Government, not the oil industry, is the problem

Well today was the facebook led "Gas strike." People have good reason to be upset about the rising prices of gas, but to take it out on the oil companies is to be misguided. Considering the innovation of the companies, the convenience they bring, and until recently the cheaper than milk prices, to be angry at the oil industry is simply wrong.

The constant regulation and persecution by the government is the problem. Instead of simply demanding the oil companies to drop prices, (which would result in shortages) we should demand regulation to be dropped. Perhaps my economics professor puts it best in his book "Economic Principles and Issues." He writes:

"Sometimes the government acts like parents in order to change behavior that is deemed unacceptable.

"According to Obama-and others that supported this idea-the oil companies made too much profit in 2007 and 2008 from the historic increase in crude oil prices. These critics charged that rather than earning increasing profits by providing better and more reliable petroleum-based products, the oil companies were simply raking in billions of dollars in extra cash as a result of nothing more than rising prices.

"Exxon-Mobile, for example, reported net after-tax earnings of $40.6 billion in 2007, which amounted to $1,400 in profits every second.

"What is not often mentioned, however, is the fact that over the past five years the oil industry's net income was 5.7 cents per dollar of revenue (translation - out of every dollar earned, 94.3 cents went to operating costs), while the average for all other industries was 5.5 cents.

"The reason oil companies have been cited for 'excessive greed' is simple. First, since we have all been impacted by rapidly rising gasoline prices, we are more likely to get angry with the companies who sell us gasoline. Politicians therefore can gain votes by turning our anger into political persecution of those companies without mentioning the fact that Exxon-Mobile paid $30 billion in corporate taxes in 2007.

"Nevertheless, as he campaigned in 2008, Barack Obama promised to tax the profits of oil companies at a higher level and send part of the money to the American people."*

Perhaps if we quit voluntarily leaving our fate up to corrupt organizations such as OPEC, and started drilling in shallow water, Alaska, or North Dakota, prices would magically go down. The real "gas strike" wasn't executed today by a half million disgruntled facebook users. It's been led for years by our very own government, and we can see how effective that has been.

* Robinson, Steve. (2010). Economic Principles and Issues. Dubuque, IA. Kendall Hunt Publishing Company. pg 147.

The liberals have always targeted conservative Christians, but do they themselves have a God complex?

A couple of weeks ago while flipping through the channels on TV I stopped on Countdown with Keith Olbermann to hear what the old blowhard had to say. After hearing him and some guest of his talking about how evil Glenn Beck is for a few moments I decided to change the channel. (I asked MSNBC today on their facebook page why they feel the need to constantly report on Fox News or any of it's pundits, and that if I wanted to see what they were up to I would simply put Fox News on...so far no touchy liberal has responded.)

But then last night before I went to sleep I turned on BookTV on CSPAN and recognized the man reading an excerpt from his book. Within seconds I could tell that this book was all about Glenn Beck and what an evil, rich, Christian, racist opportunist he is. Not being at all interested in his liberal jargon, and not particularly being a huge Beck fan either, (nothing personal, just have never really gotten into either of his shows) I almost changed the channel again. Then right before I did, I realized I recognized this dude from somewhere.

He was the "some guest" on Olbermann's show about a month ago prattling on about how evil Glenn Beck was. For some reason I got sucked in, and watched this yokel read some more of his book, and then conduct a Q&A session for another 10 or 15 minutes. As I said, I'm no huge Beck fan, yet it struck me that this guy took a year of his life and wrote 500 pages about how much he dislikes Beck.

Early this afternoon, I don't know, perhaps out of slight boredom, I found that original interview between this guy and Olbermann on an extremely liberal blog, laprogressive.com. The guy's name is Alexander Zaitchik, and it seems that he's making his money(all the while accusing Beck of being money hungry) writing about Beck. The interview was ho-hum; the usual liberal prattle about racism and bashing of Fox News which has a nightly viewership of about 300% of MSNBC's. What caught my attention however was their explanation of Beck and Fox's "extremism." They claimed that since Beck's show is "hemorrhaging" money and ratings that they feel the need to take such "drastic" measures.

I went to check the ratings at tvbythenumbers.com. Sure enough, Beck has roughly about 400% the viewers that Chris Matthews does over at MSNBC at the same hour. In total, it was close to 2 million viewers. Now, not being one of those 2 million viewers, I don't care too much about all this other than the fact that, I suppose I would rather people be watching a conservative pundit than a progressive one. However, I am one of those people that does not like being lied to. Just because you say something, it does not mean that it is true! Telling me that 2+2 is 5 does not make the answer 5. In the words of Ayn Rand, (certainly not someone I see eye to eye with and a vehement atheist) "A is A."

And that's just it. In a world where we are constantly being told by liberals and progressives that there are no absolutes, we are also living in a world where a socialist President tells us that the economy is getting better because of a stimulus bill that he signed, which is simply not true. We are lied to by progressives about the nature of the planet and the non-existent global warming. We are assured that we owe them our money because it is theirs to decide what to do with it.

In a day and age where Christians are attacked constantly, (at least here in America) or even those who aren't Christians but simply profess to believe in a God that isn't Allah, it seems that it is no coincidence that progressives look at themselves as the one and only creator and master. As someone who doesn't really go to church all that much I can say one thing: I have no desire to bow down to or worship a liberal progressive either.