Gasoline

While filling up my Acura Integra for less than $16 the other night, my first thought was, "jeepers it's cold out here!"

My second thought was "Boy, it would be nice if gas is this still cheap when the economy turns around." This quaint illusory gave me a hearty chuckle as I replaced the nozzle and screwed the gas cap down.

We could have $1.50/gallon gasoline, every day. It would be easy as pie. Our country is sitting on petroleum reserves three times those of Saudi Arabia. We can get it quickly, cleanly, efficiently, and with little impact to the environment. But no. We're not allowed to go after it. It must remain in the ground, doing nobody any good. And we must enjoy this temporary respite in gas prices while it lasts.

And we're somehow supposed to believe that it's good that things are this way. That it's right. That it is somehow the moral thing, just desserts, that we've been subjected to outrageously, economically crippling gas prices this past year. It's our penance. For driving gas guzzling SUVs. For being wasteful. For being American. For existing. We can't have permanently cheap gas, in spite of the technological ease through which we could bring this about, because we don't deserve it. Thus sayeth, in essence, the liberals in Washington.

This irrational rationale usually comes in the form of some snivelling, vaguely effeminate voice that whines "well after all, they pay SO much more for their gas in Europe."

Let me put this as politely as I can possibly conjure: I don't give a rat's sphincter what they pay for gas in Europe. It's not my problem how much gas costs in Europe. I'm not buying gas in Europe. I'm buying it here. And I want it CHEAP.

To paraphrase that great American political scientist, Ferris Buhler: I'm not European, I don't plan on being European... so who gives a crap if they're socialists? They could be fascist anarchists and it still wouldn't change the fact that my gas is too expensive.