Posted by Dr. Robert Owens in Politics, Politiocal Philosophy.
Tags: Cut Regulations, Donald Trump, Dr. Robert Owens, drill baby drill, Energy dominance, Energy independence, Make America Great Again, President Trump, Repeal and replace
That was the America First battle cry for decades as the America Last crowd tried to mold us into their version of a second-rate power and potential third world hellhole. For administration after administration we were lectured about how we had to drive less, trade in our SUVs for tiny little Obama Clown Cars to reach “Energy Independence.” Now after less than six months of the Trump Administration long stalled pipelines are flowing, America is one of the major oil exporting nations, the cost of gasoline is dropping due to the expanding supply, OPEC is freaking because we’re fracking, and we’re talking about “Oil Dominance.”
Combine that with a resurgent coal industry and we’re beginning to see the outlines of making America great again.
If we can get a healthcare bill that allows the free market to fix the problem, if we can repeal two regulations for every new one (so far Mr. Trump is repealing sixteen for every new one), if we can resist the pressure of the neo-cons for war in Syria, or Iran, or Russia, or anywhere, if we can avoid the political assassination of impeachment we may have a chance to right the Ship-of-State that’s been listing hard to port for generations.
Those are some big “Ifs.” The political establishment, that two headed bird of prey that constitutes the Republicrat Government Party is fixated on the destruction of the Trump presidency. They must destroy him and declare that his election was an aberration, a mistake that has to be rebuked and reversed. If Mr. Trump, a non-politician can succeed than it reveals the truth. We don’t need professional politicians and technocrats to run the bewildering bureaucracy these same hacks and pencil pushers have created.
We now have a Special Counsel investigating a non-crime. We have House and Senate committees spending all day every day investigating things they know are cut from whole cloth, castles in the air. The Progressive Republican majorities in Congress are unable to reverse the travesty of affordable healthcare that costs more. The courts provide injustice as they block obviously lawful acts of the President because they didn’t like his rhetoric while a candidate. What is the long and short of all this obstructionism? The political class and their allies in the chatocracy are determined to reverse the results of the 2016 election. Or at least to bog the administration down with trumped up investigations to the point they’re paralyzed and ineffective. Why? Because they didn’t win and they can’t allow a non-politician to succeed that’s why.
For years the political hucksters told us we had to lower our expectations. They told us we had to make amends and pay reparations for all the evil we’d done. We had a president making apology tours, bowing to foreign rulers, and in general doing all he could to fulfill the dreams of his anti-colonial father.
Finally we have a leader who believes America can be great again. Finally we have a leader who proudly says we should believe in, project, and defend America first. This is just too much for the apparatchiks who hang on like a drowning man to a life preserver to the levers of power in the bureaucratic Rube Goldberg machine that is the federal behemoth.
How do we break the log jam?
Enter my new political party, the Telephone Book Party. Every two years we pick the first 535 names out of a phone book and that’s our congress. Then two years later we try another phone book. At least we’d have some regular people and maybe even a few working people in there instead of these feather-bedding plutocrat wannabes making laws for everyone else that don’t apply to them.
Seriously we have to do something to break out of the death spiral. If the deadweight would get out of the way and pass a simple healthcare fix such as Senator Cruz’s suggestion of allowing insurance companies to offer affordable policies without all the required Obamacare bells and whistles. If they would pass tax reform and build the wall President Trump would soar to the top of the polls. So, you can be assured none of that is going to happen.
What can we do? We rallied in unprecedented numbers to elect a non-politician to break the cycle and rejuvenate the American dream of personal freedom and economic opportunity. You can see how well that’s going?
If the Constitution was written expressly to institute and maintain a limited government and we have what we have how can we say it’s a success at the moment? Dare we say it, the Constitution has failed. Perhaps it’s time to reassess the social contract by which we order and live our lives. If ¾ of the States call for a convention to consider amendments according to Article V of the Constitution such a convention shall convene. Currently twelve States have voted for such a convention. Thirty-four are needed. Many fear such a convention. However, if what we have now is no longer working why should we hesitate? The Founders and the Framers didn’t hesitate. They did what was needed to birth this great experiment in human freedom. Should we hesitate to re-birth it now that it’s become ossified with precedent and political machinations?
We need to plumb the depths of our hearts and the recesses of our souls to find the courage and fortitude to rebuild the walls and pinnacles of human freedom. Just as the ridiculed advice of drill baby drill led us from energy subservience to energy dominance maybe we need a new deck and not just a new deal?
Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion. He is the Historian of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com © 2017 Contact Dr. Owens drrobertowens@hotmail.com Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook or Twitter @ Drrobertowens / Edited by Dr. Rosalie Owens
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Posted by Dr. Robert Owens in Uncategorized.
Tags: demand for oil, Dr. Robert Owens, drill baby drill, Energy independence, oil embargo, oil speculators
The rising price of oil has a negative impact on our economy and threatens to stifle our anemic recovery from the government produced and bureaucratically fostered Great Recession. How did we get here? Has anyone ever pinpointed the problem beyond blaming speculators and rising demand? Has anyone shown us how our energy independence could be achieved?
Remember the 1973 oil embargo? This was our first oil shock. How did it come about and what did we do about it? Did these policies solve the problem?
In 1973, the U.S. and the Western world were experiencing an accelerating inflationary spiral. Twenty years of prosperity and accelerating population growth created heavy need for raw materials that were not being produced internally which made them highly vulnerable to commodity cartels. Due to the fall in domestic production mainly because of the powerful man-made global warming lobby the demand for Middle Eastern oil increased. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), formed in 1960, determined to increase its profits at the expense of the West grew stronger.
President Nixon, in an attempt to control inflation imposed price controls on oil in March 1973. The U.S. which has the world’s largest reserves of oil had been self-sufficient in energy up until the late 1950s was by the 1970s importing over 35% of its energy needs. Through the lack of planning U.S. petroleum reserves were depleted and the pride that goes before a fall led our government, corporations, and individuals to be entirely unprepared for the radical change about to take place.
On the Jewish high holy day of Yom Kippur October 6, 1973,, Egyptian forces attacked Israel across the Suez Canal, while at the same time Syrian troops attacked the Golan Heights. With help from the U.S., Israeli forces succeeded in pushing into both Syria and Egypt until a cease fire saved both Arab regimes. On October 17, OPEC struck back imposing a total oil embargo on the U.S. and increasing prices by 70% on Western Europe, and overnight the price of a barrel of oil to these nations more than triples going from $3 to $5.11.
This led to a series of presidential statements and actions all aimed at rallying the American people in the face of growing dependency and international impotence in the energy sector.
Richard Nixon said, “Let us set as our national goal, in the spirit of Apollo, with the determination of the Manhattan Project, that by the end of this decade we will have developed the potential to meet our own energy needs without depending on any foreign energy source.”
President Gerald Ford said, “I am recommending a plan to make us invulnerable to cutoffs of foreign oil. … new stand-by emergency programs to achieve the independence we want…”
President Jimmy Carter said, achieving energy independence was the “moral equivalent of war.”
Ronald Reagan, always looking for the free market approach said we should look to, “native American genius, not arbitrary federal policy, to be free to provide for our energy future.”
In 1991, in the prelude to the First Gulf War, President George H.W. Bush announced, “There is no security for the United States in further dependence on foreign oil.”
In 2000, President Clinton said, “The nation’s growing reliance on imports threatens the nation’s security because it increases U.S. vulnerability to oil supply interruptions.”
George W. Bush repeated recent presidential history by insisting, in his 2003 State of the Union address, that one of his administration’s goals was “to promote energy independence for our country.”
Mr. Obama continued the chorus saying, “America’s dependence on oil is one of the most serious threats that our nation has faced.”
Did any President ever have an energy policy which effectively dealt with the problems of oil production and supply?
Reagan said, “The best answer, while conservation is worthy in itself, is to try to make us independent of outside sources to the greatest extent possible for our energy.”
Ronald Reagan also said, “Our national energy plan should not be a rigid set of production and conservation goals dictated by Government. Our primary objective is simply for our citizens to have enough energy, and it is up to them to decide how much energy that is, and in what form and manner it will reach them. When the free market is permitted to work the way it should, millions of individual choices and judgments will produce the proper balance of supply and demand our economy needs. ”
As soon as he became president, Ronald Reagan ended the price controls on domestic oil first imposed by Richard Nixon; these controls had contributed to both the 1973 Oil Crisis and the 1979 Energy Crisis. Almost immediately the price of oil fell, and during the 1980s America didn’t experience the gasoline lines and fuel shortages of the 1970s. In addition, the removal of price controls ignited a boom in domestic drilling which arrested America’s slide into energy dependence.
As to the energy questions: How do we end our dependence on foreign oil? How can we achieve the energy independence which every President since Nixon has said is a matter of national security? Stop wringing our hands and moaning about our situation, stand up like our ancestors have and boldly declare our Energy Independence! In practical terms we should: take the shackles off our domestic oil industry, build new refineries, develop better distribution of natural gas, expand the use of nuclear, wind, solar and every conceivable form of energy, and drill baby drill!
Then in this new situation with America reaping the benefits, the jobs, the growth of a renewed sense of freedom and security let’s barter. One barrel of oil = one bushel of wheat.
Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion for Southside Virginia Community College. He is the author of the History of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com View the trailer for Dr. Owens’ latest book @ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ypkoS0gGn8 © 2011 Robert R. Owens dr.owens@comcast.net Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook.
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Dr. Robert Owens Chronicles the History of the Future 