Its pretty simple, not having the oil would make us worse off than we are now, so buying the oil is a positive.
So is excruciating pain if the only other option is death. That doesn't make excruciating pain a good thing.
If you admit, and I assume you do, that $120 a barrel oil, up 600%, is a drag on our economy, then the obvious remedy is to look for alternatives. That's what people do... they problem solve, they don't just turn a negative into a positive with a word game.
The domestic demand/supply problem isn't going away, it's only going to get worse. The trend is a 100% increase each year. Every product and service in the country is touched by the price of oil. There are alternatives, and they require investment.
The free market could probably, eventually, produce the needed changes, but in the meantime our economy and lifestyle would differ dramatically. The US government has been deeply involved in every major infrastructure change this country has known, and they need to be involved in this one to set the rules, provide the incentives and disincentives, and provide some of the seed money.
Now you can say "You believe that our economy would essentially be destroyed without imported oil. Avoiding being "essentially destroyed" is clearly a positive." But to me a quick kill or being bled to death are not all that different. I believe strong, forward looking action is warranted.
You are able to make an intellectual leap that somehow a war in Iraq, paid for with government (our) funds will somehow lead to a future US net benefit. Certainly you can imagine that an investment in non-oil based transportation could also yield a net benefit? |
