Eyas wrote:
You're right.  Im just wondering if all of the folks who dream of their communist Utopia will end up actually being a part of that elite.  Not just members of Congress but especially people like college profs and journalists and, most especially, recent graduates with their unbearably misplaced elitist attitudes.  I just want to smack them.

You are absolutely right.  The revolution always devours its children.  From Robespierre down the line through the Soviet Union to the Islamic Revolution in Iran the thugs tend to come out on top and rule from a heap composed of the corpses of “fellow travelers” like these moronic leftist professors and “journalists.”  

Should this nation ever fall to such folly I will enjoy a posthumous laugh at the fate of those who sold out American freedom to a thugocracy.

Yes, we not only can't drill for our own energy but it must be refined elsewhere.  Given that CA has 22 different blends (due to clean air laws), it is no wonder that gasoline prices are so high.  Until we focus on energy independence, these countries will continue to get rich on the backs of Americans and countries like Iran will sponsor terrorism.

http://www.beyondthemargin.net/2008/06/alternative-energy-panacea-or-placebo.html

I wonder how many people realize how much all those wonderful cocktail formulas limits our refineries ability to respond to changes in demand on gasoline at the pumps which goes into how much we have to pay for to the price of fuel. I wonder how many people even realize that we have all of those cocktail blends.  Between the lawsuits to keep new refineries from being built and the old ones improved and expanded to the blocks on exploration and drilling. The so-called concerned environmentalists have put a strangle hold on this country and are cutting off the energy we need to stay alive.  
They approve of huge windmills being put up that kill hundred of birds and they say nothing.
They approve of bio-fuels that remove needed grains and corn from the 3rd world hungry mouths and say nothing.
The question that needs to be asked is why would a group of supposedly intelligent Americans do this to their own country and why would Democrats in office agree. Think about it.

I have a question: Why oil?  Why should we even try to invest billions in a resource that is so dependent on foreign whims and damaging in the long run?  Why not something else like hydroelectric, solar, wind, nuclear or something like this

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/e ... 133668.ece

[quote="Exercitus"]I have a question: Why oil?  Why should we even try to invest billions in a resource that is so dependent on foreign whims and damaging in the long run?  Why not something else like hydroelectric, solar, wind, nuclear or something like this

[url]http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article4133668.ece[/quote[/url]]


No one is saying we shouldn't develop new sources of energy.  We should.  However, and I'll give this analogy again..the horse and buggy was not outlawed because some time in the future we were going to have automobiles.

The fact is simple.    Our country is based on oil.  Alternatives are not available yet.  Distribution is not available yet.  Automobiles that will accept fuels that have not yet been developed and cannot run on alternatives are not available yet.  What is it you want...our automobiles to all sit nicely in our garages while someone, somewhere is busy developing something to use in cars that have not been developed yet and have not been purchased yet?

In the meantime, how do people get to work?  How do truckers deliver goods and food? How do farmers feed their animals and plant/reap their crops?   How are products made that are necessary to the economy that are petroleum based such as rubber surgical gloves, tires and  plastics of all shape and form.

You want to cut off the head to save the body.  America would end up dead while we are  investing in alternatives.  

We need to harvest what is rightfully our's, get off oil dependency from our enemies while we are developing whatever will come in the future.  Change takes time, it comes in steps.  The first step is for Congress to stop their OIL EMBARGO.   Just think of it..we have enough oil in just the western states to pay off the national debt and bring the oil prices down immensely.  Congress could even pay for all those entitlements they want and Obama is promising without taxing the hardworking citizens of America.  We are the Western OPEC all by ourselves.  It is ludicrous to not drill here, drill now and build new refineries to process our black gold.

Exercitus, we conservatives don't agree on everything, but there is one thing on which we are in complete agreement.  We believe in capitalism!

We trust the free market to determine the best and most effective energy alternatives for our country.  History has proven to us that it is capitalism and a rather limited government that has made our nation so great.  

When our government tries to manage what we need, it is sometimes but not always well intentioned, but there are always unintended consequences.  It is our government, not US oil companies or OPEC, that has created our current energy dilemna.

It has been proven over an over that the market does a better job of providing for our nation's needs, than does a bunch of politicians in Washington.

Did you see the article?  It was oil. Carbon neutral oil (pretty cool stuff). America is not dependent on oil we depend on electricity.  We can run everything in our economy with electricity if we can find a good way of producing it (perhaps helium 3 sometime in the future).  We have the tech for electric cars allready, why not run ecofriendly power plants and run your cars of that?  

Dittohead,

Yes, the free market is a wonderful thing and crucial to our country.  However, it has its flaws.  It tends to try to make money, whatever the cost (look at tobacco, how many people did it kill by outright lying?).  In Industrial Age Enland it created huge class gaps, not something that facilitates a good democracy by any means.  I guess what I'm trying to say is that the free market is wonderful, but it does need regulation or people will suffer.

Government 'over' regulation has caused far more suffering in this country than the free market.

As an example, how many people are suffering because our government decided to divert the use of corn to make a very inefficient fuel?  How many people are suffering because our government welfare system has created an underclassed citizenry that has lost their will to make something better of themselves?

The free market has eliminated a lot more suffering than it has ever caused.  Just compare our standard of living here in America to any country that governs it people by coercively restricting capitalism and free trade.

Where do you think our country would be today if our founding fathers had adopted a Marxist type government retarding the efforts of innovators like Edison, Ford, and the Wright brothers?  True, our energy problems would be over, because most of our citizens would be driving horse and buggies.  

Capitalism is the engine that has made our country great!  The genius of the government handed down to us by our founding fathers, was that it was limited enough to allow brilliant innovators to do what they do best, create jobs and wealth.

How?  The worst countries in this world are basicly purely capitalist (perhapse with a little monarchy thrown in for good measure).  Look at England in the industrial revolution.  Those who had really had, while those who didn't lived in sqular.  That's capitalism at its finest.  See why it needs rgulation?

Would the corn be there at all if not for govenment subsidies?  How many people have been saved a life of poverty because welfare kept them from slipping away completely.  How many people have made themselves because of this?  Some people do abuse the system but most are truely stuck.  Most truely try to escape from the pointless life of the welfare check so pittifully small that it has to be streached just for food and housing.  If you ask me the governmnet should pay more not less (perapse for all of your education).

Compare to who's?  France?  England?  Finland? Denmark?  Sweeden? Iceland?  All of which provide far more for their citizens and have an arguably higher standards of living.  

Capitalism would work far better in a world without globalization.  With it, governments must protect industries that would not be viable on the world's stage.  Needless to say, this is regulation.


I would guess a great deal farther than we are now     The problem with compairing now and then is that back then if you worked hard enough, you could make ends meet.  Today one can work twelve hour days and still struggle to provide for oneself nevermind a family.  In addition it would have been very difficult to provide for citizens when it took days or a message to cross the country and may have easily been robbed, waylaid, or embezled.  We don't have to stop rewarding creativity inorder to help the bottom rugs of society.  We mignt have even had more great inventions if the would be inventors had had the time instead of being forced to work all day for food.

The genius of this government is not the system of economics, but the innovation of democracy, the checks and balances, and the astonising freedom's afforded to the people.  Of course, it's hard not to provide freedom in the wild west.  We are a fronteer culture that has run out of fronteer.

At last, we find one point of agreement.  

The problem with compairing now and then is that back then if you worked hard enough, you could make ends meet. Today one can work twelve hour days and still struggle to provide for oneself nevermind a family.

Today, we are in slavery to our government for the first five to six months of the year that we work.  This enslavement is better known as taxation.  Obama is anxious to increase this enslavement on the most productive members of our society.  

You will not be able to convince many on this site, that a coercive, unrestrained government imposing itself into our life will make us a better nation.  If you believe that Marxism is a superior economic system to capitalism, I hope you enjoy seeing your dream come true in our country.  Too bad, there are only twelve months in the year that our government can tax us.

The amount of wealth and the standard of living that this nation has created for itself is unprecedented when you consider that we are not yet 250 years old.  Even with the onslaught of illegal immigration, the heavy burden of maintaining those enslaved to LBJ'S welfare state,  and maintaining our unique status as world superpower; we continue to provide our citizens with one of the top standards of living, available on this earth.

If you think our welfare system is a good example of government intervention at its best, we have reached a point where debate is no longer possible.