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Conservatives call for nationalizing oil

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themadkat

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I was listening to Bill O Reilly the other day when I was in radio no-man's land, and he was more or less calling for us to nationalize the oil industry. It was strange to hear him talk about it. He basically said something about unrestricted capitalism being the only way to go...until you "need" it. The more "essential" the good or service provided, according to ol' Bill, the more excuse the government has to nationalize it. One caller actually did bring up the right of the oil companies to profit and for the CEO to receive whatever pay was contractually agreed to given that they did profit, but Bill more or less shrugged it off. He made an interesting point, interesting in the sense that he would go to this argument to justify it, that since the oil companies were profiting from the War on Terror, that gave the government more of a right to nationalize/redistribute.

So much for conservatives being the defenders of capitalism.

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I have heard one horrifying phrase repeated over and over again by pundits and politicians debating oil nationalization: an issue of national security. They are trying to sell Americans on the idea that oil is something that is so basic to their needs that any threat to the affordability of oil is a matter of national security. That is the first cry on the road to fascism.

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Peikoff has said some weird things himself, but nothing can compare to the 'conservative talk show hosts' talking about nationalization. Although I haven't been a fan of O'Reilly or Savage, I am somewhat surprised that they would be so frank about it.

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Actually the contents of this thread support Peikoff's claim that religion is the largest threat in politics today. Religion is not legitimate a foundation of capitalism; it is a logical foundation for statism though.

Yet, the driving force behind the nationalization of oil is egalitarianism (to bring down "greedy Big Oil") and environmentalism (to bring down man the user of natural resources), both more prominent hallmarks of the Left rather than the Right. Religion certainly is a logical foundation for statism, but only insofar as its tenets are consistently defended and put into action. Ideas don't implement themselves; it takes minds consistently adhering to them. The Right does not consistently put Christianity into political action, and is, in general, intellectually bankrupt, leaving the Left a vacuum which it is happy to fill with class warfare and scaremongering. Observe that the Right grudgingly offers for its Presidential nominee a man who, by its own standards, isn't nearly religious enough, and who infuriates most Christians by his unwillingness to give Christianity political legs and who threatened to jump to the Democratic Party just four years ago. The Left, on the other hand, offers a man who surprises even them with his passion for statism.

Religion may be a potent basis for statism, but it is not the only basis, and in America, Christianity is the dominant religion, and one which is so pragmatic and conflicted that it has no capacity to become the de facto force behind American fascism in the forseeable future. If you really want to worry about something, worry about the statist Left, Islam, and the pragmatic/anti-intellectual state of the culture.

Edited by KurtColville
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Actually the contents of this thread support Peikoff's claim that religion is the largest threat in politics today. Religion is not legitimate a foundation of capitalism; it is a logical foundation for statism though.

Precisely. The strength behind this resurgent Statism is not Socialism. Socialism is the theory that the source of value is society, that the beneficary is society as a whole, that the actions to be taken must be prescribed to the society. This statism is certainly being driven by a theory that men do not produce values, are not the beneficary of their, that they neither choose which values they want nor ultimately decide the actions needed to pursue those values; but it is not Socialism, it is God. It is the idea that all this is ultimately the product of God, and that various measures must be put in place, structured around God's plans, about what God needs to work his magic.

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Religion may be a potent basis for statism, but it is not the only basis, and in America, Christianity is the dominant religion, and one which is so pragmatic and conflicted that it has no capacity to become the de facto force behind American fascism in the forseeable future. If you really want to worry about something, worry about the statist Left, Islam, and the pragmatic/anti-intellectual state of the culture.

I don't know what America you are living in, but the Christians are in a huge majority. The "leftist" people are in such a minority that they aren't even worth thinking about. And Christians are already marching toward facism; sometimes with baby-steps, sometimes with huge strides... note their intolerance of people who disagree with them, that's laying down a fertile fields for facism. They already are in the process of getting abortion outlawed, gay marriage outlawed, trying (although unsuccessfully) to get Creationism taught in schools...

Creeping in the wrong direction is still going in the wrong direction.

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Precisely. The strength behind this resurgent Statism is not Socialism. Socialism is the theory that the source of value is society, that the beneficary is society as a whole, that the actions to be taken must be prescribed to the society. This statism is certainly being driven by a theory that men do not produce values, are not the beneficary of their, that they neither choose which values they want nor ultimately decide the actions needed to pursue those values; but it is not Socialism, it is God. It is the idea that all this is ultimately the product of God, and that various measures must be put in place, structured around God's plans, about what God needs to work his magic.

As much as I hate Christianity (being a former on myself), I don't know that socialism is as much of a minor problem as described here. Big government is a mantra I'm constantly seeing on the News, and from Politicians.

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Precisely. The strength behind this resurgent Statism is not Socialism. Socialism is the theory that the source of value is society, that the beneficary is society as a whole, that the actions to be taken must be prescribed to the society. This statism is certainly being driven by a theory that men do not produce values, are not the beneficary of their, that they neither choose which values they want nor ultimately decide the actions needed to pursue those values; but it is not Socialism, it is God. It is the idea that all this is ultimately the product of God, and that various measures must be put in place, structured around God's plans, about what God needs to work his magic.

If that were the case, would it not be true that the more religious a person or nation is the more statist he/it would be? I have found the opposite to be true. In the US, those pushing the leftist agenda are more likely to be secular than fundamentalist. I cant tell you the number of atheists I have clashed with on other forums who reject the existence of God, but despise capitalism and swoon over the welfare state.

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I don't know what America you are living in, but the Christians are in a huge majority. The "leftist" people are in such a minority that they aren't even worth thinking about.

Leftists dominate the universities and public schools, they dominate Hollywood, they dominate the MSM, they dominate the democrat party, and they even dominate industry.

Where do you think environmental regulations come from? Where do you think the idea of diversity training comes from? Why do you think gas prices are so high?

And Christians are already marching toward facism; sometimes with baby-steps, sometimes with huge strides...

No doubt, both Christians and leftists are a problem, especially where they fuse their ideologies together, such as is happening now with environmentalism.

note their intolerance of people who disagree with them, that's laying down a fertile fields for facism. They already are in the process of getting abortion outlawed, gay marriage outlawed, trying (although unsuccessfully) to get Creationism taught in schools...

All true, although creationism used to be taught in public schools and at one time abortion was against the law. I'm not sure about gay marriage, but I don't think it's always been legal. Still, these are all bad trends.

Some good news, if you pay attention to LittleGreenFootballs, you will see that there are people out there successfully fighting creationism.

Creeping in the wrong direction is still going in the wrong direction.

We're creeping in the wrong direction be it left or right.

Leftists are anti-intellectual, dogmatic, and moral relativists and Christians are pseudo-intellectual, dogmatic and hold to Christian ethics. There are more rational elements in our society, thank goodness, but those are the two dominate trends.

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I have heard one horrifying phrase repeated over and over again by pundits and politicians debating oil nationalization: an issue of national security. They are trying to sell Americans on the idea that oil is something that is so basic to their needs that any threat to the affordability of oil is a matter of national security. That is the first cry on the road to fascism.
'National security' is going a bit far but you cant really underesimate how dependent the West is on oil. Securing access to oil resources for the purpose of 'national security' has been a fairly key plank in America's foreign policy over the last 30 years or so.
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