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Politics : View from the Center and Left
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To: TimF who wrote (48025)2/5/2008 3:59:20 PM
From: Katelew  Read Replies (3) of 541334
 
Is police protection of a commercial district a subsidy to the businesses in that district? No its general keeping of order. Keeping trade open isn't a subsidy.

Tim, I have to reject your notion of using our military to keep order and keep trade open with regard to oil.

OPEC and other oil producing nations will sell to us because they are in the business of selling their oil. We are a customer and these countries receive most of their revenues by selling their oil to their customers. As long as we can pay for oil, there will be a producer willing to sell it to us.

But let's say one or several of the big producers decide not to sell to us. Are you suggesting we would then use military force to take the oil? Are you suggesting that we should maintain a military in order to be prepared to take by force what a country refuses to sell to us?

If so, your scenario could be extended to all natural resources, couldn't it? Why stop at oil? And what is the logical end to such thinking?

All resources are finite. Presumably, toward the end, those countries with resources will begin to husband them for use by their own populations. Do you see the United States, a so-called Christian nation, overpowering such countries with military force to grab the last bits for ourselves?

I much prefer a scenario of US government funding to achieve self-sufficiency as quickly as possible.
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