Comments on: Gas Should Be More Expensive

By: anne

anne — Tue, 12 Jun 2012 15:45:55 +0000

good grief, has this comment section been taken over by stiff necked tea baggers who can’t see the forest through the trees?

okay, let’s have low gas prices so you can drive your monster guzzlers and spew pollution into the air. in the meantime asthma cases for children will go up and cancer deaths will rise, obviously cheap gas is far more important than preserving the only planet we can survive on.

and cato, while i agree in general with your point history does show that people will only take the easy way of things no matter what the consequence and… in addition a lot of major industries had gov’t help to get them to prosper like OIL AND GAS SUBSIDIES. so if you want gov’t out of business then stop the subsidies, they don’t need them now.

By: Cato

Cato — Sun, 27 May 2012 00:05:20 +0000

The liberal looks that the world and itches to wave a magic wand and force people to bend their will to his. It’s for their own good, of course. It will make the world a better place, you see. Such a magic wand exists in the form of all-powerful government. When people don’t cooperate voluntarily, then force must be applied via the law. Liberals forget that the law is a gun pointed at the head of the citizen. Liberals deplore guns in the hands of private individuals, but have no qualms about using government-owned guns (in the form of the police) on the citizenry for everything from tax collection to banning plastic bags. When one policy effort fails as people find a way around it, the liberal doesn’t give up. His response is to exert more control, never to lessen it. And so control over the society steadily increases under liberalism (understood here as left-wing progressivism), as every effort by individuals to follow their self-interest must gradually be squelched where it contradicts the liberal’s view of what’s best for them.

The conservative looks at the world as it is and tries to work with human nature, not alter it. Watch old movies, read old books, you will see that human nature is immutable. The conservative understands that people will always try to act in what they perceive to be their self-interest. It takes force to prevent them from doing so. And even if you apply force in one area, they will find another way around it. Sure, some things must be regulated, and there must be the rule of law and enforcement of contracts, for example, in order to maintain the peace and keep people from harming or cheating each other. But a conservative doesn’t seek to go beyond these basics of government control. People are trusted to do what’s right, and no one is so wise as to tell others what they can buy or what they should pay for simple goods. The force and might of the governmental monopoly of force must be used as sparingly as possible, for it is a blunt and terrible weapon.

A child may ask, “Wouldn’t it be nice if people did x or had to do y?” An adult understands that there is a big gap between wishing and forcing.

So please, spare us your social engineering schemes. Trust the wisdom of crowds. And trust that when green energy is ready for widespread use, it will take off like a wildfire — the same as when gasoline-powered technology took off in the early 20th century. The government didn’t have to force people to stop riding horse and start using cars. The same will happen when green technology is ready. Be patient, spare us your guns, don’t distort the market signals that will tell us what works best and when is the best time. Forcing the issue will only delay its effective implementation, and cause a great deal of suffering (through the artificial increase in costs) in the meantime. Trust the people.

By: tpaine

tpaine — Mon, 21 May 2012 12:44:54 +0000

This article had to be written by a high school student. Little scimpy on the facts but bursting with enviromental (extremist) talking points. The writer should change their surname to ''luddite''.

By: Rick H.

Rick H. — Mon, 21 May 2012 11:17:46 +0000

Now the liberals have infested the Saturday Evening Post?

What next? a Rockellian cover of a gay “marriage”?

By: EditorJP

EditorJP — Mon, 21 May 2012 07:09:25 +0000

Go ahead, raise gas prices before the election, you stupid watermelons! (Green on the outside, red on the inside).

Can’t wait till late October to keep replaying that tape of Obama saying his energy policies would triple America’s heating, electric and travel costs.

Plus, you’ll drive the cost of food through the roof (ITS NOT ALL DELIVERED BY DiESEL, YOU MORON).

And many of those “people driving pickups” that you turn your little snot nose up at and that you want to carpool, they USE THEIR TRUCKS FOR WORK, you stupid jackass.

Keep it up, with your help, maybe Obama can lose ALL 57 STATES.

By: bobh

bobh — Mon, 21 May 2012 07:06:06 +0000

Don’t assume that everyone lives in an urban area with mass transit or the carpool option. People living in rural areas are struggling enough as it is.

By: Richard

Richard — Mon, 21 May 2012 06:38:55 +0000

The author is a turd.

By: anymouse

anymouse — Mon, 21 May 2012 04:58:11 +0000

Well, this is either one of the elite rich libs who still has enough income to demand she be taxed more or an OWSer.
For those of us that actually have trouble affording the gas to get to work and still put food on the table when its at $3.50, obviously this is idiotic. Its retarded stupidity like this that proves liberals are entirely out of touch with the very people they [i]claim[/i] to champion.

By: Robbins Mitchell

Robbins Mitchell — Mon, 21 May 2012 04:35:40 +0000

Was Janus Ludak born stupid or does he take lessons?…the only reason we import such a large percentage of our petroleum is not due to shortage of proven recoverable domestic reserves….it is because the Obama administration’s energy policies make it more difficult and costly to recover them…like prohibiting drilling in shallow water offshore which necessitates more costly deep water driling…and by such things as killing the Keystone XL pipeline…and because it can take up to 10 yrs to get full government approval to build a new refinery…if Janus Ludak really wants to pay $7/gal for gasoline,he should move to Europe and live happily ever after

By: Kyle Prunty

Kyle Prunty — Sun, 13 May 2012 14:25:38 +0000

Pardon me, that would be vast resources, not vast recourses.

By: Kyle Prunty

Kyle Prunty — Sun, 13 May 2012 14:21:45 +0000

I could not disagree with this article more. It does not take an economist to understand that the rising cost of fuel increases transportation costs and rising transportation costs increase the price of goods and services. Additionally, businesses cannot simply pass on the entirety of the additional expense to consumers. That would make their products cost prohibitive and uncompetitive. Businesses must institute cost-cutting measures to compensate for the portion of the additional expense that consumers cannot absorb. This means cutting employee pay, benefits, and even jobs. Now you have consumers paying more for their own fuel, and more for the other goods and services they require, on smaller budgets. Consumers can no longer keep up with their bills. Bankruptcies and foreclosures follow. More lower income families and less consumer spending also results in decreased revenue to the government. Decreased revenue to the government causes the same people who desire higher fuel prices to demand higher taxes for the rich. Since the rich are the job creators in this country, increasing their tax burden will only result in even higher unemployment.
Currently, green energy alternatives are expensive, inefficient, and impractical. The free market, not some taxpayer-funded boondoggle, may eventually change that. However, for now, fossil fuels remain the engine of our economy. The only true solution to this manufactured crisis is to take matters into our own hands. We must drill for, and mine, the vast recourses we have under our own feet

By: ben77

ben77 — Thu, 03 May 2012 20:09:40 +0000

I have to disagree with this article because raising the price of Fuel puts a further strain on the Middle class we are already paying more for groceries, and general merchandise due to fuel cost going up example i used to pay .58 for a can of corn now it’s .86 cents i used to pay 2.99 for a LB of Beef its now over 4.00 a LB the price of price of a pair of blue jeans used to be 32.99 now they are over 40.00 a pair. now dont get me wrong i understand cost of living goes up over time but financial experts have said that fuel cost raises shipping costsand shipping cost will always raise consumer cost Driving up cost of fuel creates a ripple effect we cannot afford.