So, I’m heading to Pennsylvania this 4th of July weekend with my family. In case you don’t know, I live in Virginia, and in case you hadn’t seen, gas prices are freaking out of control. Now, I’m not one to complain about gas prices and do nothing…as opined here. However, that being said, I’d rather not spend hundreds of dollars more on gas than I should have to because of our incompetent government. Well then…I was planning on starting with a bigger, more colorful introduction, but I guess on that note I’ll just jump right in. I should mention too that I don’t plan on being long-winded with this blog. The gas prices issue offers such ridiculously obvious solutions, that I don’t need too. Drill here, drill now…you idiots.

You know, given the millions and millions of comically stupid things that liberals have said over the years, it would be really hard to, say, hammer out a top ten list or something. If I were making that list, though, there has been one recent comment made again and again that ought to never slip from the top 3. Allow me to paraphrase: “We shouldn’t drill for oil on our own land because we won’t see any results for 10 years. Why do I think that? Because I’ve been drinking my own urine for so long now that it has horribly damaged my capacity to think logically about anything.” Ok, I may have exaggerated slightly on that last part, but the basic idea is spot on. Here’s the thing: drilling for oil on our own land will produce results instantaneously (and we’d be using that oil now if we drilled 10 years ago, but that’s another topic). Heck, building fake oil rigs and simply pretending to drill for oil on our own land would lower oil prices tomorrow! I got a brain teaser for ya. Do ya think that OPEC and friends want to lose their biggest customer? Ding, ding, ding…tell em what he’s won Johnny!!! That’s right, $2 gas!!! Look, if we start taking strides to tap into the vast resources of oil in this country, our current suppliers aren’t just going to say, “Awww shucks, looks like them boys finally wised up and started drilling for their own oil. Bummer, I guess we’ll just all die of starvation.” They’re going to open the flood gates so that we keep buying from them! Not only that, and I’m no oil expert or nothing, but if we start drilling for our own oil…follow me here…eventually we’ll start being able to use that oil instead of the oil that we buy now from all the terrorists that we’re at war with. I know, I know, this whole idea’s a little outside the box.

“Yeah, yeah, Aaron, but we don’t want to be dependent on oil at all…no matter where we get it from,” you might say. True. I agree. We should be aggressively pursuing alternative fuel solutions right now, and we shouldn’t stop until we’ve weaned every dang car in this country off of oil. Absolutely. In fact, as the country who has basically dreamed up and invented every major innovation in the past…well, ever…the only reason that we haven’t permanently given oil the boot yet is because we haven’t wanted to bad enough…and you’re not going to convince me otherwise. Think about it. For thousands and thousands of years, the best the world could come up with for transportation was riding a horse. Then the United States came along and before you know it, we were traveling to the moon and back. From cars, to phones, to the Internet, the planes, the TV, to almost everything…the United States invented it. In all seriousness, from a technological progress standpoint, you could categorize all of history into two groups – The Huge Giant Dark Ages and The Age of America. So, to tell me that we Americans can’t come up with alternative fuel sources to replace oil is a load of crap. We can.

Regardless of whether we will or not, though (back to the matter at hand), it seems to me to be undeniably preposterous that we have crazy amounts of untapped oil on our own shores that we refuse to drill for. It’s actually so unbelievable to me that I’m not entirely sure how to even properly discuss it. I mean, this is a no brainer. In fact, if McCain or Obama made drilling for oil to reduce gas prices their only platform this election, they would probably win in a landslide. The problem is that wealthy, elitist liberals (see: Obama, Barack), all environmental crazies (see: Gore, Al), moderate Republicans (see: McCain, John), and everyone who is mentally disabled (see: Democrats in general), don’t care about what the 99% of the rest of us upwardly mobile normal working Americans think. Let’s be real. Take ANWR, for example. The average Joe in this country doesn’t giving a flying rip about what happens to ANWR. If drilling for oil out there lowered gas prices a mere thirty cents a gallon but reduced ANWR in the process to such a hideously mangled hellhole that no one would ever venture North of Canada again for fear of even catching a glimpse of it, average Joe would choose the thirty cent gas savings 24/7/365. The funny thing is, though (and I say “funny” in that “I will now pull out all of the remaining hair on my head because this is so incredibly stupid” sense), that drilling for oil in ANWR and in all of the other oil fields across this great nation won’t (due to advanced technology) affect the environment in the least…but many politicians still oppose it. I, honest to God, don’t understand what I’m missing here? I mean, unless you’re a filthy rich narcissist who just doesn’t give two poops about high gas prices, an environmentalist wacko who thinks that high gas prices might be an asset to kill off humans in order to protect the earth from the global warming hoax, or a liberal Democrat who simply opposes anything and everything that even borders on common sense just because of tradition, I. Just. Don’t. Get. It.

Here, as I see it, is our current position on oil: Forgoing the obvious economic advantages of tapping into the massive resources of oil on our land such as job growth and financial relief for all Americans, forgoing all legitimate attempts to eliminate the need in this country for oil at all by actively researching alternative fuel sources, and forgoing the safety, needs, and simple will of our people along with the political well-being of our nation, we will continue to fund our enemies abroad, the enemies that we spend billions of dollars annually to fight, the enemies that have already claimed the lives of thousands of our best and brightest, by purchasing oil from them at whatever lofty price they set.

Does that pretty much sum it up? Yeah, I feel like that policy might need some tweaking. Whatta ya think?

So, where was I? Oh yeah, the trip to Pennsylvania. Well, when I get there this weekend, I’m not going to be thinking about gas prices. Instead, like millions of Americans, with pride in my heart, I will be celebrating the birth of this nation. I love this country, and I’m not afraid to say it. I recognize these United States of America to be without a doubt the greatest nation in the history of the world, and I am proud and thankful to be an American. That’s why, even though I won’t be fretting about gas prices while in PA, it’s too bad that on the way to and from, by way of frequent stops at the gas pump, and in a more pessimistic manner, I’ll be wondering how a nation this grand and innovative can also be so absurdly ignorant and self-defeating when it comes to oil.