Socialism: Still a dirty word: Dismal picture of potential nationalized oil industry

In the 1950s, the word "socialism" was as vulgar as the four-letter words, which, when uttered by a youngster, could result in a mouthful of soap. Not so today. Perhaps contemporary acceptance of the term is the result of tolerance lessons, or political correctness that permeates progressive thought today. It could be ignorance; schools no longer teach the flaws of socialism. Or, what's even worse, today's acceptance of the term is more likely to be acceptance of the system.

When Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., blurted out in a congressional hearing that she was ready to "socialize" the oil industry, it caused only a minor ripple in the media. There's no way of knowing, of course, whether any school teachers seized on the event to discuss with their students why government should, or should not, follow Ms. Waters' advice and "socialize" the industry. This would have been a great teaching opportunity.

Had a representative made such a suggestion in the 1950s, she might not have been allowed to complete her term, and almost certainly would not have been re-elected. Civics teachers across the nation would have pounced on the opportunity to explain why socialism must never be allowed to penetrate the American system of government. Many of today's teachers may not know why socialism should be avoided. Or worse, they may believe socialism should be embraced.

As frustrating and painful as it is to pay $4 per gallon for gasoline, Maxine Waters' medicine would be far worse than the disease. The price of gasoline is determined by the amount people are willing to pay for the available supply. As the supply diminishes, the people who need gasoline are willing to pay ever-higher prices, as long as they can. When they can no longer pay the price, they do not use the

The leftists in congress are itching to seize the oil industry from private ownership and make it part of the collectivity. They use every opportunity to make the energy situation worse, so that it will get to a point of crisis and then they will step up and say “It’s really bad. Time to nationalize the oil industry”.
Their talk about seizing a large portion of the profits (”excess profits”) and stopping speculation prove their intentions are not Free Market intentions, but socialist intentions.

If this is allowed to happen, and the American people are now so ignorant they might, the economy will come to a screeching halt and then go backwards.

The first thing to happen will be severe shortages, rationing and gas lines. They will probably force the price down some and freeze any increases. But Domestic exploration will cease immediately, like it did during the Carter admins windfall profits tax.

All the technicians and consultants in the industry, to avoid a reduction in their salaries, will leave for overseas to work because the World price will skyrocket and our own government will be forced to increase taxes to offset the difference of the domestic fixed price, in order to buy oil at increasing prices off the World market. (Imagine a Government bureau pulling that off!)

And, like all typical Socialist governments, they will rapidly use up what small reserve we have on hand to give the impression that it is working well for them. But in time, all the major economic domino’s will tumble.

They will then justify their “Alternative” energy policies and tell Americans they will have to “sacrifice” until the switch can be made to “Renewable” forms of energy. That won’t include Nuclear or coal either. Also, the dirty little secret that Oil constitutes most all of our Plastics industry, cosmetics, rubber, farming, etc, will also become painfully obvious and unavoidable after several complete vital industries fail along with it.

The people will then be forced to rise up and take the country back and our best chances to install permanent Conservative philosophy will be then. Because by then, the spineless moderate Republican sell-outs like McCain will have worn out their welcome.

The Brits after WW-II allowed the government takeover of major industries including coal mining so that the profits from these industries would be fairly shared with the people. It was a dismal failure and by the 1980s British mined coal cost far more than any imported coal and the taxpayers were spending billions just to keep the mines open. Margaret Thatcher succeeded in finally reverting these industries back to private ownership. This is well recounted in part 1 of the PBS series Commanding Heights. I have my Microeconomics students view this video.

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