Inmates And The Asylum - Part 2

Most conservatives were liberals at one time. By definition we all start out young, and when we’re young we tend to believe that every idea that’s new to us is a new idea to everyone. It’s a cliché that those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it, but the same is true of those who are simply ignorant of it as well. It’s no fault of the youth that they don’t know from where they speak, but excusing their ignorance is not the same as believing that their ideas hold some wisdom. The young are not fools, but are often just as wrong as fools.

Later, as our knowledge experience offers perspective, it becomes clear just how far humanity has come and how few ideas are really new. And when that happens, Conservatives can still look back at the liberal worldview and understand it because it used to their own. They understand how the ego can be mistaken for a defining moral compass, or how rationalization can take the place of logic. They can see clearly how the most passionate liberals are those who are the most insecure and that they address that insecurity by insisting that everyone does things their way.

Conservatives understand why it’s so important for liberals to be the person who makes the decisions and why it’s so hard for them to let everyone decide for themselves. They know that the liberal doesn’t trust the world to act rationally because liberals assume everyone in the world is making up their own definition of “truth”… the same as every liberal.

There is no objective truth to a liberal, they’re emotional defense mechanisms won’t allow them to see it. It’s easier for them to rationalize a new truth that explains away logical inconsistencies than to acknowledge an objective truth and change their behavior accordingly. And because that’s so, everything everywhere must be subject to interpretation. There is no logical fallacy so great or personal hypocrisy so obvious that it doesn’t have some liberal somewhere arguing for its acceptance.

And when a liberal world view comes face to face with the realities of the world, someone somewhere ends up looking silly, and invariably tries to redefine their way out of an obvious failure. Unfortunately for all of us, Economics is one of those areas where liberals usually run into much trouble.

High energy costs will slow an economy. Any business that’s only marginally profitable will be driven into insolvency if the cost of energy is high enough. But just because those businesses weren’t as profitable doesn’t mean they didn’t gainfully employ people. And when those companies fold up because of high energy costs, unemployment will rise. This isn’t some right wing diatribe or a partisan view; it’s a simple and utterly unavoidable fact… an inescapable part of reality. But the Liberals in congress will have none of it.

Liberals are in complete control of congress right now. The President can propose anything he likes but without congresses approval, nothing will get done. And right now the liberals who control congress have an energy policy that consists of a few basic points, no new domestic drilling or refining, no nuclear power, new taxes on oil companies, and massive federal funding of solar and wind power. Since none of these points will lead to lower energy costs, it would be rational to assume that they don’t really want energy to be cheaper. And that means that they want unemployment to be high and economic growth to be low. Either that, or they’re completely stuck on the process, and utterly ignoring the goals.

The truth is they don’t necessarily want unemployment to be high and growth to be low. But they do want the cost of oil to stay high because it will reduce its usage and the CO2 that comes from it. The liberals in congress are under the assumption that Americans would prefer higher energy costs because of the hype surrounding global warming. But they would prefer that the cost of oil stays high without any of the natural consequences that come from its high price.

They’ve proposed ideas to prevent those natural consequences and guess what. .. It focuses on the same process that they always use. They’ve locked onto an idea from the 70’s that had disastrous results at the time, but they still can’t escape it. The process they’ve locked onto is government control. They’ll use the government to try to change the rules of nature and to make all the decisions for everyone, everywhere.

Conservative principles revolve around the idea that everyone should be empowered to make their own decisions. Even the idea of “low taxes” is based on letting everyone decide what to do with their own money rather having government take it and spend it for them. If everyone chooses for themselves, then by definition some people will make worse choices than others. But conservatives generally believe that people would be happier with less if they’re the ones who chose it. It’s like the difference between quitting a job and getting fired. Either way you sit home, but one feels better than the other because you’re the one who chose it.

Liberals on the other hand believe that everyone should do things the way that the liberal thinks is best. They aren’t focused on the goal, but on the process. “How” it gets done is of paramount importance to them. And if the public would choose to do things any other way, then it’s perfectly OK with liberals to use the force of government to “make them” do it the right way.

Our current energy policy is designed to reflect just that. And the only means of obtaining energy that they’ve approved of is solar power and wind power. They say that we “can’t drill our way out of this problem” as an excuse for continued prohibition of drilling, but that’s an abject fallacy. In fact we almost certainly can drill ourselves out of this problem, and the markets would reflect it immediately if they would approve new domestic drilling.

We could also do like France does and get a great deal of our electrical power from Nuclear plants. But that’s not part of the Democrat’s approved process either. Or we could have the government step back and let everyone who has any ideas at all about lowering energy cost get into the game. Entrepreneurship has solved more of the world’s problems than anything else, but the Democrats don’t like that process wither. They only like the process which leaves them in control and making all the decisions. This is a problem that’s been caused by politics, so they will only allow politics to solve it.

The Democrats in congress are causing this “energy crisis”, but they can’t hold out forever. When heating oil reaches a price level that’s unsustainable for most people (as they probably will this winter) Democrats in congress will have to allow the supply of traditional energy sources to increase. That means new drilling, new refining, nuclear power, and natural gas. But until then, they’re process focused people in a goal oriented world. And we’re all going to have to live with that.

The American voter has put the inmates in charge of the asylum so things look a little crazy right now. But in spite of the socialist blather of the Democrats about “speculators” and “big oil” and “unnecessary profits”, the real cause of the crisis will be apparent to everyone soon enough. And when that happens, we can put the grown ups back in charge of our energy policy, and put the Democrats in Congress back in their straight jackets where they belong. America’s youth are not fools, but are just as wrong as fools. The Democrats in congress have no such excuse.