The Reality of Nationalized Oil

A Rasmussen survey has revealed that a full 29% of respondents believe that the US oil industry should be nationalized. Another 24% feel they do not know enough about the subject to overrule nationalization outright. That amounts to 53% of respondents that believe the national government could possibly be able to justify the need to take over America's domestic oil industry. Someone quick, call Maxine Waters' office!

And what did this take? Apparently just $4.00 per gallon gasoline. Let's hope basic cable doesn't hit $60 a month or we might see a conference room full of bureaucrats writing out the next episode of The Office.

But, environmentalists had better pull the shutters closed and draw the shades before they start blowing the noisemakers. They had better look at where they are now, and begin to think about their future strategy before they make the unrepentant mistake of getting exactly what they have been pining for all these past few years, for there is an opponent on the horizon they have not contemplated. That would be their own leftist selves.

The problem with all of this is that, if such a situation were ever to occur, it would absolutely pit the American environmentalist movement against the American socialist movement, and there hasn't been a picnic potentially this bloody since the Hatfields and the McCoys shared a hesitantly garnished potato salad over a shotgun wedding.

If the American socialists ever nationalize the oil industry we will quickly be exposed to unslaked socialists thirsting for that most narcotic of elixirs flowing through the pipelines--money to finance their agenda. Heal the sick! Feed the poor! (What possible legitimate encumbrance could oil infrastructure put in the way of children being clothed?) All this while the last thing the environmentalists want is one more drop of black gold to drip out of the end of that pipeline.

Environmentalists want the spigot to be shut off while socialists want the money that spigot will produce. Environmentalists will win against "Big Oil" every time, while the government's need to feed loses to no one.

h/t QandO blog