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Energy Leninism? Or Just Plain Leninism?

As goes Energy, so goes the country.
lenin [1]

“The worse, the better,” Vladimir Lenin is said to have observed. What Lenin meant was that the worse social conditions became in Russia, the more likely he and the Bolsheviks could foment a communist revolution. President Barrack Obama’s White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel recently updated Lenin’s maxim, saying [2], “Never allow a crisis to go to waste.”Last Friday, the Democratic leadership in the House of Representatives took those maxims to heart when they pushed through their 1,200-page American Clean Energy and Security (ACES) Act by a vote 219 to 212. The bill is supposed to address the twin crises of economic recession and climate change by creating millions of new “green” jobs. Instead of an old-fashioned Soviet-style five-year plan, ACES can be thought of as 50-year plan to radically transform how Americans produce and use energy.

…Well, look, Ron Bailey [3], this entire administration seems to me to emulate the tactics of Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, in all things, not just energy… and in my view we’ve not seen nearly the worst of it yet. (A Depressing thought as we come to July 4th, isn’t it?)

So why should Energy be any different?  Energy, after all, is the key to our country and it’s prosperity. Which of course was why I raised such holy hell when the first thing Obama did upon being sworn in was to reverse President Bush’s sign off on offshore drilling.  That action is the major reason oil prices have better than doubled in the last 6 months.

 The question that Ron asks, though, seems to me pertinent:

Ron Bailey [4]

Ron Bailey

Will Americans tolerate such sweeping interventions into their lives and workplaces?

The 1994 mid-term election became a referendum on big government and ushered in Republican control of both the Senate and House of Representatives for the first time since the early 1950s. Given the Republican Party’s current disarray, it’s unlikely that 2010 will see another “Republican Revolution.” However, as the new energy policies slow economic growth and impose vast new costs on consumers, it will be the Republicans who are quietly saying, “The worse, the better.”

I have to say I’m a little uncomfortable with this.

Oh, don’t misunderstand me…Ron’s’s quite right, far as he goes. In essence, he’s saying exactly what I’ve often said the last 10 years or so:

The best stump argument the Republicans have is Democrats with power.

Thing is, that doesn’t seem to me a strong enough argument for real change. Being the lesser of two evils doesn’t constitute much of an incentive for long term voter support for the right, which is what’s so desperately needed to reverse this socialistic course we’re on.  At best, if all we have is “We’re not Democrats” for a campaign mantra, we may win short term via the Democrat Over-reaching, but not long term… and even in the short term, support will at best be thin.

What’s needed is not Democrat Lite, but real conservatives. Republicans over the years are successful to the extent they’ve been conservative.  Where they get into trouble, and lose elections, it’s to the degree they’ve gone Democrat lite, and forgotten Reagan’s maxim that government isn’t the solution, it’s the problem.  

Don’t make the mistake of thinking the Demcrats are not calculating with this factor in mind.  I observe, as I have previously,  that they seem to be focusing all their efforts at derision against the most conservative Republicans, not the so-called ‘moderates’. They know very well the threat a real conservative Republican party brings to the table.  Look at the amount of time and spittle being expended on the topic of Sarah Palin, as an example.  (How else to explain away the desperate and hateful focus on Trig Palin by a group of people… a party… a political way of thinking… that is ostensibly supposed to be fighting for the downtrodden, such as those with Downs syndrome?)

 Look, too, at the amount of effort the left put into getting the conservatively weaker John McCain into the nomination, only to reject him once he got that nomination, in favor of the outright socialist.

Let me speak plainly to this point so there’s no mistaking me:

 There is not a doubt in my mind that we will be seeing a major shift of power in two years. The polls tell the tale very clearly…  the Democrat party are already over-reaching,  and given Democrat party super majorities in both houses, and thereby no checks on their collectivist asperations, the damage they will cause between now and then will be outright staggering.  Again, I fear we’ve not seen the worst of this. The voter reaction to that over reach… to that damage… is quite predictable;  There will be a massive swing away from the Democrats in 2010. They know this, which is why they’re so desperate to get as much leftist legislation in place now as they possibly can between now and then.

The question before us is, will the Republicans  be conservative enough to capitalize on that day and going forward, and reverse this tragic trend we’re on… or will they offer up Democrat lite which will,  in turn,be swept away by the next tide, scheduled to happen in 2012? 

As I look at the current crop of Republicans and their leaders, I have to wonder.

Please… someone step up and tell me my fear here is unwarranted.