web posted June 19, 2006

Re: Oil is well: The shortage is a myth, and not a new one by Rod D. Martin (June 5, 2006)

I was reading the article "Oil is well: The shortage is a myth, and not a new one" and a lot of the vitriolic drivel is based on attacking well meaning environmentalists because you think they caused the high prices. Notwithstanding that they do not own the companies that produce oil.

The most moronic part of this tirade is this:

They've blocked offshore drilling. They've blocked drilling in Alaska's ANWR. They've even come up with the most ludicrous political slogan of all time, "you can't drill your way to lower prices." They oppose drilling, period. And through their draconian rules and regulations, they've stopped even one single new refinery from being built in America in more than a generation.
Cant you see the logical flaw? If this supposed Abiotic oil is indeed true then why drill in pristine natural sites at all? Why don't you drill a hole in you backyard and pay your way to Emperor of Indochina?

No, oil is a scarce raw material that's why its expensive and if you bothered to listen to people who know more than you (like Alan Greenspan recently) you'd know that its corporations not investing and institutional investors being savvy and buying up global excess production no matter how bad it is in order to drive up the price in order to produce profits unheard of in history.

Of course oil is probably not made of old rainforests but that does not discount its scarcity, I don't see too many diamond mines in Stalin's Russia and that's another carbon right? That's abiotic and comes from deep within the earth yet its scarce too. I cant just dig anywhere and find my house floating on a gold-mine can I.

Personally I have no problem with drilling in ANWR but to read that kind of junk simply attacking the left because you imagine the world to be that way proves only that the Internet really is democratic and its possible the voice of all kinds of kooks can be understood across the globe. I'm very sorry I read that article and I hope that in future your offerings are a bit more considered.

Joe Ninty

web posted June 12, 2006

Re: The White Man's burden by Alan Caruba (June 5, 2006)

If you have been watching the UN, you will have noticed that it wants all advanced nations to give an automatic percentage of their GNPs to the UN for development and poverty reduction in the developing world. America has given $11 Billion last year which is too little by the UN's standards but more than any other. The UN bean counters are not counting the $47 Billion that is given out by charities of the American people. Interesting don't you think? The rest of the world doesn't come up to this totality of funds by far. This type of thinking has not worked internationally nor has it worked in the inner cities of the US which home grown poverty issues.

Giving money doesn't work and it seems to enlarge the problem in the long term as nations and populations depend of our giving rather than in developing better and more responsive governments which can work for solutions. Feeding corruption and undermining personal initiative isn't a good formula for development of any kind. You wind up with more starving people, warring factions and stagnant economies over all. So why are we continuing to do it? We are feeding political correctness (a liberal construct).

Julie Them
Sayre, PA

Re: Where is America's exit strategy for illegal immigration?

web posted June 5, 2006

Re: Federalizing plebiscites by Bruce Walker (May 22, 2006)

web posted May 29, 2006

Bruce Walker responds:

I understand your concerns and also appreciate the cogent way you express them. You are absolutely correct that the United States was intended to be a republic (with very strong sovereign states, whose legislatures chose both the president and members of the Senate.) Sadly, however, a rampant federal judiciary has made such a mockery of the Constitution and we are not governed by elected representatives of the people (as we would be in a republic), but by unelected oligarches who are accountable to no one.

The American people, I believe, are much more conservative than Congress and the president, who are in turn much more conservative than the federal courts and other unaccountable bureaucrats. I have written a number of articles about the converatism of the American people (just enter "Battleground Poll" and "Bruce Walker" to find five or six of those articles), and I submit that is why, even in states like California, initiatives with conservative flavor pass when the California legislature will not even consider.

Re: The Da Vinci Code: What it means — And what it doesn't by Lady Liberty (May 22, 2006)

Those who are atheists might not recognize that The Da Vinci Code is an attack upon Christianity, and especially upon Catholicism. (My mother and brother didn't "get it" either.) It was written by an anti-Catholic for the express purpose of trashing the Church, its teachings and its beliefs (as well as its believers). The book and film are not really being presented as fiction, but as history told through fiction, however innocent the author pretends to be. That's the distinction that should be noted. That is clearly the author's intent. It is as vile as if someone wrote a fiction depicting Adolph Hitler as a hero.

When people watch an Oliver Stone "history" many will come away thinking Stone's version of events is the truth, because Stone ties all these "facts" together and presents a slanted version of events based on those "facts" (which are often conjecture presented as fact or simply his interpretation of the "facts") to arrive at the conclusions he wants you to draw.

Film is the most powerful means of spreading propaganda. Take the pro-euthanasia films that Hitler had produced. Look at the evil that was subsequently unleashed. It was the intent of those films (fictions though they were) to soften the public's view toward euthanasia, to persuade them that the morality they believed in had exceptions, and to suggest that sometimes euthanasia is the morally superior choice. It plays on our compassion and our fears to get us to accept what should fill us with horror. And now it is beginning again. Because we have turned our backs on moral truths, we are once again being led down that path. People are being euthanized in America and abroad because someone has decided they are not worth the expense of treating. No return on investment. (And I'm not talking about people who are "brain dead" either). The moral impetus is overpopulation and preserving limited "resources" (read money) for those deemed worthy. But if our "new morality" is driven by such criteria, how long before the list of those deemed unworthy begins to take on a life of its own?

The fact that many Christians are ignorant about their faith does not justify trying to undermine their faith anymore than people's ignorance of the Bill of Rights justifies the government undermining those rights. We have been deliberately dumbed down in this country precisely so that we can be meekly led into a socialist atheist world government. The Da Vinci Code is film propaganda in the war against the faith that stands against that agenda.

Neither should anyone mistake a boycott for censorship; no one has tried to censor anyone. But in a world where economic expediency dictates the new morality, where money alone has power, the boycott is the poor man's power. It's the only way his voice will be heard, the only logical response under the circumstances. Though it is likely the film will make millions in profits, we hope the boycott will be felt in the bottom line, and we are always hopeful that its impact will make Hollywood think twice before producing another film of outrageous calumny against Catholicism and its adherents.

Alisa Craddock
ESR Contributor