Are democrats the reason why we so dependent on foreign oil and increase in islamic militancy?

Question

Try and follow this theory to it's conclusion. The United States has the ability and technology to become energy independent. We have been told by one party we cannot drill offshore we cannot drill in Alaska we cannot build any new coal plants we cannot build any new nuclear plants no new refineries, meanwhile countries in the middle east make billions from American consumers some of this money used to buy weapons and support extremism. Is this not the height of irresponsibilty by democrats not to enable our nation to become more independent of foreign oil?

Additional Details

Ritchwil you made a very important point when your enemy start endorsing you it should make people take notice. As for Mr Lava he sounds like one of those long hair types from the sixties...I bet his parents were hippies.

While we are waiting for alternative forms of energy what is wrong in using what we have ....I am so tired the blame GW last time I looked we had 8 years of Clinton and did not see any policy to make us energy independent.

Answer 1

Oh brother. First of all, Republicans are all about foreign oil. A lot of their party is built on it. They have also teased the Middle East for decades, emboldening al-queada and bringing Islamic militancy over here, ala 9-11.

So no, your anti-Democrat rant is all wrong.

Democrats have been at the FOREFRONT of looking for alternative energy sources, but the Republicans have resisted in an effort to protect the interest of oil barons who donate heavily to the GOP.

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Answer 2

I agree that the lefties are inhibiting self sufficiency for the USA, especially with the Alaska ANWR deal. As an Alaska resident (former 84-96) I have been aware first hand of their efforts at blocking the drilling.

There are big money investments in overseas oil by people from both parties. Don't we all agree the same people would get their hands dirty over here too?

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Answer 3

The democrats set us up for failure and then criticize America for failing.

Mr. Lava - If Republicans are all about foreign oil, why did we want to drill in Alaska? If the GOP is only about lining it's own pockets why wouldn't we want to make more millionaires here in America?
Also under Reagan's tax credits, solar fields and windmills sprang up all over Southern California. Whatever you do there Mr. Lava, don't let the facts get in your way.

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Answer 4

I thought it was Bush Sr and rummy who gave Saddam his first WMDs which he used in the Iran/Iraq war then used against the Kurds!

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Answer 5

you forgot sending jobs overseas by making it impossible for U.S. companies to compete with E.P.A. regulations. OOOps E.P.A. was Nixon's mistake. Come on try selling the nuke idea to a kid with a bone through his nose or a girl with a pierced eyebrow.You can only build a nuke in a country where the gov't. has all the power. Socialism.ALL OF EUROPE HAS NUKES WE HAVEN'T BUILT 1 PLANT SINCE 1979, New Hampshire.The word you wanted is liberals not democrats. Green party etc. plus ultra left.

Source(s):

Oh yeah lava Ted Kennedy and john kerry have blocked the cape cod wind farm here in mass. because they have property there and don't want the silent giants.

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Answer 6

Yeah, pretty much. And the fact is, one of the reasons that the conservative islamic fundamentalists despise America is our culture. What they see of our culture is on TV, the movies, the music. Now, personally, I like it, but to these guys, it's purely Satanic and they see it inundating their country and culture. Then too, they're convinced we're weak. We're dealing with a very 'macho' culture where weakness is scorned. They see Americans as soft, fat, and won't fight. They hit us again and again and we do nothing. Well, then such impunity must be the result of American weakness.

Essentially, democrats stand for everything that our enemies despise. But there is no hatred greater than their distain for democrats. They may hate American conservatives, but they respect us. This is one reason that, every year around election time, our enemies post videos on the internet endorsing democrats in America. When our enemies support them, you'd think that'd tell them something. But it doesn't.

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Answer 7

Well, I think if you were to consider all environmental legislation at all to be counter-productive to the national interests - as your argument seems to import, than yes.

However, Republicans have for nearly 15-20 years now been fighting a war against any sort of regulation, of industries which might cause public harm through pollution or toxification of either water or food supplies.

The Alaskan reserves, are a favorite, if legislation was passed tomorow, it would take about 10 years to fully develop the fields, (a pipeline from Kansas to New York) needs to be built - at taxpayer expense - of course), and it's important to understand that at the end of the day, there is a little more than one billion barrels or 7 months worth of Gas and Oil in the ANWAR reserve. So you are not exactly tapping some everlasting fountain of oil.

One need look no further than the FDA food debacles of late to understand that public health and good regulation go hand in hand. The laissez-faire approach to regulating meat production or that vegetable products are cleaned properly before going to market sounds like so much bureaucratic garbage but I for one, don't want cow-pie salads or pig-entrail pork-chops.

The same is true for corporate interests which do not necessarily have any vested interests whatsoever in the national interest of the united states or the society as a whole. We are consumers - period. Our health and welfare is not their concern and technically, it is the government's responsibility to ensure the common welfare as stated in the constitution.

This is done through regulation or litigation.

I agree with you that regulation should not be so oppressive that corporations cannot invest in new facilities or engineering projects or whatever.

But it is IMPORTANT to understand that largely speaking the NRO, NSF and Energy department - and NOT industry will be responsible for developing new reactor designs or new coal fired plants.

Since corporate interests don't want to even be told they have to upgrade or build out or whatever - they strongly influence and sometimes write the legislation against having to do so.

So for nearly 20 years, - for example - the automotive industry effectively campaigned in congress to not enforce the CAFE standards which had been on the book since the early 1980's and were implemented by Ronald Reagan in response to the last CLEAR instance when US interests over-rode the corporate interest on gasoline efficiency.

That was until 9/11 and Katrina and 3.50 gasoline make it too painful for consumers for politicians to ignore.

Understand also that the United States is considered by many corporate interests as a "mature" market from which a steady but not increasing stream of income can be produced.

As such it is much more profitable to build refineries for new marketplaces, such as those in Mexico or Indonesia or Pakistan where these services would find whole new marketplaces and new consumers.

That - to my mind is the real and natural market incentive for corporations to NOT REINVEST in established marketplaces, or only to do so in as much as the minimum standards of the law and the demands of the marketplace require.

THAT is more the reason the United States will not have new refineries or new coal plants, Until much stronger legislation mandating new and clean coal or nuclear or whatever is effectively mandated - there is absolutely no incentive that could be produced - not global warming, not (undue) increased costs to consumers, and certainly NOT the national interest.

So while you can certainly blame the democrats if you want for sometimes watching out for the public good in the way of pollution controls or environmental regulation minimizing the acceptable amounts of arsenic, lead, benzene or dioxin in your water and food, it's not a problem, vote them out of office and there won't be any of that pesky regulation soon enough.

Republicans on the other hand could equally be called to account for weakening various initiatives which we will eventually need to undertake and complete if we desire to still be a functional federal state much past 2015 or so.

Namely, massive inputs into renewable energy - solar, wind and research into producing microbe generated fuels.

Furthermore, we need to reverse a host of Bush administrative policy decisions, notably the US withdrawal from the ITER fusion project and the NSF/NRO/Energy Dept clean coal initiatives which were both killed under pressure from the coal and gas industries, both withdrawals put us not just in a position of increased long term dependence on older technology but threaten our national security when we are still are obligated to using coal plants and old nuclear plants , while Tokyo, Paris, Berlin and Beijing are installing their first Fusion reactors.

So while democrats do seek to burden corporations operating in the US with some minor responsibility for the environments and society in which they operate, Republicans have also clearly "come to the rescue" scuttling initiatives which are "difficult" or "too costly" but which would serve the national interest.

At the end of the day, corruption and undue external influence , in both parties is what WE in the US should find most disturbing, so whether it's environmental radicals on the "left" or corporatist monied interests on the "right", we should hold our politicians accountable for looking out for OUR NEEDS as citizens into the future.

Some on your question have posited that the militants within fundamentalist islam hate Americans generally and Democrats specifically. That might be comforting rhetorical consideration, but I spent some considerable amount of time studing our current enemy - that of Saudi based Wahabi Islam and more generally the overall movement of militancy that started with the Muslim Brotherhood some 50 years ago.

I think you would find the book, the Looming Tower, illuminating in so far as it highlights some of the key narrative points and definitely helps to explain the perspective from which these dangerous individuals see our culture.

Put simply they do not differentiate between Republicans or Democrats. The closest thing they make to the racist generalizations we do would be when they refer to the West generally as "White Meat".



"They" - if they viewed a distinction at all, might view democrats with either a sense of complacency or inattention and they do in fact view republicans as rather useful in on powerful respect. Republican leaders have been perfectly willing to press the rhetorical buttons that the "West is invading the Ummah" or that 'Western powers are trying to control "us"', and to that respect higher profile, more obvious militancy on the part of the US is rather completely counterproductive , ask anyone who's a military strategist.

"For to win one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the acme of skill. To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill." - Sun Tzu

This then is the mechanism we can best use to defeat terrorism.

To see our enemy clearly we must examine their motives.

Basically militant Islam as with any other resistance or insurgency has many demands which break down into three categories.

- Irrational or religious demands which will not be met - ever.
- Rational demands which are concordant with the objectives of the United States and her interests overseas.
- Rational demands which are NOT acceptable to the US at the present time.

So the real answer is NOT to bomb them back to the stone age, but rather to diffuse the rational reasons for extremism to the extent possible, there is - at the end of the day, very little we can do about their irrational demands.

This then leaves us with the real and significant potential threat to the nation based on the reasonable terrorist demands we choose not to accept.

We aren't doing that, our illustrious president as simply classfied all enemies of the state as "evil", which is pretty useless since according to that premise, we can and arguably should expend all our national resources defeating "evil".

Rhetoric has a time and a place, but in thinking about the real interests of the US we do well for ourselves when we take off the simplistic views that is handed to us by the media and examine the real motivations of the individual, the corporation, the state and those of our enemies. There are no easy answers, but there are answers.

Source(s):

Peak Oil
www.theoildrum.com
The End of Oil
The Long Emergency
The Coming Oil Breakpoint
Technical Analysis
The Fusion Future
Rise and Fall of the Great Powers
"The Preservation of Peace and the Causes of War"
Sun Tzu
Imperial Hubris
Gwahar - Detailed Studies
Twilight in the Desert
Public Policy PAges
Department of Energy
National Science Foundation
ITER Project
Clean Coal Initiative

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Answer 8

So there are Republican districts around the country that are begging to have a Nuke or Coal Plant in their backyard?

Could have fooled me.

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Answer 9

I think environmental policy has definitely made us dependent on foreign oil. However, it is not just Democrats who vote for it. Republicans are also guilty. Remember that front runner candidate John McCain voted against drilling in Anwar. As for terrorism, I think our dependence on foreign gives us more of a presence in Middle Eastern countries which provides a ready justification for terrorists. Make no mistake about it though, they would find other justifications if that one did not exist. The thing I am most surprised by though is this. If terrorists hate us so much for our presence in the Middle East, then why aren't there more attacks against the House of Saud for their support of us? We need to become energy independent, but neither side is doing anything to try and get us to this point. Just food for thought!

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Answer 10

energy independence doesn't come from destroying the environment drilling for a limited resource, it comes from developing renewable fuel sources. We have the ability to feed our nations energy hunger from non-food crops but a Texas oil man won't support anything that could truly compete with and replace oil that's why GWB is backing corn ethanol. yes, it is a source of natural energy but such a poor one that we'd have to plant 1/2 of this entire nation's land area in it.
The height of irresponsibility was spending billions on securing our claim on a limited resource instead of investing in R&D for true and enduring energy freedom. It was the republicans not the democrats that are short sighted and from your question, I see you're as short sighted as well.

To the poster: we've wasted 5 years already. also, we could be on that road tomorrow with hemp ethanol, it grows almost anywhere, produces 10 times more cellulose per acre than corn and we could have it available in 12 months. All this is very bad if you're an oilman or your friends are oilmen such as the Saudis.

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