Topic category:  Other/General

I wish more people knew history.  The notion that America has a finite supply of oil so that we need to not produce as much oil as we can is not just absurd, but dangerously absurd.  During the Second World War, when technology was much less sophisticated and exploration techniques much less accurate, the United States produced much more oil than it needed in the middle of a global, oceanic war.

Not only that, but our nation exported the oil that Britain and even Russia used to wage war against our enemies.  If we did not have that huge exploration, extraction and refining complex, Hitler would have died peacefully in his sleep conqueror of most of Eurasia and the democracies – America, Britain and Australia in particular – would have been compelled to influence our policies for purely economic reasons to please the murderer of six million Jews.

The overproduction of oil – our ability to produce much more oil than our nation needed – saved many millions from death, liberated billions and altered the course of human history.  Those Sinisterists (pathological opponents of America, among other perennial scapegoats) in our nation surrender our ability to be the larger producer of cheap energy on the planet.

Do they realize just what this means – even by their own warped and sick logic?  “Bush went to war for oil!”  Well, then would it not make great sense to develop huge oil and gas production capabilities within the United States (as well as nuclear and coal power), so that even if their grotesque reasoning has a smidgen of truth, that we can make sure that America never needs to go to war for oil?

It was our overabundance of oil that almost prevented Japan from attacking Pearl Harbor.  It was our overabundance of oil that insured Britain did not fail in 1940.  These Sinisterists either want us to lose or wish us to win with as much violence as possible.  Here is a thought:  let America win our geopolitical battles by having the ability to make Iranian, Saudi and Venezuelan irrelevant.  Let us control their conduct, compel them to improve human rights, end their support for terrorism by our power to reduce their oil revenues by lowering the world price of crude oil.

Could we do that?  Of course we could!  Government, first, can become the friend and not the enemy of oil and gas production.  That would mean, of course, opening up as much land and coastal area as possible to exploration.  It would also mean providing as many possible federal incentives to introduce efficiencies into the oil and gas industry.  As one example, organized labor – also a burdensome and useless bureaucratic level – could be excluded and National Right to Work mandatory in the oil industry.  A tax moratorium for all profits reinvested in domestic production, transportation and refining of oil and gas could be adopted, and that should pre-empt on grounds of national security all state and local rules, taxes and regulations (as well as labor laws, etc.)

 In short, an American president should announce that by 2015 America will produce more oil and gas than it needs and will be able to keep the world price low by dumping oil and gas whenever cartels or dictators try to raise the price too high.  Call it a Moon Project or a Marshal Plan, but the intensity of effort should be the same. Scholarships should be offered for students who enroll in petroleum engineering and prizes to Americans who come up with energy saving devices which are made available as public domain.

What would be the geopolitical consequences?  First, the Arab and radical Islamic world would either have to learn to produce goods and services which people actually want to buy or these peoples and governments would become completely dependent on the largess of peaceful democracies.  One option leads to peace, prosperity and democracy and the other to control over the policies of potentially hostile governments.

Second, as China grows, an America that dominated the world production of energy would be able to restrain aggression without war or the threat of war.  Make the growth of Chinese prosperity contingent on the respect of the American people and the goodwill of the American government, and we will have peace.

Oil, like guns, in the right hands brings blessings.  High time that we took the best oil industry in history and turned it into the most bloodless and benign instrument of national policy.

Bruce Walker

Biography - Bruce Walker

Bruce Walker has been a published author in print and in electronic media since 1990. He is a regular contributor to WebCommentary, Conservative Truth, American Daily, Enter Stage Right, Intellectual Conservative, NewsByUs and MenŐs News Daily. His first book, Sinisterism: Secular Religion of the Lie by Outskirts Press was published in January 2006.