To Protect our Freedom and Prosperity, Arm Yourself with Facts

…of Nikitas3.com

I was debating an urban liberal recently, and it was stunning how little he knew about what is going on in the real world beyond the New York Times’ media cocoon.

We were talking about the oil companies, which I defended, while he reflexively reviled them. He even refused to acknowledge that oil company profits ever get beyond the executive suite. In what now seems like a silly dream, I kept explaining to him Economics 101, that the “share”-holders of a capitalist company get a “share” of the firm’s economic success. He would have nothing to do with it.

No, he insisted that ExxonMobil’s profit goes to exorbitant executive salaries, and to lobbying in Washington. I was amazed. I explained to him that many public employee retirement systems, including the New York State public teacher system — of which he was a member until recently — hold millions of shares of ExxonMobil stock and benefit from the company’s success, and he dismissed the thought.

When I asked him how much he thought ExxonMobil earned in gross revenues in 2006, he said “30 or 40 billion dollars…” which is wrong. It was $339 billion.

What is most disturbing about all this is the refusal by certain people even to see the complex system established by the oil companies for what it is: A highly efficient delivery system for petroleum that gives us oil, creates jobs and distributes wealth, pays taxes and royalties, and makes life infinitely better for all.

So how can we rational conservatives debate with people who turn their backs on basic facts like angry children, and who refuse to embrace common-sense economics?

You cannot. This is why we are up against something more dangerous than simple ignorance. Many liberals today are part of a massive misinformation and disinformation campaign that twists every fact in economics, energy, history, government, jurisprudence and more.

I once was debating an environmentalist about the 800-mile-long Alaska oil pipeline. I explained that it is written in the original 1975 legislation authorizing the construction of the pipe that it is to be torn down when the last of 18 billion barrels of Prudhoe Bay oil flows through it. He simply sneered, “Good.”

But anyone with real knowledge about our energy supply knows that the as-yet untapped (blocked by enviros, that is) petroleum from the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge oilfield, adjacent to Prudhoe Bay, will need to flow though that same pipeline if we ever are going to tap its estimated 12 billion barrels in reserves.

Do environmental organizations care that we may dismantle a technological masterpiece long before its useful life is over? No. They actually are trying to run out the clock on the pipeline, and dispose of it to fulfill their own emotional needs including their anger over its construction in the first place.

This is what we conservatives face daily. If we say that windmills are a poor idea because they produce such small amounts of energy, the contrarians reply that nuclear power is too dangerous, while environmentalists are working feverishly to block the opening of the Yucca Mountain disposal site in Nevada in order to choke off nuclear power for good.

When we reply that Hiroshima is inhabited today despite a direct hit by an atomic bomb in 1945, another contrarian told me cavalierly in an internet debate that “the radiation’s gone” from there, which utterly contradicts the apocalyptic rationale that enviros have used for decades to block nuclear, that radiation lingers for thousands of years.

What is happening is that the free media ride that socialists and environmentalists had for so many years is over, and they are being exposed for being truly uninformed about the issues. Conservatives therefore must forge forth and unite and learn how to fight with facts and knowledge against the obstruction and propaganda tactics of the environmental movement, which has been taken over by the extreme left, and which is working against the interests of our nation’s energy security.

If we Americans indeed wish to maintain our freedom and our high standard of living, we must deal in a rational way with the issues at hand, and recognize that our way of life is not “free” like the dreamy breezes that spin environmentalists’ windmill fantasies. There is hard work and sacrifice and sweat and toil and risk connected to our freedom and to our prosperity. And some people wish to take it all away in the middle of the night, hoping nobody will notice.

But they are wrong.

We are noticing.