[rmlew]

Being dependent on imported oil was a new thing--until around 1960 or 1970, most of our oil was domestic.
There was a world-wide market for oil. WE were first a net exporter, and then as we used more gas and pumped less, we became an importer.

All we needed to do was stop wasting energy, lessen demand for energy by ending population growth from immigration, and develop alternative energy sources--which could have been as simple as bicycles or as complex as fusion reactors.
So we should have used the government to force changes of behavior on the American people (ie taxing oil).

The Soviet Union was much less of a threat than we thought.
Tell that to the people they enslaved.
I see no reason why they should not have continued to expand, if we did not confron them starting in 1947.

You seem to be Agrarian, not a Jeffersonian. Are you a fan of Russell Weaver?

[Age of Reason]

So we should have used the government to force changes of behavior on the American people (ie taxing oil).

Taxing oil would have been a great idea--

PROVIDING the extra revenue gained by the government would allow income taxes to be reduced in proportion--

But we know that part would NEVER happen.

But then they could have at least used the extra revenue to research alternative energy sources.

But they'd just steal the money, like they always do.