Progressives and the Double Headed Snake

To hear what the left side big shots are saying these days, you'd think you're hearing from a slimy two-headed snake. Nowhere is this more apparent that dealing with the current escalation in gasoline and electric prices. Talk about rising gas prices, they'll bark and scream about greedy profit hungry oil companies ripping off "working" people or the "middle class." The facts don't matter, but their lust for power operates on attempting to divide and conquer by appealing to a class struggle. Naturally, they'll say much the same about utilities doing the same with electricity rates. When the cost goes up, some greedy corporations, almost always called "BIG" -- as in "BIG" oil and the ultimate shadowy control agency of all of them "Wall Street" are to blame. Don't try to talk to them about market forces, something as simple as supply and demand is too difficult a concept for them to understand. Somehow they see good people need stuff (that's demand) and that the suppliers as in sellers are the bad guys. So how can demand in excess of supply equal greed. In their world, they'd argue against gravity. Surely, if someone standing on a ledge fell to his death, someone pushed him and it was someone's duty to catch him. Right now, they're looking to someone to come to their rescue, supposedly the government, to force prices down.

Meanwhile, what's driving the cost of fuel up?  It's not having enough supply to satisfy the world's demand and no society demands more fuel than the United States. The left doesn't want the predominant source of fuel for power generation, coal, used because it is bad for the environment. They don't want nuclear power because they fear radiation will leak out and we'll all mutate into two headed something or others. They don't want hydroelectric power because it messes up eco-systems. They are against increasing domestic production of petroleum because they oppose off-shore drilling and forbid oil production in the Alaskan National Wildlife Reserve even though the area currently sought for oil production is only a small fraction of the entire reserve painting pictures of this bountiful land of lovely flora and fauna beautiful Arctic beasts running free. They'll run videos of the most beautiful scenery Alaska has to offer when the real area desired is little more than a frozen mudflat.

They speak of promoting alternate sources of fuel and urging companies to convert. Yet they won't support the kind of incentives that will encourage entrepreneurs and the corporate world to invest in inventing new technologies. They won't reduce capital gains taxes or provide tax benefits to make it economical for companies to upgrade their physical facilities to be more energy efficient. They won't allow for more domestic production of natural gas, a material we have in huge supply. They say they love wind power, but not in their backyards. Case in point, a wind farm was proposed off sure not far from Martha's Vineyard,  near the Kennedy compound -- oh no, not that close to the Kennedys' they don't want to see windmills from their wonderful yachts.

Government regulation both reducing supply and not helping to reduce demand is the main reason fuel costs are so high. When we depend on so much fuel from hostile nations or countries with dreadfully unstable governments,the slightest upheaval can disrupt the supply driving costs up. The best the Obama administration can do is offer to send OUR MONEY to Brazil to support their offshore oil exploration. Would that commit Brazil to contract with the United States to provide us fuel at below OPEC prices?  No!  It doesn't commit Brazil to anything. It simply rests on the hopes that they would return the favor. What if China outbids us for oil from Brazil?

There is much more to the total energy picture. We concede that coal is not a good material for generating electricity. It's the worst fuel for the environment and "clean" coal simply means less sulphur and mercury, it's still dirty. Much needs to be done to move away from using petroleum. The responsible blueprint for tomorrow's energy needs is a discussion for another day.

Right now, the government must stop being a roadblock to providing the United States the fuel supply it needs at a reasonable cost. The government must also provide the proper financial support to reduce dependence on foreign fuel and obsolete technologies.

That the "progressives" fail to recognize this is not surprising but they'll continue to whine and engage in their usual "killing babies, poisoning children" fear talk while nothing gets better. We'd like to show a great example of this recently published in the Huffington Post. The column writer, Michael Kieschnick (would that be pronounced CHEESE-NICK?), is a particularly loathsome leftist who runs a cellphone company for leftwingers pledged to contribute his profits to the usual causes and organizations fellows like George Soros dump their wealth upon, organizations and enterprises hell bent on creating a so-called open society -- the antithesis of a free enterprise representative republic.

Here's the CREDO cretin himself DEMANDING lower fuel costs and his two-headed snake reasoning. How can someone so stupid sound so self-assured (pompous)?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-kieschnick/i-demand-cheaper-electric_b_838142.html

The bottom line is our way of life and economy is built on steady availability of cheap gasoline and electricity. The more we are dependent on unstable regions and hostile nations for that supply, the more likely it will hit us in the wallet. Not widely discussed is how much oil we import from Mexico. However, should we not be concerned about the chaos south of the border as even another threat to our fuel supply?

That leaves what we can produce ourselves and import from Canada as our only stable options for petroleum.

Electricity is perhaps not quite as tough. Can we accept new nuclear plants that would be far better constructed than those in Japan? What will it take to start maximizing our natural gas supply? Where do we stand on alternate sources that make sense?  We believe coal is a terrible option given that "clean" coal really only means less miserable and mining coal disfigures our planet.

Whether looking at petroleum or electricity generation, our country is not acting responsibly and refuses to move forward. If we're going to get anywhere in the future, the first thing we need to do is kill the two-headed snake.




.