that TR embraced the auto culture since he was the first Prez to ride in a car. The thing was ELECTRIC! 
A true conservationist and American would never have envisioned a United States enslaved by some primitive culture's crude. And yet here we are. We wouldn't have to give a rat's rear end about Amadinjead or Saddam or (shout out to you Ron Paul freaks) Israel if we weren't invested so much in to what the Arabs have beneath their sand.
We'd be sitting back and watching the Muslim extremists killing each other (which they are actually better at and seem to enjoy more than killing us) instead of having to adulterate our Constitution and daily lives in order to delay another attack on us.
But as much as we may be addicted to oil our elected representatives have been addicted to oil money and all that goes along with it.
The Democrats talk about Global Warming and icebergs melting because they know you won't then ask them about mileage standards and alternative fuels--ya know, the kind of things they could actually AFFECT but never have and never will.
The Republicans will tell you the only way to deal with Islam is to kill them (oh, that and ending Gay Marriage). It has never once occurred to any of our fearless Republican leaders that being dependent on primitive and stone aged blood thirsty cultures has no real national security pay off. I applaud President Bush's ballsy but poorly planned determination that we needed to stop sacrificing lives to the cauldron of Jihadism and aim higher in the form of Democratization. And I reject Ron Paul's suicidal foreign policy that 60 years ago would have nodded at Hitler's killing of jews and today would choose to let Arabs be Arabs and kill everyone in sight with impunity.
But there is not one party nor candidate right now talking about releasing us from the shackles of oil dependency. And as each Party pushes its individual non-entity donor prostitute, will there be any one politician who will see Hadji and Mobil as equal threats?
See recent post for info on taking action and becoming part of the Bull Moose America Town Hall. Click on the left column for info on contacting your reps. In the end this is all about voting and fielding candidates who don't rubber stamp for political parties.
If the politicians were really interested in ending the war on terror, they would enact a law that would outlaw the purchasing of oil from any nation that was not led by a democraticly elected government. The money tha we spend in the Middle East funds the jihadist and extreme muslim groups. Sure, Americans would feel it in the pocket, but at least we could sleep better at night knowing our money was not being spent to by bombs to kill our troops. If I were president that would be my first order of buisness. I think you are wrong about Israel though. The bible is clear that any friend of Israel id a friend of God's. I often think that it is because of our unyielding support for Israel, that we have prospered as a nation. We should insist that Israel removes any nukes from its territory, then sign a "NATO" like pact with them. Any attack on Israel is an attack on us. We should also stop screwing around with Iran and blow there Nuclear Program in kingdom come.....
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I love the points about "catch-issues". I care IMMENSLY about the environment, and I honestly want to throw my support behind a great conservationist like TR, but the fact is that we either have wack-jobs like Al Gore who actually discredit the real environmental movement with bad science and rediculous attacks, or we have more conservative individuals who seemingly dont care about the environment. Great Posting Jamie!!!
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Excellent blog... BUT... I have to disagree with you about the gay marriage issue not being at the top of the list of things to worry about.
It may not be THE top item, but it indeed should be a close second or third. This is a frontal attack on the family and the sanctity of marriage between a man and a woman. It is being pushed on our kids in the public schools and it the groundwork for teaching our kids that morals and family values are not as important as some other issues.
If we don't teach out kids these morals, at home and in the classroom, where are they going to learn them and why would they even care about all the other issues if the their foundation already gives them the mindset of tolerance for the sake of not offending.
Jesus LOVES every single homosexual out there. He just cannot stand their sinful lifestyle. He can't stand our sinful nature. Bottom line: love the sinner, hate the sin... and let our children know it IS a sin. It isn't an "alternative" lifestyle. It's sin. Call it what it is instead of sugar-coating it.
There are a TON of issues that need to be addressed by upstanding Americans. Immigration, Political corruption, and yes, gay marriage. Lets start by building the foundation before we start trying to teach our kids how to handle the other issues.
Just my 2 cents...
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I whole heartedly agree with you Jamie. The worst thing anyone could do to hurt the Muslim extremists would be to make them irrelevant. If no one cares about their oil, no one cares about them. The same can be said for Hugo Chavez. No one would care what he did or did not do if he didn't have the oil influence he does today. And the sad part is that if the government spent half of the time they spend on frivolous issues working to get us off oil, we would be off by now. Just as an example, there is a company in California called Metallic Power who way back in 2000 came up with a system of non-gas power that work off of zinc and oxygen. Not only does it produce quite a bit of power, but it's a regenerative power source. They just made a deal (seven years later) to provide backup batteries to telecommunication installations when they lose power. Because they are regenerative, they recharge when power is restored. They are currently working on solutions for transportation. Now think what they could have done if they didn't have to raise all their capital themselves but instead received help from a National government who realized how important alternative and especially domestic fuel sources are to our country's security.
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When you get down to basic issues, most American's have more in common than not. However, today’s political 2-party system is doing everything to move us either 100% left or 100% right. I’m a basic fiscal conservative in the Reagan mold. I never knew a poor guy who could create jobs. Risk-taking entrepreneurs create jobs, not Washington Legislators. I don’t care if fags wanna get married and don’t care what the law on that is…as long as they don’t write school textbooks telling my kids that it’s normal. I don’t care if a caribou has to move it’s migration track ½ a mile away so that an oil pipeline from Alaska brings us some much needed supply. I don’t care if the Muslim ragheads wanna cut each others heads off in a holy war, but I do care that we seem to be doing everything we can to empower them due to our oil dependency. This country is meant to be governed by the people, represented by our elected officials Now it’s completely turned, “trickle-down” government.
BULLY!!!!
Thanks for RTR…..reading the rant
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Like so many other major problems, the answers seem so very simple to anyone actually paying attention. The first thing we should do is accept the fact that RIGHT NOW, oil is king. So we have to become capable of feeding the industrial beast without going to despotic nations with our hands out. And while we're doing that, we leverage our vast intellectual and entrepreneurial resources to develop alternative energy sources. The government could easily:
1) Loosen the restrictions to building nuclear power plants. This is the cleanest and safest form of power available to mankind and can easily displace loads of fossil fuel plants.
2) Loosen the restrictions to building oil refineries. The bottleneck in our refining capacity is very much the reason for the most recent price hikes.
3) Open up ANWR and the U.S. coast to oil and natural gas extraction (American sources of oil are plentiful but untapped. We could be very nearly self-sufficient if we wanted to be.
3) Promote the development of shale oil extraction in the U.S. and Canada. Even if we had to depend on Canada for some measure of our oil demands, it's CANADA and not Saudi Arabia!
4) Establish an X-prize style competition for a non-fossil fuel powered four-door sedan that meets all current performance and safety standards for similarly sized vehicles. It would only be a matter of giving the winning company exclusive contracts to provide these vehicles for government fleets over a period of time in combination with some cash and the big companies would be all over it.
We hear so much griping and complaining, but hardly ever any REAL ideas rooted in reality out of Washington. I think it might be too much to ask that a politician be smart enough to come up with a creative solution to every problem the country faces. But I don't think it's unreasonable to expect that they should be actively LOOKING for those ideas and listening to the people that have them.
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Gabe is close. Here's a slightly better plan.
1. Build one (or two) nuclear plants in every state, fueled with MOX made from recovered nuclear weapons. This reduces the threat of nuclear terrorism and simultaneously creates a clean domestic power source so cheap that electricity is almost free. See link =>http://www.nrc.gov/materials/fuel-cycle-fac/mox/faq.html
2. With essentially all of our stationary power needs being met with cheap electricity, keep running vehicles on petroleum.
3. Develop large-scale coal gasification plants to take advantage of our enormous domestic coal reserves. This fuel can gradually replace oil imports.
4. Recognize that oil is FUNGIBLE and buying it from Canada just means that Iran ships more to China. There is nothing we can do about that. We can, however, make our own energy supply more secure.
5. Resist the temptation to strangle the economy with additional taxes on energy.
6. Eliminate the requirement to add oxygenates (ethanol) to gasoline. Modern fuel-injected OBD-II controlled cars don't need them, but Archer Daniels Midland surely enjoys the subsidy.
These are the basic steps. Cheap energy means an expanding economy, which means a stronger dollar not hampered by the oil exchange deficit, which means higher revenues for Uncle Sam with less pain for us.
Simple, but ticks off a lot of powerful lobbyists.
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John
1. I'm uncomfortable with the idea of the government having any control of the domestic power supply. That is definitely not within the purview of the Federal government. The idea of having them loosen their restrictions (or perhaps even incentivising) nuclear plant construction is more within the realm of government's role - to set the climate for the market to work. I do think MOX would be a boon to the industry, though.
2. I agree that we'll still be running vehicles on gas, at least until a financially and operationally VALID alternative is found.
3. I forgot about coal gasification, but it's pretty much in line with the idea of reducing the need for fuel imports. But you also have to keep in mind that oil is used in a great number of other application besides gasoline. So getting secure sources of crude is still a necessary move. As an aside, there are also fairly successful efforts to turn trash into oil, which would be a major benefit to the nation's efficiency.
4. I didn't mention oil's nature as a world commodity precisely because there's nothing we can do about it. A secure domestic supply is the only real goal, with lower fuel prices in general being a secondary consequence. And that DOES hurt nations like Iran who's only real money-maker is worldwide oil sales. Remember that oil prices below a certain threshold actually causes Iran to lose money extracting its oil reserves. And the general boon to our domestic economy such a move would create would give us the resources necessary to prepare to deal with the up-and-coming world power in China.
5. Keeping taxes low on energy should be a no-brainer, but you're right that politicians seem incapable of resisting that particular siren song.
6. Thing like ethanol are, frankly, an annoying fad. As demand for corn goes up because of government standards, the price of corn goes up. And because corn starch and other byproducts are used in almost everything you'll find on a grocery store shelf, we'll simply be moving what little price difference there is in gasoline over to food - at best. It just seems to me that the government incentivising the conversion of our food supply into fuel is counterintuitive and ultimately futile.
Our combined lists would certainly make for an energy policy worth getting behind. Too bad we've got no one in power willing to take the advice.
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