A quarter of a century ago, a national
energy emergency faced America. To deal with this
emergency, liberals set up the Department of Energy
in 1977. So this emergency solution has been in
place for almost a generation.
In the 1970s, the energy crisis was used to push
economic stagnation. We were not just to stop growing,
we were to shrink economically. Bureaucrats were
to divide up the oil.
For over two decades, the Department of Energy has
been funded with endless billions of dollars to
prevent exactly this kind of problem. Now that we
have the same situation again, no one mentions anything
DOE ever did about it. It wasn't SUPPOSED to really
deal with any such crisis.
As with every other liberal "solution,"
we are wasting resources on bureaucrats while we
wait for technology to solve the real problem.
Now that OPEC has raised oil prices again, and we
have spent billions every year for 23 years on the
Department of Energy to deal with just such a crisis,
can anyone name a single way in which we are better
off? Of course not.
This was what the Energy Department was given DECADES
to take care of, and it never occurred to anyone
to imagine that this liberal program would deal
with the problem. Liberal programs not only don't
work, it never occurs to anyone that they should
work.
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Unlike a good conservative, I do not
think that all businessmen are good and virtuous
and that all rich people are automatically good
(Please See May 7, 2000 -- "Microsoft Case: A Liberal Gets Mugged").
Likewise, unlike liberals, I do not automatically
hate productive people.
When the public was polled on who was to blame for
the present rise in gas prices, 32% blamed the government,
32% blamed OPEC, and 23% blamed the American oil
industry. So the Administration is going after the
oil industry.
Oil makes a great villain. First of all, it is the
only major industry left that is dominated completely
by people who are the ideal villains from the point
of the view of the media, that is to say, of Eastern
liberalism. Those who dominate it tend to have Southern
"accents."
Even in the 1920s, the editor of the New Yorker
kept a sign on his desk that said, "Hate Southerners"
(James Thurber, "My Years With Ross").
Let me repeat, I have no doubt that, like any other
businessman, an oilman is perfectly capable of gouging
the public if he gets a chance. But when there is
a fuel shortage, liberals go after the industry
because it is the only thing they CAN go after.
They can't do anything about OPEC. They can't blame
government, because they favor government action,
especially price controls and rationing. So all
they can do is attack the oil industry as the culprit
in all of our energy problems.
For decades, the rich Northeast kept the price of
Southern oil low through government price controls.
So their prejudice paid off, big time. "Hate
Southerners" was a very profitable motto.
When the energy crisis of the 1970s hit, this prejudice
went wild. Conservatives demanded that we get rid
of price controls in order to increase domestic
production. The liberals responded that not only
would deregulation reduce government controls, which
is always poison to liberals, but it would also
take away the gigantic exploitation of the South
by which Our Glorious Union had robbed the South
of tens of billions of dollars.
So liberals had two answers to America's energy
problems in the 1970s: 1) blame it all on the oil
industry, and 2) lots of government programs and
a new Department of Energy.
Let me tell you something that is going to surprise
you right out of your seat: The liberals had an
energy policy, and that energy policy didn't WORK!
No liberal policy ever works, and they did not destroy
their perfect record with the energy crisis. Those
of us who lived through the late 1970's remember
it as a period of despair. We were introduced, for
the first time in American history, to "stagflation,"
where we had both inflation and huge unemployment
at the same time.
First, let us look at what a sane person does when
a crisis like this develops. If there is a national
shortage in any industry, you subsidize that industry.
What the Carter Administration did was to attack
and punish and defame the oil industry and try to
force down domestic prices when we desperately needed
to increase production.
Naturally things just got worse. To repeat, any
sane person would know that the last thing you need
to do when you have a shortage is to attack the
domestic producers. This is not because oilmen are
nice, or that rich people should be trusted, but
simply because, when you face a domestic shortage,
you have to make breaks for your domestic industry.
The liberal solution in the 1970s was to have the
government ration all the energy and to have the
government sponsor searches for alternative energy
sources. The government did as well at that as it
does with everything else. "Punish, tax and
ration" is a summary of the policy of the late
1970s. Oddly enough, the supplies went down and
prices skyrocketed.
A frustrated President Carter told Americans that
it was all their fault. He accused us of a "national
malaise" which had somehow caused the problem.
It has taken me many words to explain the complications
and mental aberrations that led to this liberal
insanity which as always didn't work and which as
always was incredibly destructive. What happened
next shows that the entire problem was, as it so
often is, the liberal policy that was supposed to
deal with it.
What happened next takes few words: Reagan got rid
of price controls, the energy crisis ended, and
prices went back down.
Now Gore is demanding that the oil industry be regulated
and limited. It is the same policy as the 70s, but
this time he wants to do it in the name of "The
Environment."
But while no respectable conservative is going to
call this a replay of the seventies strategy that
cost Carter the presidency, too many of us remember
that time of failure and despair. For once, despite
all respectable conservatives can do, the liberals
seem to have gotten the blame for one of their failures.
Gore is playing the old Carter song, and nobody
wants the Carter years back.
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