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Jewish World Review Oct. 13, 2000 / 14 Tishrei, 5761

Ann Coulter

Ann Coulter
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Oil good; Dems bad

http://www.jewishworldreview.com -- AL GORE'S idea of "standing up to 'Big Oil'" is for all of us to ride bikes and wear heavier coats in the winter. We're supposed to ratchet back our expectations so that we don't disturb some migratory bird by drilling for oil in Alaska.

This is nothing more than warmed-over Jimmy Carter lecturing us to turn down the thermostat as he sat by the fire in that ridiculous cardigan sweater. Democrats love energy policies that don't involve the creation of new energy. They just want to harangue us into giving things up. "Environmentally friendly" means a life of austerity.

What does he think we are -- Swedes? We're Americans. This is a prosperous country. We will not live like Swedes. We want 18-ton Ford Exploro-cruisers, cell phones, CDs, hot showers, blow dryers, DVD players and jet skis.

Fuel is the metric of prosperity, and conservationism is an acknowledgement that we are in decline of prosperity -- that this is the beginning of the long bleak twilight of civilization. If you posit that we have fixed energy sources and we have to ration them, then we are dying as a species.

The ethic of conservation is the explicit abnegation of man's dominion over the Earth. The lower species are here for our use. God said so: Go forth, be fruitful, multiply, and rape the planet -- it's yours. That's our job: drilling, mining and stripping. Sweaters are the anti-Biblical view. Big gas-guzzling cars with phones and CD players and wet bars -- that's the Biblical view.

Producing oil isn't so bad for the environment anyway. During World War II, our boats were going at breakneck speed to get oil to England (what with the war and all). There were oil spills everywhere. Half the beaches in the United States were slathered in oil. Six weeks later all the birds were back.

You couldn't get rid of the environment if you tried. Alaska is immense, caribou love the Alaskan pipeline, they've grouped there, frolicking and leaping over the pipeline ... but I'm lost in an irrelevancy. The point is: We need oil for our CAT scan machines, airplanes, computers and refrigerators.

Al Gore billed his energy plan as "a new, bold way of thinking" and then went on to propose tax credits for solar-powered cars and hand implements for farming. (These are some of the "right people" deserving of tax breaks under a Gore regime.) If Bush is in the pocket of the "Big Oil," then Gore is in the pocket of "Big Windmills.

" Bush responded by saying, That's not an energy policy! He sensibly proposed that we explore for more oil with the latest environmentally sensitive technologies to ensure our lessened dependence on OPEC and oil-controlling lunatics like Saddam Hussein.

Let's see, who should go get the oil from our domestic oil reserves? Big Jell-O companies? Big Car companies? The trial lawyers? No! The oil companies. Somebody has to get the stuff that runs our DVD players and allows us to go to the bathroom indoors. Being for a free market in oil is called being for "Big Oil."

Meanwhile, pretty much every "energy crisis" this country has ever experienced can be traced back to some government policy mucking up the free market.

President Nixon was the first to instigate government interference in the oil market. He instituted "Project Independence" in 1974 with the expressed goal of making America independent of foreign oil. Just 15 years later, America's dependence on foreign oil had risen from 35 percent to 45 percent.

Sweater-wearing Jimmy Carter instituted his own macho energy policy, Project MEOW (Moral Equivalent of War), against foreign oil. He established import quotas, placed rations on oil and signed a "windfall profits" tax.

Anticipating nuts like Gore, Carter also encouraged the development of alternative sources of fuel, including oil shale and solar power. (And that's why we're all driving solar-powered cars today.) Congress jumped on the nut-case bandwagon and issued an official declaration stating that bicycles are "the most efficient means of transportation." This was a really loopy country in the '70s.

Massive gas shortages ensued, gas lines became interminable serpentine nightmares, and America's reliance on imported foreign oil doubled. Finally, a man entered the Oval Office and rescued the country from its terminal silliness. On the day Ronald Reagan was inaugurated, his first executive order was to lift all energy price controls. Oil prices soared in the short term (damn those oil companies!), but as a consequence, domestic production and exploration skyrocketed -- triggering a 20-year low in oil prices.

Bush will give us a free market in oil so we can afford to keep the lights on. Gore will boldly lead us into the post-industrial Dark Age. Cardigan sweaters or SUVs? Over to you, America.


JWR contributor Ann Coulter is the author of High Crimes and Misdemeanors: The Case Against Bill Clinton. You may visit the Ann Coulter Fan Club by clicking here.


Up

10/10/00: Al Gore: Serial fibber
10/06/00: Sigh of the crook
10/03/00: So who's the 'dumb guy' now?
09/29/00: Don't do drug legalization
09/26/00: I'd burn down my neighbor's house
09/22/00: Democrats worship the money shot
09/19/00: Other film footage we'd like to see
09/15/00: Bush can name the **^%*
09/12/00: The Supreme Court ratchet
09/08/00: Our mistake -- keep polluting
09/05/00: Bubba protects and serves
09/01/00: AlGore's 'going out of business!' tax plan
08/29/00: Bush's compassionate conservatism
08/25/00: Space alien tells funny jokes in bathtub
08/22/00: Dems view world only in black and white, not in color
08/18/00: Another Damascus Road conversion
08/15/00: The viagra cotillion
08/11/00: The hand-wringing Hamlet from Hartford
08/07/00: The Democratic party's white face
08/04/00: Hillary's potty mouth
08/01/00: The hole in the story
07/28/00: Cheney's detractors can't get their story straight
07/25/00: AlGore: Elmer Blandry
07/21/00: The tyranny of non-objectivity
07/18/00: The state's religion
07/14/00: Reform it back
07/11/00: Keating for veep
07/07/00: Gore invented 'Clueless'
07/04/00: The stupidity litmus test
06/30/00: O.J. was 'proved innocent' too
06/27/00: The last guys 'proved innocent'
06/23/00: Serious Republican candidates don't get serious press
06/19/00: They weren't overzealous this time
06/16/00: Evolution of the strumpet
06/13/00: Actual journalistic malpractice
06/09/00: I did not have sexual
relations with that ... man!
06/06/00: IRS turns Bubba's screw
05/30/00: Too corrupt to be an Arkansas lawyer
05/26/00: Choose liberalism
05/24/00: Violence against coherence
05/22/00: Developmentally disabled Republicans
05/16/00: For womb the bell tolls
05/12/00: Asylum from Georgetown
05/10/00: The truth is out there, even for the clueless
05/08/00: Barbie is a liberal Democrat
05/02/00: Moving the goalpost
04/28/00: The bastardization of justice
04/25/00: How Monica Lewinsky saved the constitution
04/24/00: It's sunny today, so we need gun control
04/19/00: No shadow of a doubt -- liberal women are worthless
04/14/00: It takes a Communist dictator to raise a child
04/11/00: The verdict is in on Hillary
04/07/00: Vast Concoctions III
04/04/00: 'Horrifying' free speech in New York
03/31/00: Check-Off Box For Pimp Suits
03/28/00: All the news that fits -- we print!
03/24/00: Net losses all around
03/20/00: To protect, serve --- and be spat on
03/16/00: Thank Heaven for the consigliere
03/13/00: Vast concoctions II
03/09/00: The bluebloods voted against you
03/07/00: The Tower of Babble
03/03/00: Vast concoction
03/02/00: Hillary's sartorial lies
02/28/00: You have to break a few eggs to make a joke
02/22/00: I've seen enough killing to support abortion
02/18/00: A liberal lynching
02/15/00: McCain and the flag
02/11/00: The Shakedown Express
02/08/00: To mock a mockingbird
02/05/00: Summing up Campaign 2000: 'Oh, puh-leeze!'
02/01/00: A Confederacy of Dunces
01/28/00: Dollar Bill's racist smear
01/24/00: How high is your freedom quotient?
01/21/00: Numismadness
01/18/00: How dare you attack my wife!
01/14/00: The Gore Buggernaut
01/10/00: The paradox of discrimination law

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