forgiveness

How To Talk To A Liberal: Oil and Gas Prices

/ warriorwoman91 / 1 Comment

I once got into a discussion on Facebook with a friend of mine from high school Untitledregarding the history of oil and gas prices.  He believes that “green” energy is the only way to become energy independent and that the U.S. is unfairly using more than it’s share of the world’s oil, citing the alleged fact that we produce 20% of the supply but use 80% of it.  This was my rather lengthy reply.

In 1973 the Nixon administration (yes a Republican) began over-regulating the production of oil in the U.S. making it necessary to increase foreign imports (up to 35% of U.S. consumption). In the same year, the U.S. sent military assistance to Israel who had been attacked by members of OPEC.  In retaliation OPEC placed an oil embargo on the U.S. and increased the price for other nations by 70%. Oil in the U.S. then had to be rationed to the people (you could only get gas at certain times, and never on Sundays).

Since then, more and more regulations have been put on U.S. production of oil starting with Carter’s MEOW initiative and creation of the Department of Energy, making it harder and harder to drill for domestic oil and causing us to be more and more dependent on foreign oil. This is not, as some would have us believe, because we are “running out of oil.” The U.S. is sitting on one of the largest oil reservoirs in the world, an estimated 2.3 trillion barrels (300 years) worth to be exact. It is current technology and excessive regulation that is preventing us from getting at it.

The 20% and 80% figures that the Obama used in his reelection speech are blatantly stretched considering that those figures only apply to current tapped reserves; they do not include the amount of oil that is not being drilled or used in the current economy. So yes the U.S. government is being selfish because we refuse to drill for our own oil and would rather drain the supplies of other nations instead.

Special thanks to: Buy and Hold, Antenna Group, and Kiplinger.

When People Try To Shut You Down

/ warriorwoman91 / Leave a comment

I’m frequently inundated with tweets from so-called “Christians” telling me that I should spend less time talking about politics. According to some, I’m “obsessive” when it comes to divisive and controversial issues such as abortion, and as a Christian I ought to spend more time talking about the Gospel.

My contention is that the reason why abortion has become such a large scale institution is precisely because Christians have not been more outspoken. We’ve been cowered into silence, whether it’s by the threat of losing tax exempt status, or because we’re afraid of push back, or we just don’t care. Christians absolutely need to be involved in political and social issues, as we’re seeing the tragic and horrendous consequences of our ignorance.

Now this is not to say that Christians should not talk about the Gospel–of course we should. However, if the idea of talking about the Gospel exclusively, means ignoring the hundreds of thousands of children aborted every year or pretending that the issue doesn’t exist if we don’t talk about it, then you can count me out. I refuse to have my freedom of speech shut down by people who either disagree with or are threatened by my beliefs.

How To Talk To A Liberal: Questions You Can’t Answer

/ warriorwoman91 / 2 Comments

The other day I got into a debate with a liberal on twitter (shocking I know). This guy had responded to one of my posts regarding Tea Party opposition to military intervention in Syria, saying that such a position was illogical and implying that those who held it were despicable human beings. He then began grilling me with all kinds of foreign policy questions, from events in Reagan’s time to Bush’s War in Iraq.

Now I’m no foreign policy expert; in fact I know precious little about the intricacies of dealing with other nations. So I’m left with a classic debate scenario:  the unanswerable question. How do you respond to a question when you don’t know the answer?

The simple solution is, you don’t. You can’t know everything, so the proper response is to take control of the situation by admitting that fact up front.

Even if the opponent continues to push it this should still be your answer. Doing so takes the issue off the table so that you don’t have to step into the trap set for you to make a statement that you will not only regret but probably disagree with later.

So the next time you find yourself asked a question that you don’t know the answer to, just remember my favorite go to response:  I don’t know.