Secure the blessings of liberty…
J. D. Pendry
We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America. – Preamble to the Constitution of the United States.
We have cicadas this year. Growing up here in Wild Wonderful, we called them jar flies. No, I don’t know why. There is a constant eerie drone from this large winged insect. You grow used to the noise after awhile, because like Congress, you know it is just a lot of noise and nothing much will ever come of it. Unlike Congress, however, they will eventually dry up and shut up, their offspring will burrow back into the ground, and they will leave us alone for another 17 years.
Have you been getting angry when you pull up to the gas pumps? I have. My commute is an 80 mile round trip each day. It is growing quite expensive. I know people reading this who have much longer commutes than mine. They live where they can best afford to live and work where they cannot afford to live. If you are familiar with metropolitan Washington, DC, you understand. You endure a long commute each day so that your family has the best standard of living that your salary can provide.
It is a little different out here in rural America where people routinely live long distances away from their work. Car pools and public transportation are generally not available or feasible. I drive a pick-up truck. I could drive one of those tiny more fuel efficient vehicles but I will not. One fall morning a couple of years ago while driving down a country road on the way to work, two deer darted in front of me. I missed the first one and clobbered the larger second one causing $3000 in damages to my full-sized truck. Had I been driving a small, sloped front, close to the ground vehicle, the deer would have come on through the windshield. The outcome would have likely been much different. Then, there was the January morning that I hit an iced over bridge. I slammed head on into a concrete wall and that pushed the bumper through my left front tire. As a result, the truck flipped on its side, slid across the highway and slammed into the embankment. Somehow, it up righted itself. I could not get out of the driver’s side, because the running board was bent up over the door. Eventually I crawled out of the passenger side. The truck was a total wreck and I walked away with only two fractured ribs – and a fractured ego. I will not be spending my time on the road in a tiny vehicle to save gasoline or dollars or at the behest of someone who is chauffeured.
I do not get the impression that anyone in Congress, or anyone who wants to be our President, is interested in what their inaction or the restrictions they impose inflict on the Average-American that has to go to a job every day. Or to the grocery store, or doctor’s office, or mow the lawn, or get on an airplane to visit an ailing parent or sibling or pay the higher prices for virtually every product under the sun that is delivered to us in a carbon fuel burning vehicle.
Congress has offered us compact fluorescent light bulbs and ethanol, while assuring us that wind turbines and solar solutions to our energy needs are right around the corner. It reminds me of the time I drove from Illinois to El Paso, Texas. Leaving the Dallas area, the first sign I saw said El Paso, 700 miles. Those new solutions are around the corner okay, but exactly how far around the corner are they? About the same number of years that it will take to change out every vehicle that is on the roads today.
I heard a Presidential contender the other day lamenting that the United States makes up only 3 percent of the world’s population while consuming 25 percent of its energy. I do not know what he was trying to imply with that comment or which mushy headed American he hoped to impress, but he did manage to show us that his concept of the world and where we sit in it is rather lacking. We probably do consume more total energy considering that every home and business in the country has a 24 hour electricity supply, but that is not the issue. The issue is the supply of oil to meet the demand for oil. It is a demand that may eventually decrease for America, but not soon enough and not for the world as a whole in our lifetimes.
From 1994 to 2005, the number of vehicles per thousand people in the United States was relatively stable. During that same time, the number of vehicles per thousand in China tripled and it is never going to go backwards. Consider that the estimated population in China is 1,330,044,605 and in the United States it is 303,824,646. That is just one fact, however, it should illustrate even for a politician that no matter what transpires over the next 20 years or more, the world demand for oil will continue to increase even if the United States demand for it decreases. Even if we require less, it will still be too expensive for those of us who will need to use it for the foreseeable future, unless our politicians take the right actions.
There is only one way to reduce the price of fuel for Americans. That is to develop our own resources and to do it very fast. We have enough of our own oil and natural gas to be independent of the dictators who are controlling our lives and buying our country while we work to develop all of those exotic forms of energy we hear about. It will not be any good to us if we leave it in the ground where it is while our economy that is dependent on it tanks. There is some high stakes gambling going on in Washington right now. It is the gamble that one political party or the other will be the one to convince Americans that it can save them from “big oil”. Unfortunately, for us, all of the hands being played now are losers. We need the hand that will save us from big politics. The political failures here violate every government obligation stated in the Preamble to our Constitution, not the least of which is securing the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity [future].
I have been out in the bunker working on a new drilling technique. On Tuesday, November 4, 2008, it should be operational. When activated, if it works properly, it will suck all of the gas out of Congress.
Drill Here. Drill Now. Pay Less.
Copyright © J D Pendry 2008 All Rights Reserved