Some might argue there's always two sides to every story, that liberals make alot of great points, and they're not weakening the country, only changing it for the better (change is the word of the year after all). I wish I was overreacting, but in short the liberals are dead wrong on basically every major issue. The fact is, virtually all of their key arguments can be refuted, or exposed as just plain whacko with even the slightest research and/or context. How their ridiculous, harmful ideas gain, much less hold any ground at all is because they all have one powerful tool behind them.....emotional "surface" logic. For example, when I was younger my parents taught me about "urban legends." In particular, they explained how people were concerned because it was "well known" that children are occasionally kidnapped from Disneyland entrance lines because the large crowds and distracted parents created the perfect setting for an abduction! They laughed when they explained to me that a little research revealed this had never actually happened. It fit the criteria for surface logic perfectly because it had two key ingredients: 1) It "made sense" and 2) it played on our emotions (in this case fear). Similarly, it doesn't matter that liberals have no actual facts to back up their arguments (like "banning guns will make us safer"); if you have an emotional pitch, and you repeat it loud enough and long enough, it becomes true in the minds of the listeners.
It's perfectly natural to form an initial opinion when we hear one's viewpoint on something we were previously clueless about. That's a great start on the journey to the truth, as long as we don't stop there. As Americans, we have got to study these major issues with a little more effort. For crying out loud Shell and I spent hours researching a future vacation, or a possible furniture purchase, can we not do the same for much more important things? We owe it to ourselves and our fellow Americans to make truly informed decisions, whether on issues or the candidates themselves. If we're truly educated on such things as Anwar, the deficit, nuclear power, Iran, and above all the CONSTITUTION, then harmful politicians and ideologies can be exposed and held accountable. To explain the harm of surface logic, let me site a non political example from a con artist who operates a web sight on "strengthing your eyes through exercises." Essentially the site promises to cure you of your dependence on glasses if you buy their instructional video, and perform the included eye exercises daily. Their logic goes like this: "when other muscles of your body are weak, you exercise them to make them strong again, so why are the eye muscles any different?" Ooohhh, good point, i'll take 3 please! Without getting into too much detail, that argument is crap because refractive error involves no muscle at all, but
the curvature of your cornea. Anyway, they followed their point with many token testimonials and finally the ever reassuring money back guarantee. It's another scam like millions of others, but it'll probably sell big because it has that right touch of surface logic, an emotional "take charge of your life" appeal, and above all a bet that you won't do your homework! This is the essence of basically the entire liberal platform. To make my case, I will cite several examples below in a myth/reality format. Hopefully you will see for yourself where a little ol' forgotten thing I like to call the truth actually takes you.
MYTH: You're paying too much for gas because greedy Big Oil made ridiculously high profits!
(combine this with another related Myth: profit is evil!)
FACT: Big Oil profits are actually not that high taken in context, the profits they did make are a good thing for Americans, but most relevant to the argument, they have almost nothing to do with the high price of gas.
Hillary, Obama....all the liberals tell us that Oil companies make "too much" money. Yep, all these fat cats swimming in piles of money while the average American is left out in the cold.......
Well, big oil did make alot of money last year...ALOT. There's your crucial stat for surface logic. However, a little deeper digging reveals that they spent alot of money too. The amount of money it takes to obtain leases, get through red tape, drill, refine, and distribute the product is mind boggling. You can't accurately judge a company by looking at just one statistic. The more important stat is the profit margin, and it's actually only about 8 or 9 percent (averaging several sources). That's less than most food corporations like McDonald's, and way less than tech/internet big wigs like Google. Oh, and who do you think the majority of the profit goes to? Not the "big-wigs" (though they do make a hefty salary). Nope, the majority of a corporations profits go to middle-class shareholders...wait, I thought they were out in the cold??Yes, the profits trickly down to those meesly people wh0, ya know....INVEST! Great concept really. Instead of relying on uncle sam and good ol' social security, the average American can literally become PART owner in a major corporation and share the wealth.
Yet another reason profit for our American oil companies is good is it provides incentive for competive capitalism in a market that's CRUCIAL for all of us. Oil from the middle east is bad. If you care at all about national security, oil from American companies might be worth looking into. Now if you want oil, electronics, medicine, Big Macs, or any product to be of sufficient quality and price, you have to allow incentives for people to provide those things in the first place. Let's take Johnny high school grad for instance. Let's say Johnny works at Burgerland. I guarantee you he isn't going to step it up, bust his butt for years in school to earn his MBA, take a risk in opening up a small business like an even better burger joint, all to earn what he would have if he'd stayed at Burgerland and became assistant manager. What if, after growing his business to the point where he's hired (i.e. provided jobs to) others so he can cut back on his own workload and enjoy some hard earned wealth, the government cried foul and said Johnny was just greedy to take make the profits he did, because the price of fries was too high? (Never mind that the same government put rules and regs in place for the past few decades banning the planting of potatoes)! My point is, profit is healthy because it provides incentive for strong competition and entrepreneurship, for companies to take risks and grow, providing jobs to employees and product to consumers.
Finally, it doesn't take Grisom from CSI to find that Big Oil is not the real culprit in the crime of high gas prices. Here's a hint, the guilty party rhymes with the US schmuverment. First off, oil is traded worldwide in US dollars, so when the dollar weakens for many reasons like our massive deficits and the overprinting by the federal reserve, it has a strong inverse relationship to the price of oil.
But probably most profound, and frankly a concept anyone with basic knowledge of ecomonomics should understand, is supply and demand. China & India for instance, have seen their demand for oil skyrocket in the last few years with no signs of slowing down. And, as explained by the ficticous french fry example, our government has created all these ridiculous bans to stop US production, hense supply has not risen to meet that demand, and thus you have the perfect recipe for a price increase. Which leads us perfectly into the next myth:
MYTH: Drilling in ANWR is harmful to the environment and won't help our energy crisis. (but inflating your tires will help apparently).
TRUTH: Drilling in ANWR will have about zero impact on the environment and could make a huge dent in our dependence on foreign oil. I will summarize the key facts, but a recent article did a much better job than I can. Take a second and google "truth about heritage foundation ANWR foundry" But here's the deal. ANWR is a piece of federal land in northern Alaska a whopping 19 million acres in size, but the proposed drilling area is only 2000 acres of than, and while much of ANWR is breathtakingly beautiful, the tiny section for the proposed drilling site is a barren, unattractive section just down the coast from an existing drill sight called Prudoe Bay. We've been drilling in Prudoe bay for years, and not only has the site provided a sweet haul of oil, it's actually often surrounded by wildlife. In fact they often like to use the platforms for shelter. The estimated amount of oil at the proposed site is huge, think motherload folks, and the caribou will still have plenty of land to roam in. If it has such huge potential with minimal environmental impact, why are environmentalists so successful at blocking the drilling? They're the masters of emotion and surface logic, able to pervade an argument with almost zero facts or substance behind it. It's how they've convinced many that a bogus theory like global warming is actually real. Let me use a hypothetical parrallel to help explain how these environmental groups work. Since many who might read this are familiar with Utah; let's say you see a message from an environmental group showing the beautiful Wasatch mountains. The camera pans across a snowcapped Mt. Olympus, and then accross Eden and Park City, (sweet, classical music) a voice begins warmly "Utah, a majestic land, a precious land" Then the music changes...."but it could all go away"...the voice continues in that famous deep, serious tone: "Big Oil wants to drill in beautiful Utah, filling the landscape with Oil rigs...and just think what will happen to the seagulls?? (music straight out of a horror/slasher flick fades out).... Meanwhile, the oil companies scratch their heads because the facts paint a drastically different picture. They were actually planning to drill an area the size of about 10 football fields out on the south end of Antelope Island in the Great Salt Lake! Furthermore, they already have a drill site close by on the north end of the island that's been a jackpot for years. No mountains or seagulls threatened...large increase in oil production..everyone's a winner! That fictional analogy pretty much describes the true situation in the ANWR. Now this isn't the magic solution to our entire energy crisis. A MUCH more comprehensive strategy is needed. Nuclear, coal to oil, and of course technologies that reduce our dependence on oil overall are all key pieces to the solution; but in the meantime...drill away.
MYTH: But the oil industry, and the auto industry, pretty much every industry...oh, and you for existing and exhaling CO2, are all ruining the planet, killing off the Polar bears and causing Global Warming!
TRUTH: Industry does have it's faults, and any company that is environmentally irresponsible should be exposed. But by and large most are environmentally responsible (their reputation is on the line after all), but these same "evil" industries are what provides a huge amount of our quality of life! Talk about biting the hand that feeds you for crying out loud. American industry has been a huge blessing to the whole world. We gave 'em the car, the plane, television, and thanks to Al Gore, even the internet! They provide millions of jobs to the middle class, and so like it or not liberals their fate is tied to the average Americans pretty tighty... But the polar bears are dying! I love this one, in fact the Bush Administration even put polar bears on the endangered species list. But the truth is, polar bear populations have been growing for years! Thankfully good people are fighting this insanity. The governor of Alaska actually sued the federal government to have polar bears removed from the endangered list because having a species on the list when it's not even close to endangered could be used for deceitful purposes by say......oh, I dunno...those environmentalists who are just occasionally known for distorting facts to push their agenda. Which leads me perfectly into the final part of this myth trio...global warming. In short, global warming is the perfect example of the liberal agenda: pitching an emotional agenda with no facts to support it. Oh, liberals love to ignore real data, like recently released earth temperature reading revealing there has been essentially ZERO warming whatsoever since 1998, or that other planets in our solar system have seen warming (which, call 'em crazy, but some say could be related to the fact our sun varies widely in it's radiation output)Man-made global warming truly is the greatest scam in modern history. For MUCH more of my take on this, please see my essay devoted entirely to the global warming myth. Just scroll down this blog a few entries and look for the title "The sky is falling...and it'll cost ya."
Well I have many more "myths" to debunk, including banning guns makes us safer, negotiating with Iran (i.e. the Obama solution to peace in the middle east) will actually work, and even nuclear power is dangerous. We're just gettin started, but until then, to be continued........