A Nation of Wimps

What a bunch of wimps we are. We sit idly by, emptying our wallets to pay for costly foreign oil – a commodity always subject to potential disruption thanks to the ongoing and never ending political instability of the Middle East.

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We wouldn’t need even a teaspoonful of foreign oil if we would take advantage of the proven crude oil reserves in the continental U.S. And Alaska – America is sitting on billions of gallons of crude oil just waiting to be drilled yet we look elsewhere and pay far more than we should given the fact that we are an oil rich nation. Take the so-called Bakken Formation in North Dakota and portions of South Dakota and Montana. A 2007 study showed that by using sophisticated new methods of extraction a massive 200 billion barrels of oil could be sucked up out of the ground, increasing U.S. Oil reserves 10 times beyond what they are now. Experts believe that by using horizontal drilling technology, between 175 and 500 billion barrels of oil could be recovered from the 200,000 square mile reserve. A 1999 USGS study estimated that there were 400 billion barrels of recoverable oil in the area. According to estimates, the United States imported a staggering 14 million barrels a day back in 2007 costing consumers about $340 billion dollars all of which took flight to the pockets of a lot of super rich sheiks. Were we to extract 200 billion barrels of oil from the high plains at $90 a barrel some $18 trillion would be added to our economy. Then there’s the matter of the vast untapped oil fields in Alaska where the Federal government won’t allow their further exploitation. What’s wrong with us? Why are we allowing the government and a crew of elitist environmentalists to hold us hostage? Why aren’t we demanding that our oil wealth be exploited instead of putting ourselves in the greedy hands of a bunch of Middle Eastern oligarchs who despise us but not our dollars that they use to build vast places and finance trips to the world's more exotic playgrounds in their lavishly appointed private jet aircraft? There is something terribly wrong with our national pride and national resolve when we allow ourselves to be manipulated by a small part of our population who place their dainty esthetic values above the welfare of their fellow Americans. We should join Sarah Palin in chanting “drill baby drill.” After all, it’s our national economy that’s at stake here. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not advocating drilling for oil in the lot next door to your property, although you’d think that was the case when listening to the snobs who abhor the very idea of America being independent of foreign sources of oil. Despoil foreign landscapes by dotting them with ugly oil rigs wherever you wish, but keep America’s open plains oil rig free, even when they are far remote from your habitat. Our present situation is analogous to the miser who subsists on a near starvation diet in pursuit of hoarding his unspent wealth. We’ve got the oil reserves – plenty of them –we just can’t take advantage of them because to do so might spoil the view with offshore rigs in sight of our coastline. If the restrictions on drilling for oil here and in Alaska’s ANWR area were based on anything other than the desires of a handful of privileged Americans who abhor the prospects of oil rigs anywhere near them, we might find ourselves free of dependence on foreign oil. It’s about time to remove the handcuffs keeping us dependent on foreign oil and start taking advantage of the oil riches Almighty God provided for the American people. We don’t have to continue to be wimps.