Should Americans Fund Fracking?

Steven Lang
by Steven Lang

Imagine growing up in the modern day world and having no future.

No education. No upward mobility. No right to pursue a better life beyond just a few crumbs of financial sustenance.

This is the reality in most Arab countries and former Soviet republics. It’s a world where opportunities are almost non-existent and certain cliques and clans determine who has the exclusive right to get ahead.

I grew up traveling the world in a family business — the food import business, to be exact. I have learned that in the West there is a tendency to believe folks can overcome Herculean odds in the pursuit of that better life, whatever and wherever it may be.

That opportunity just isn’t there in these places where even geniuses can be damned to a life of a terminally squalid environment. It’s a shame. But what if instead of investing billions of dollars in armaments and other forms of support to these idiotic regimes, we tipped the scales of supply and demand a bit in favor of the billions of little guys and little girls?

Let me explain.

It’s been no secret that the Saudi regime has targeted American oil companies that rely on fracking. The unofficial belief is that this behavior will also hurt Iran and a few other governments that hate our culture and foreign policy. Good reasons. Bad reasons. Doesn’t matter. The truth is in a global market as critical as oil, the United States doesn’t have any true friends, just competitors.

The same is true for everyone else whether they are a progressive country like our neighbors up north, or a pseudo-religious fascist nutcase of a government that would gladly murder millions of innocent souls if they could get away with it.

Oil is the one and only worldly good that gives power to governments that produce nothing but poverty and cronyism. If the love of money is the root of all evil, then our reliance on overseas oil is what gives these scumbags the means to use our money to make life miserable for far too many folks who just want to be left alone.

Am I simplifying this? Yes, but I don’t feel like any of the nuances really take away from the fact that we still contribute trillions of dollars to the propping up of regimes that really aren’t worth our wallets. I won’t even mention the death toll we help create by feeding thousands of American soldiers and hundreds of thousands of everyday citizens into the madness that comes with giving the worst regimes in the world all the weapons they will ever need — and then some.

I believe the common citizen will be better in the long run if the oppressors aren’t given as many bullets and tanks. There is no shortage of steps towards realizing that outcome. Since fracking is often considered to be the biggest threat to regimes that despise our existence, perhaps we should look at diverting our Pax Americana foreign policy that stabilizes these brutal regimes. I believe we should look at diverting those resources and investing them back into an American oil industry that has made a giant leap towards making the United States more independent.

In a matter of only seven years, our oil and gas production has increased by more than 400 percent thanks to fracking. It makes up for nearly half our overall gas and oil production, with thousands of proven reserves waiting to be tapped. Maybe we should consider subsidizing fracking in much the same way as we subsidize farms? I don’t have the ultimate answer, but like a lot of you, I would love to see the day when our money no longer goes towards the Arab dictatorships and the Russian mafia.

Steven Lang
Steven Lang

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  • Makuribu Makuribu on Nov 05, 2015

    Fracking is uneconomical and very short term. The side effects are earthquakes and unexplainably explosive crude oil. I don't think it's something you want to use as an economic weapon against the Saudis. Go for renewables instead.

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    • Drzhivago138 Drzhivago138 on Nov 05, 2015

      @RideHeight "The energy content of dry stool is about 2.3 x 10^7 J/kg..." http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2010/ph240/cash2/ The methane that accumulates at waste treatment plants is usually just burned off. In the future I could see us looking upon that as quaintly as we do the dumping of "useless" kerosene by-product (aka gasoline) into the river back in the 1800s. The early settlers in my area used dried buffalo chips as fuel until they could get enough trees planted. Everything old is new again.

  • Thelaine Thelaine on Nov 06, 2015

    1st world living requires lots of power and all power sources do environmental damage. Nevertheless, because we are wealthy the environment in the US and Canada is clean and well-protected. We are threatened by too much food more so than dirty air or water, despite some environmental "disasters" and resulting hysteria by the hysterically-inclined. North America is awash in hydrocarbons, as some of us have been saying for years in the face of the peak oil "denialists." If oil ever becomes too expensive, nuclear power is essentially unlimited and so, therefore, is energy. There is no crisis. Some people openly bemoan the abundance of oil and gas and the death of the chicken little "peak oil" propaganda because it hurts their agenda. People who want more government and government/corporate power sharing always create a crisis when they don't have a real one to exploit. The current man made CATASTROPHIC global warming hysteria is the next myth that will die. In the meantime, it serves the same purpose. Give them the power, so they can save you. Kim Jung Whomever tells his people they have to submit to his power in order to save them from the foreign enemy. It is an age-old technique. As for the Saudis, they will be despots whether rich or poor. That is how humanity behaves when given power. Our nation was created in reaction to this reality on the principles of individual sovereignty and the diffusion of power. Despite the college professor narrative that we actually pay them to teach our children, America is not an evil country that needs to be saved by the left. Despite our errors, bad deeds and sins, we have given more freedom and more opportunity to more people than any nation in history and we have done as much or more than any nation in history to protect, defend, and spread freedom to the rest of the world. Most free nations today owe us a debt in that regard, though most have forgotten or discounted it. If we want to continue to protect freedom, we need to start at home.

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