May 28 2008
Face Reality America, Liberal Democrats Want High Energy Costs
It seems speaking truth to power is all the rage these days so let me speak some truth to power – liberal democrat power. The fact is the democrats have been lying to the American people. No, not just their lying about the Iraq war so they could get control of Congress (which proves my point though).
They are lying about their true intentions regarding the nation’s energy policies. Many bloggers have noted that the second big “Read My Lips” lie from the Democrats after their promise to end the war was to lower gas and energy prices. For example Gateway Pundit posts regularly on the status of their ‘promise’ to America (see here and here). The end result has been ever rising prices!
Today Thomas Friedman does what that Democrat Congressman did last year when simply blurted out the truth about how the Democrats simply lied about ending the war in Iraq to get votes. Friedman blurts out the truth about liberal energy policy:
No, our mythical candidate would say the long-term answer is to go exactly the other way: guarantee people a high price of gasoline — forever.
This candidate would note that $4-a-gallon gasoline is really starting to impact driving behavior and buying behavior in way that $3-a-gallon gas did not. The first time we got such a strong price signal, after the 1973 oil shock, we responded as a country by demanding and producing more fuel-efficient cars. But as soon as oil prices started falling in the late 1980s and early 1990s, we let Detroit get us readdicted to gas guzzlers, and the price steadily crept back up to where it is today.
We must not make that mistake again. Therefore, what our mythical candidate would be proposing, argues the energy economist Philip Verleger Jr., is a “price floor†for gasoline: $4 a gallon for regular unleaded, which is still half the going rate in Europe today. Washington would declare that it would never let the price fall below that level. If it does, it would increase the federal gasoline tax on a monthly basis to make up the difference between the pump price and the market price.
Their answer? Economic pain and suffering for average American family. The extinction of the personal car. The end of traveling freedom and slavery to public and commercial mass transit. Friedman envisions the end of a key essence of being American – and for nothing. Because Americans have been migrating to more fuel efficient cars in droves. Hybrids are being sold as fast as the car companies make them. Many people are trading in their big trucks and SUVs for regular cars. Ford stopped building their massive Excursion – the largest SUV made (that we at one time owned) – and as reduced production of their SUVs and trucks in light of much lower demand.
The move to fuel economy is happening already. What is not happening is increased US oil drilling, production and refinement. These are the other factors we can control to ease our burden – become more energy self sufficient. But the Democrats want us to suffer, learn our lesson, change our American habits. This is what Democrats dream of when they lie about fixing our energy problems. The video below is what Democrats have in mind for the America of the 21st century.
When Democrats look at Americans all they see is sheep and cattle.
Update: Reader Dave M points us to this charming call for more pain and suffering at the pump in Europe as well:
What I know, and you may not, is that the high price of oil is currently the only factor implementing British government policy. The government claims that it is seeking to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, by encouraging people to use less fossil fuel. Now, for the first time in years, its wish has come true: people are driving and flying less. The AA reports that about a fifth of drivers are buying less fuel. A new study by the Worldwide Fund for Nature shows that businesses are encouraging their executives to use video conferences instead of flying. One of the most fuel-intensive industries of all, business-only air travel, has collapsed altogether.
In other words, your restrictions on supply – voluntary or otherwise – are helping the government to meet its carbon targets. So how does it respond? By angrily demanding that you remove them so that we can keep driving and flying as much as we did before.
…
Your Majesty, I recognise that this is not among your usual duties as the ruler of Saudi Arabia. But I respectfully beg you to save us from ourselves.
We don’t call them “Moonbats” for nothing!
Hi AJ,
Perhaps you missed monbiot.com writing in yesterday’s
http://www.guardian.co.uk newspaper.
He wrote an open letter to the King of Saudi Arabia, (whose name
he didn’t know).
He implored the King to “save us from ourselves”.
His argument was that Europe was so addicted to oil it no longer
had the ability to think rationally, (perhaps he was once addicted to
heroin).
His plea was that Saudi Arabia would please please please deny the
West any further access to oil. Only that, he implored, could force us to
cut our carbon footprint.
AJ, I have not seen before, such an example of blatant insanity in
a so-called main stream newspaper. If you missed it, but still want to look
into it, I believe monbiot has a website which may be
http://monbiot.com
Oh, and this, he is going to attempt to arrest John Bolton today. Mr Bolton
is for some reason, speaking at a literary “festival” in Britain called
the Hay festival. About as useful as going to infoshop. That is a different
story – entirely.
I wonder if any monarchs in Saudi Arabia even know, at all, of George
Monbiot’s plea. I sus[ect not.
Hi AJ,
Perhaps you missed monbiot.com writing in yesterday’s
http://www.guardian.co.uk newspaper.
He wrote an open letter to the King of Saudi Arabia, (whose name
he didn’t know).
He implored the King to “save us from ourselvesâ€.
His argument was that Europe was so addicted to oil it no longer
had the ability to think rationally, (perhaps he was once addicted to
heroin).
His plea was that Saudi Arabia would please please please deny the
West any further access to oil. Only that, he implored, could force us to
cut our carbon footprint.
AJ, I have not seen before, such an example of blatant insanity in
a so-called main stream newspaper. If you missed it, but still want to look
into it, I believe monbiot has a website which may be
http://monbiot.com
Oh, and this, he is going to attempt to arrest John Bolton today. Mr Bolton
is for some reason, speaking at a literaru “festival†in Britain called
the Hay festival. About as useful as going to infoshop. That is a different
story – entirely.
I wonder if any monarchs in Saudi Arabia even know, at all, of George
Monbiot’s plea. I sus[ect not.
Great post, AJ…please allow me to add………
It is intuitive to feel that the provision of higher gas-mileage vehicles by the automakers will fix the problem, but the reality is that CAFE has exacerbated the problem, and will do so again. Fleet gas mileage was essentially doubled after the first round of CAFE, begun in 1974. With stable oil prices, this meant that the cost per mile driven WENT DOWN. When the use of a commodity goes down in price, American consumers will figure out a way to use more of it; and we did. Over time, decisions as to where to live, where to work, and how much we would drive, resulted in the fact that we drive 35% more today than before CAFE. If you’ll think about it, in which alternative universe can the conservation of a commodity be increased by making it cheaper to use?
The other idiocy inherent in liberal energy policy I’d like to point out concerns mass transit, and CAFE. If you owned a mass transit company, like, say AMTRAK, how would you like it if your most fierce competitor, the motor vehicle, were mandated to become more competitive in snatching your business from you? As the motor vehicle has become cheaper to use, mass transit suffers, and in our part of the world, requires more tax-payer subsidies. I cringe every time I hear a liberal entity clamor for more mass transit. These are the same ones who whined for higher mileage vehicles. CAFE, folks, is a tax pure and simple, as long as we attempt to have subsidized mass transit. Oh, and it won’t work, it will make the problem worse, IMHO.
Which customers does a company service first? It’s smallest customers or its largest customers?
The Left is trying to put us in the “smallest customer” category regarding the Arabs which is fine IF WE WERE DRILLING FOR OUR OWN OIL.
So now, let’s see: China will be a HUGE customer of the Arabs and we will be….
Who then will have the most econmic power?
It’s all about bringing America down a rung…or two or three.
Hey Libs, “It is not enlightened to shrink so that others may feel more secure.”….this being said from one of your own.
We, in the Heartland, ain’t shrinkin’ one little bit.
If the GOP had any gonads, courage or even a ‘modest’ desire to not lose ground in Congress, they should be touting EVERY DAY the reason for high fuel costs IS CONGRESS ITSELF, and democrats in particular. Most conservative Americans know this, and have known this for decades. It would seem fairly simple to prove just by ‘exposing’ votes on key bills for the last 20 years. Yeah, some Republicans supporting this crap (including Globaloney) will get ‘smeared’ by their ignorance, but they will deserve it or at least should deserve it. I’ve come to believe congress is hopeless at this point. They are only serving themselves and look blindly toward the next election cycle. Unless we can force term limits, I see America in a steady decline to socialism with an exponential decline in all of our freedoms. Correction of this erosion will take decades to fix, with much individual suffering in between. The only ‘quick fix’ I can envision at this point is “Mars Attacks”. I get more and more frustrated every day. All correspondence to my ‘congress critters’ is simply ignored. Not even a ‘form letter’ response. Grab your wallets America, bad times are on the way….
Via the DailyMail
Every adult should be forced to use a ‘carbon ration card’ when they pay for petrol, airline tickets or household energy, MPs say.
The influential Environmental Audit Committee says a personal carbon trading scheme is the best and fairest way of cutting Britain’s CO2 emissions without penalising the poor.
Under the scheme, everyone would be given an annual carbon allowance to use when buying oil, gas, electricity and flights.
I don’t believe “global warming” is going to be an issue much longer. I’ve been researching this on my own, and there is something extremely unusual going on with solar cycle 24 – unusual as in, it still hasn’t shown up. NASA predicted that it would start in March of 2007, and nothing. Then they said March of 2008 – nothing. Now NASA throws it’s hands up and predicts “well, who knows? but it’s probably not important, so don’t worry.” This is the greatest solar anomaly recorded in modern times, and yet it isn’t being reported by anyone because, well because “it probably doesn’t matter.” It’s not just a matter of spots – Sol’s luminosity and magnetic output has dropped, with a noticeable downward shift happening suddenly in October of 2005. Slightly, but measurably.
Meanwhile, some Russian researchers (among others, Archibald has the most comprehensive monograph on the topic) note that the last time the sun exhibited this kind of behavior was at the very beginning of the Dalton Minimum, a 30 year period of extremely cold winters and lower than average temperatures, lasting from about 1795 – 1825. The Dalton minimum destroyed growing seasons throughout the northern hemisphere, leading to mass starvation on a level not seen since the Maunder minimum, 250 years previously. A much more bitterly cold winter than normal, common during the Dalton Minimum, is what destroyed Napoleon’s army in Russia. Lewis and Clark, traveling west during the Dalton minimum, recorded far lower winter temperatures than have generally been seen in the 2 centuries since.
We may not be in for just a little bit of cooling – we may be in for the coldest 30 years the earth has seen in the last 200. And that’s not a good thing. We can only hope that this is just a Dalton event, and not another Maunder event – the Maunder minimum coincided with the little Ice Age, which was a deep freeze that lasted nearly a century in the 1600’s.
Meanwhile, the sun just sits there – no spots, no storms, nothing. What’s going on with the sun? Nothing at all, and that’s the problem. Cycle 24, where are you?