Recently our elected representatives in Congress interrogated the heads of the major oil companies (those evil corporations) and wanted to know why these companies are making a profit for their stockholders. Of course, many of us are stockholders either through our IRA's, our 401K's, or the stock market. But, never mind that. "Big Oil" is the evil-doer and the cause for high gas prices. Oh, really?

Did they forget that drilling in ANWR is off limits, and drilling off the coast of Florida and California is also off limits, except for China, Venezuela and Cuba who have signed 100-year leases on the oil in the Gulf of Mexico. Coal-to-oil technology, which has been around since the 1930s, is prohibited, no dams can be built for hydro-electric power, and don't even think about copying France which gets 80% of its energy needs from nuclear power. And no windmills which only clutter the view of Senator Kennedy from his summer cottage in New England. Meanwhile, there has not been a new refinery built in over 30 years and the number of operational refineries has been cut in half since 1982. The refineries that are in existence have to make different blends of gasoline, allowing states like California to dictate what unique gasoline blends must be made for them, further driving up the cost to produce gasoline. To add insult to injury, several states (again, like California) and the federal government have imposed gasoline taxes amounting to more than 15% of the price of gasoline, while only 4% represents oil company profits. Of course, Congress will not consider a reduction of the federal gasoline tax, even for the summer months.   

Instead, our genius representatives have passed legislation that would allow us sue OPEC - like that will accomplish something!  Let's produce more ethanol which costs $1.23 to make a dollar's worth of energy while driving the cost of food through the roof. Great idea! Oh, and don't forget the recent action to protect the polar bears and their habitat which makes the location of future oil development off limits to drilling.  Finally, because the oil companies are making "too much money", our government is looking at seizing any money that the legislators consider "windfall profits". Hillary Clinton said she wants to "take that money" and do something productive with it. (I guess that's how she intends to pay for her government health care program).

Did Congress ever hear of the law of "supply and demand"? World-wide demand for crude oil has increased in recent years due to the rapid industrial growth of China, India, and other developing countries. Meanwhile, supply has been limited by OPEC and foreign national oil companies, which control nearly 80% of world petroleum reserves and benefit financially from limiting the availability of crude oil. Many of these oil-producing countries are less than friendly to the US (Venezuela, Russia, Iran, and other Middle East states). We have enough domestic natural energy resources to allow the US to be energy independent for centuries. According to most energy experts, oil and gas reserves on federal lands hold an estimated 100-plus billion barrels of recoverable oil. These areas hold an estimated 635 trillion cubic feet of recoverable natural gas. Anywhere from 800 million to two trillion barrels of oil are available from oil shale in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming. According to Mackubin Thomas Owens, Professor at the Naval War College in Newport, R.I., and editor of Orbis, the journal of the Foreign Policy Research Institute in Philadelphia, "If Congress really cared about the economic well-being of American citizens, it would stop fulminating against IOCs (investor-owned oil companies) and reverse current policies that discourage, indeed prohibit, the production of domestic oil and natural gas. Even the announcement that Congress was opening the way for domestic production would lead to downward pressure on oil prices". Until Congress takes these steps we will be held hostage to countries who want to cripple our economy.

Have you seen the bumper sticker that reads, "War Is Not the Answer?". I saw one the other day and thought to myself, "That's a nice sentiment but it is a simplistic, ill-informed slogan". In truth, war sometimes is the answer. There are many anti-war protest groups, many of them formed on American university campuses, which continue to believe that war never changes anything and should never be considered, regardless of the consequences of not waging war. There are few people who are pro-war but, when used as a last resort, war can often be the answer. To believe that if we laid down our arms, all of our enemies would reciprocate, is naïve and explains why most anti-war groups come from the Left of the political spectrum. Most of those who hold these beliefs are idealists who continue to advance the theory that man is intrinsically good by nature despite historical evidence to the contrary. Would pacifism have defeated the evil of Nazi Germany or imperialist Japan? Would the communist "Evil Empire" of the Soviet Union have collapsed without the threat of missiles deployed on the European continent and the buildup of the American nuclear arsenal? Would Hitler, Tojo or Stalin have abandoned their militaristic actions if the rest of the world had simply laid down their arms? Of course not. Our enemies, you see, understand that war can change things. This is the reason that Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda have declared war on America and the Western world. They realize that war is the answer for them to achieve their goals of conquest. They will not capitulate to pacifism and bumper stickers.

Democrat presidential candidate Barack Obama has stated that he would meet unconditionally with representatives of all the world's regimes, including Cuba's Castro, Iran's Ahmadinejad, and North Korea's Kim Jong-Il. He believes that all problems can be resolved through dialogue and negotiations. Once again, this is a naïve point of view. Former US president Jimmy Carter recently traveled to the Middle East to meet with the leaders of the terrorist group Hamas in order to engage in "negotiations". The only thing he accomplished, as Hamas readily proclaimed, was to give credibility to an organization which has the stated goal to eliminate the state of Israel. Neville Chamberlain, the Prime Minister of Great Britain during the 1930's, believed that he could negotiate with Hitler and keep his country out of war with Germany. Joseph Stalin signed a non-aggression pact with Hitler believing that he could spare Russia from the militaristic ambitions of Nazi Germany. Both men came to realize, almost to the point of the ruin of their respective countries, that negotiation was not the answer it appeared to be. Those who hold ambitions of conquest, whether they be Julius Caesar, Adolph Hitler, Mao Tse-Tung, or Osama bin Laden, have no interest in a negotiated settlement. In most cases, negotiations solve nothing until a military victory has been achieved.

Another characteristic of the anti-war Left is that they tend to believe that the aggressor is the victim. Many believe that America's foreign policies brought on the attacks of 9/11 and that the problems in the Middle East are all the fault of America or their ally, Israel. Islamic extremists also want the world to believe this lie. The decline of the Islamic civilization in the Middle East has been advancing for many years and the region's only economic development was due to the birth of the oil industry thanks to the investment by American and other Western companies. Without this economic intervention, the region would be nothing but a poor, undeveloped, uneducated Third-World ghetto. Al-Qaeda has taken advantage of this state of affairs to wage a war of terrorism against the democratic non-Islamic governments of the world. Unfortunately, the "War is not the Answer" crowd has bought into the myth of American repression of the Middle East. Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and most of the Democrat party leadership have all declared that America should withdraw from Iraq and then the Iraqis will solve all their problems created by our invasion on their own. Never mind that history has shown that precipitous retreat from a battle usually results in catastrophic consequences. Those who want to compare the war in Iraq to the war in Vietnam refuse to recognize the horrendous results from the American military withdrawal in the previous war which resulted in the slaughter of millions in South Vietnam and its neighbor Cambodia.

America and her allies cannot simply unconditionally withdraw from Iraq, return all of the troops home, and hope to peacefully negotiate a settlement with Iran, Syria, Al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups. America's military has suffered more than 4,000 deaths during the war in Iraq and, as terrible as that may be, a greater tragedy would be for us to lose the war. We must do whatever it takes to win. Bumper stickers and slogans will never lead to peace. Sometimes war is the answer. War is the answer when it results in defeating an enemy which murders innocents with suicide bombings, beheadings, and other acts of terrorism. War is the answer when people can freely elect their representatives, live in peace, and strive to achieve their dreams of happiness. 

Today is Ronald Reagan's birthday. I believe he would be taken aback if he were alive to witness what is taking place within the Republican party today. Assuming Senator John McCain wins the GOP nomination, it will show how the party has been ideologically transformed since President Reagan so adroitly communicated the conservative core values which defined the Republican party in the 1980's. Reagan united all Americans with his charisma and his ability to communicate the necessity of fiscal conservatism, strong national defense, and strong social values for the betterment of the country. He was an optimist who believed in the strength of the American people and united his GOP base along with "Reagan Democrats" to win landslide elections in 1980 and 1984. The catchphrase of this election seems to be “change,” communicated as often by Republicans as Democrat candidates. According to Democrats, everything is bad, everything is going wrong, and massive changes must be made to "save" the country. Democrat candidate Hillary Clinton promises huge, expensive government welfare programs if elected. Barack Obama, the Democrat senator with the most liberal voting record - more liberal than Clinton or Ted Kennedy - would also favor huge government intervention into the lives of all Americans yet gives no details on any of his policy recommendations for "change". He compares himself to former president John Kennedy, yet his identity seems to be based solely on rhetoric rather than substance. Is the country ready for 21st-century-style socialism? Or is there an alternative which will inspire Americans as Ronald Reagan's policies once did?

It is surprising that a candidate has emerged as the frontrunner in the race for the GOP nomination despite the fact that he is opposed by a majority of his party and has taken many positions in the past which are contradictory to the views of fiscal conservatives, economic conservatives, and social conservatives. John McCain's views on illegal aliens, Bush's tax cuts, oil exploration in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, climate change regulation, drug re-importation from Canada, and campaign-finance legislation have infuriated most conservatives, yet he has emerged, nevertheless, as the candidate who will most likely carry the banner for the Republican party in this year's presidential election. How can this be?

The GOP seems to have lost its way during the current primary season. Republicans seem to have lost the optimism of Ronald Reagan and echo the Democrats in their belief that the policies of the country must be drastically altered. Possible conservative candidates such as George Allen, Fred Thompson, and Duncan Hunter either never got started or never picked up support from conservatives. Another candidate, Mitt Romney, is distrusted because of his recent conversion to many conservative beliefs and another former Arkansas governor and Christian minister, Mike Huckabee, is a bit too slick for his own good and has too many social liberal policies which he implemented while in office. Thus, McCain has emerged as the probable GOP candidate despite his crabby, over-the-hill, liberal persona and the fact that he has been able to garner barely one-third of the Republican vote in the primaries.

Many conservatives worry that McCain might permanently change the "soul" of the Republican party and cause it to abandon its traditional conservative values. Is there much of a difference between John McCain and the Democrat candidates for president? One has to wonder when McCain declares that he is well-suited to reach across the aisle to work with Democrats. He has repeatedly demonstrated this with his record for tag-team legislation, working with Russ Feingold, Ted Kennedy, John Edwards, John Kerry, and other liberal lawmakers. "Reaching across the political aisle" always entails selling out conservative values. McCain, himself, seems not to understand the difference between Republicans and Democrats and makes dumb, self-defeating statements such as, "I have no doubt that Senator Clinton would make a good president." That sounds a lot like an endorsement to me. The so-called "mainstream media" is rooting for McCain right now because, if he is nominated, liberals will be in a win, win, win position. If Clinton wins the presidency, good for liberals. If Obama wins, that's good, too. McCain, ditto. Of course, once McCain gets the Republican nomination all the knives will come out and he will be brutally attacked by most of today's media "supporters".

So, what does all this augur for the GOP? I see little chance that Republicans will defeat Democrats in November. The country will fall under the control of big-government politicians controlling the executive branch and both houses of congress. The Supreme Court will probably see two or three more liberal judges appointed to the court. How many years will this last? Only history will tell. But until another conservative standard bearer comes along, the Republican party will most probably be stranded in the political wilderness. Then, again, events in history can change everything. Did not the defeat of Barry Goldwater set the stage for the election of Ronald Reagan?

A friend sent me an article about a parent who attended his 13-year-old son's baseball game. His son's team was winning 24-7 as the game entered the last inning. When he looked up at the scoreboard, he noticed that the score read 0-0. Naturally, he inquired as to what happened – was the scoreboard perhaps broken? – and was told that the winning team's coach asked the scoreboard keeper to change the score. He and some of the parents were concerned that the boys on the losing team felt humiliated. In order to ensure that the boys losing by a lopsided score would not feel too bad, the score was changed. What this parent witnessed exemplifies the reason many fear for the future of America and traditional Western values.

This is also one reason why we have not fought a war to win it since World War Two. Americans no longer know how to win and do not understand the consequences of losing. So we fight every war with ridiculous rules of engagement, limited firepower, and negotiation with the enemy rather than defeat of the enemy. In Vietnam, we were not allowed to bomb North Vietnamese targets. We could not attack the enemy supply routes coming through Laos and Cambodia. And we could not eliminate enemy artillery if it were located outside of South Vietnam. In 1968, I was deployed in Khe Sahn, South Vietnam. We were bombarded every day with artillery fire but we were not permitted to attack and destroy the enemy guns because they were located just outside the South Vietnam border in the Laotian mountains. Thousands of young Americans died during that war because we fought by ridiculous rules made up and imposed upon us by cowardly, politically-correct politicians in congress. And when too many soldiers died for Americans to stomach, then the politicians, the press, and traitors like Jane Fonda and John Kerry forced us to withdraw ignominiously. Sound familiar? Today's politicians want to set a deadline for America's involvement in Iraq, thereby telling the enemy what date we will be leaving and giving them a period of time that they need to hold on to achieve victory. What happened when we retreated from Vietnam? In case you have forgotten, hundreds of thousands of South Vietnamese were either executed or thrown into “reeducation camps”. Millions of refugees fled the country for the US and other western countries. In Cambodia, the Khmer Rouge, inspired by Mao’s collectivization in China, massacred 25% of the country’s population. America’s withdrawal from Vietnam emboldened the USSR to send “military advisors” to many countries in Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Latin America. By the 1980’s, pro-Communist regimes had control of more than a dozen African and Middle East countries as well as Nicaragua and, of course, Cuba. America had become a weak country in the eyes of the world. Democracy was in retreat and the Soviet empire was advancing. Iran brazenly challenged America when Islamic militants stormed the American embassy, seized hostages, and President Jimmy Carter did nothing. History does repeat itself.

The same pattern is appearing today in the Middle East. For example, American military intelligence located a couple dozen Taliban leaders attending a funeral in Afghanistan a few months ago but the rules of engagement would not allow our military to kill the enemy at a funeral site. How compassionate! So we had to let them escape to, no doubt, kill some of our soldiers at a later date. And now, Iran takes 15 British Navy personnel hostage and there are no consequences - just as there were no consequences when Iran held Americans hostage for 444 days. American troops were withdrawn from Beirut in 1984 after the Marine barracks bombing. American troops were withdrawn from Somalia after the Black Hawk Down incident. Coalition forces were withdrawn from Iraq during the Gulf War rather than finishing the job of removing Saddam Hussein from power. So we are right back there again today trying to fix what we did not finish in 1991. Israeli troops were pressured to evacuate from Lebanon last summer rather than eliminating Iran's proxy military force, Hezbollah - an organization responsible for the murder of hundreds of Americans. The UN and American politicians would not tolerate the eradication of Hezbollah by our ally, Israel, despite the fact that Israeli soldiers had been captured and held hostage (and continue to be held hostage) and Israeli towns were under unprovoked rocket attack every day. Instead, Israel was blamed for being overly aggressive, just as they are blamed every day for the violence in the Palestinian territories, caused primarily by suicide bombers and rocket attacks against Israel.

Our enemies know that we have become a soft nation and they exploit it as much as they can. We have become a nation of wimps and we are teaching our children to be even bigger wimps. Whatever happened to "Give me Liberty or give me death"? Where is "the land of the Free and the home of the Brave"? Our founding fathers would be ashamed. All Americans should be ashamed!

Name one thing that the government runs that operates as efficiently as private enterprise. Mail delivery? Even the US Postal Service realizes that it cannot deliver the mail as effectively as private enterprise. Where I live in Colorado, the mail is delivered by individual subcontractors hired by the US Postal Service. No government trucks, uniforms or mail bags. I get my mail every day with no noticeable degradation in service. Why are UPS, FedEx and Airborne Express, among others, so successful? Because they can do what only the US Postal Service used to do, deliver packages, more effectively and economically. The government-controlled postal service must raise its rates every year simply to keep from going bankrupt. That's not exactly a model for efficiency.

When was the last time you had to get a new or renewed driver's license? If you haven't had to go through this torture test recently, be prepared. Most assuredly you'll have to take a number and wait for hours in a room crowded with dozens of other miserable people who have sacrificed a day's wages just to endure the impoliteness and surliness of a disgruntled government employee. "Hurry up and wait" is the phrase that comes to mind. This is a phrase that I first learned in the military. Speaking of the military, you would think that one of the primary duties of the government, to protect our country from foreign enemies, would be something that should be effectively accomplished. However, when you think of something that is government controlled, think politics and politicians. Military leaders know how to fight and win wars. They are trained and experienced at doing that. However, whenever politicians get involved, look out! Your elected politician, whether Democrat or Republican, will do anything to get your vote. And nothing gets voters more energized than a war. Politicians know this and they will take on any war and play it to their advantage.

This is exactly what happened in Vietnam. On August 7, 1964, following an attack on an American naval vessel, the Madox, by North Vietnamese torpedo boats, Congress passed the Southeast Asia Resolution, a conditional declaration of war (the vote was 416-0 in the House and 98-2 in the Senate). America had overwhelming military superiority in that war, yet Congress constantly interfered with the military commanders on the ground and set US policy for engaging the enemy. US military forces could not cross into North Vietnam where the enemy trained and organized their forces. They could not attack enemy supply routes in Cambodia and Laos. They could not even bomb military targets in North Vietnam without politicians criticizing tactics. Eventually, politicians and the press conspired to prevent the American military from achieving a final victory and they were forced to withdraw ignominiously. Ultimately, politicians shamefully withdrew funding for the South Vietnamese government and ARVN (Army of the Republic of Vietnam) forces were overrun by North Vietnamese troops and tanks which were funded by the Soviet Union and Communist China. Millions of South Vietnamese and Cambodians were either slaughtered, imprisoned or forced to flee from their birthplace. The goal of the North Vietnamese government to take over the entire country and spread communism throughout the region, a goal which they had since the end of World War II, was achieved, thanks in great part to American politicians. The same scenario is unfolding today in regards to Iraq. Politicians who voted for military intervention in Iraq are now claiming they were misled into their vote or are twisting the intent of their vote, claiming it was not a vote to authorize the war, merely permission for the president to use the military "if necessary". They now claim it wasn't necessary. You see, armchair generals are also Monday morning quarterbacks and no one rewrites history better than an American politician. Every Commander in Chief, going all the way back to General George Washington had to battle with politicians to effectively wage war.

Getting back to federal health care, I do not want the government involved in anything as important as issues of life and death - especially my life and death. If government health care were so great, why do millions of people from Canada, Europe and other socialist countries come to our country for critical care? Why do patients from those countries have to wait six months for a CAT scan or sit for hours in an overcrowded lobby, similar to our DMV facilities, to receive critical medical attention? America leads the world in innovative medical procedures and drug development. It is because we rely on private enterprise that we are so successful. I do not want to take a number should I ever need an emergency appendectomy. I do not want a politician in the operating room. I want less government - not more government control of my life.