Posted by
Bob on Saturday, January 19, 2008 1:20:37 PM
As Ron Reagan correctly states, President Bush's approach to the Saudis, tin cup in hand and asking them to pump more oil so we can buy it on the world market for a lower price is humiliating and disgusting. The recent oil-price spike is caused in large measure by the rapidly depreciating value of the US Dollar that results from shoveling huge piles of dollars to foreigners so we can import a major proportion of our energy needs instead of producing more locally.
Why are vast areas of our federal lands off-limits to all but a few wilderness backpackers? Why are huge prime prospects in Alaska and our 200-mile continental shelf also off-limits to energy development? These problems basically result from quasi-religious enviro-fanaticism, and here a little review of the past may be instructive.
A thousand years ago, waves of devout Christian "Crusaders" set out from western Europe to rescue the Holy Land from the "Infidels". Those early crusading fanatics imagined their noble cause justified their excesses, but history has judged them harshly -- elite, aggressive, dogmatic, defying reason. The legacy of their fanaticism and depredations haunts us even today, and the word "crusader" now suffers a pejorative connotation.
After World War II, a beneficial new genre of enviro-worship evolved, with the noble purpose of rescuing Goddess Earth from human depredations. Well-intentioned parishioners joined quasi-religious denominations, including the Sierra Club, the Wilderness Society, Greenpeace, Earth Liberation Front, Gaia Mater et al, and many performed great good works, despite excesses from an evolving "crusader" syndrome among the preachers.
But will their ministers, high priests and ayatollahs need $200-oil to realize their overly-restrictive land-use testaments are severely restricting domestic energy development, putting the value of the dollar and our entire economy at risk for all Americans, including their own parishioners? To avoid reaping an anti-environmental backlash and the opprobrium now heaped on the original crusaders for their excesses, I pray these new crusaders may soon see the light, and instead of exercising endless obstructionism, will apply their expertise in helping to ensure prudent development of all our fossil-fuel energy resources.