(originally posted November 3, 2005 on a sister blog site):

As the debates rage on about oil companies and their absurd profit margins, I am outraged by the number of Americans demanding government intervention to regulate oil companies' profits. It's the political "cause du jour" sponsored by the left, and, like the majority of the left's platforms, it stinks like rancid 2 week old catfish on a hot July day.

See, what these leftist leaders are convincing me is that they're unable to read their own writings. As they sneer at the lady with 6 kids getting into an SUV (which, by the way, is one of the few vehicle types large enough to HOLD their family of 8), and spam my email account with emails suggesting I boycott this station or that on this day or that, they are ignoring the message they've preached for over 30 years.

The message is CONSERVATION. As a child who went through grade school in the 70's, I got SEVERAL earsful of movies, TV shows, commercials and cartoons all telling me to "do my part" to reduce my impact on the environment. When "reduce, reuse and recycle" came into vogue, its message was plastered onto millions of posters (the ironic casualties being the trees that had to die to get the message out, but I digress), and since that time every soda can has carried the little triangle logo that expresses the concept.

See, if you reduce the DEMAND on the oil companies, they will have to sell their product at a lower cost. It's just that simple. The recent gas price surges, while obscene, were brought about by an American public that steadfastly REFUSED to reduce their consumption to bring down the prices. And if the left has the mandate it claims, being the victim of two stolen presidential elections and countless stolen Congressional elections (voice said DRIPPING with sarcasm in the absence of that much needed sarcasm font), then the left should have had a whole ARMY full of liberals who abandoned their vehicles for pedestrian and bicycle traffic. Birkenstock and Schwinn stocks should have soared, rather than Exxon stocks. America's obesity problem AND our energy problem would have BOTH been solved in one fell swoop!

But it didn't happen. Because the vast majority of environmental pretenders would rather theorize and WRITE about solutions to environmental problems rather than DO something. And if THEY won't make the change, why do they expect US to do so?

Learn more about this author, Gideon MacLeish.
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