You can call war anything you want or make up your own definitions of socialism. But the fact remains that you are advocating socializing the energy industry.
Am I really? Let's get down to it then with a metaphor. Please read the below and explain to me exactly how I am advocating for socialism. If you put aside the partisan rhetoric, you may see that what I'm advocating is common sense, something that admittedly has been in short supply in this country in the last decade.
Your Family's Decisions
Let's say you and your family spend $2,000 per month on food. You are unhappy with the size of this monthly expense, because it is one of your largest budget items and because your family is getting fat. So you decide to investigate that expense to see what's going on.
You are an avid Quicken user, so you track not only your food expenditures, but the types of food you buy. When you examine it, you find out that the largest single expense in that monthly figure is candy, which you spend $500 per month on. Not only that, but the largest candy suppliers in your neighborhood are gang members, who generally don't like you and do bad things to the community, like restrict people's human rights, etc. So you quickly decide that not only is candy pushing your food expenses unreasonably high, but it is making your family fat and enriching these bad gang members who don't like you. So you make a no-brainer decision. You tell your family that you want candy consumption to come down by 75% and that to achieve that goal, you are willing to increase expenses on fruit and other healthy snacks. Not only that, but for the 25% candy consumption that will continue, you plan to make your own candy from raw materials in your backyard. That is a sane response to a problem with fiscal, family health, and family freedom and security implications. In the process, you spend less time competing for scarce candy supplies against your neighbors, and there is more candy for everyone else. In fact, since you were one of the largest consumers, candy prices remain stable and even decrease a bit, and that benefits everyone. Not only that, but your conscience is clear in that you are no longer buying commodities from your worst enemies, the neighborhood gangs.
Your Neighbor's Decisions
Now, your neighbor is not so smart. He is in exactly the same situation. But instead of being responsible, he decides to double down. He starts going to all his neighbors and offering to buy their candy. Pretty soon, his family has all gained even more weight and his candy expenses have increased to $700 per month. This still isn't enough for him, though, so he starts borrowing money from you to fight a war with his other neighbor so that he can secure even more candy supplies. His neighbor, who is weaker and has less money, starts engaging in guerrilla warfare against this candy hog. The candy hog is a strong power in the neighborhood, so he generally can get others to follow along on his misadventures. As a result, the world calls his neighbor a terrorist. The candy hog doesn't change his ways, though; instead, he continues increasing his borrowings, consuming ever more candy, and spending less and less on other important expenditures, including healthy food, until he dies of diabetes. Good riddance.
Morale of the Story
I think you get it by now. You and your family are the US on the sane energy path that I'd like to see, which includes diversification of energy sources with government regulation and incentives to move us in that direction. The second family represents the US as it is today, with a foreign policy driven by its oil addiction, an economy vulnerable to oil shocks, oil suppliers who are generally bad actors on the world stage, terrorists who are funded by oil money, and the ever increasing amounts of pollution coming from cars burning gasoline.
Again, if we all use our common sense and forget the partisan rhetoric, then oil independence is a no-brainer. |
