Buckley's Energy

The always awe-inspiring William F. Buckley Jr.:

What needs to be said about oil is that it IS worth fighting for. We would all agree that air and water are necessities. Without them life instantly ends. Without oil, life does not end, but life radically changes. . . .

What is it that a people are willing to fight for? The security of home and hearth come first, and that is achieved mostly by weaponry; but weapons that seek to have their effects beyond the range of a cartridge of gunpowder do so, on battleships and airplanes, by the propellant force of oil.

If you are willing to die in order to protect your local hospital, then you must be willing to die for oil, because without electricity, your hospital won't take you beyond a surgeon's scalpel, and a surgeon is helpless without illumination. . .

To say that we must not fight for oil is utter cant. To fight for oil is to fight in order to maintain such sovereignty as we exercise over the natural world. . .

To flit on airily about an unwillingness to fight for oil suggests an indifference to the alleviation of poverty at the next level after bread and water.

It's as if he reads my blog.