This Wall Street Journal editorial, “$4 Gasbags,” June 12 (thanks to Davsmi) calls for expanding domestic energy supplies, which of course is simple common sense. But this is not the only way we are insane and self-destructive — a view the WSJ attributes to the Chinese. Here are some of the others:
1. Allowing in immigrants who believe that our society is inherently evil and that our Constitution and laws must be replaced by Sharia;
2. Forbidding our own anti-terror analysts to use the word “jihad” to describe the war that is being waged against us — thus depriving ourselves of the single analytical tool that our enemies have given us to understand their motives and goals (this one is presented as a strategic choice: if we call jihadists unkind names in Arabic, this will discredit them in the eyes of their fellow Muslims — an absurd view that relies on the faulty premise that the jihadists are getting their credibility among Muslims from us);
3. Allowing habeas corpus to enemy combatants for the first time in American history;
4. Funding schools that advocate our own subjugation;
…and there are plenty of other ways also. Phyllis Chesler has more here. Make your own lists!
From the Journal:
Anyone wondering why U.S. energy policy is so dysfunctional need only review Congress’s recent antics. Members have debated ideas ranging from suing OPEC to the Senate’s carbon tax-and-regulation monstrosity, to a windfall profits tax on oil companies, to new punishments for “price gouging” — everything except expanding domestic energy supplies.
Amid $135 oil, it ought to be an easy, bipartisan victory to lift the political restrictions on energy exploration and production. Record-high fuel costs are hitting consumers and business like a huge tax increase. Yet the U.S. remains one of the only countries in the world that chooses as a matter of policy to lock up its natural resources. The Chinese think we’re insane and self-destructive, while the Saudis laugh all the way to the bank….