GUEST POST BY DAVE MILLER

Recently Skud, a frequent commenter here at PE responded to me on one of Shaw’s posts. 

 I’ve chosen to respond to him in a dedicated post, because of how his response was full of what are tired right wing talking points, devoid of facts and mostly unfounded conjecture. 

 See what you think…

Skud… Rev, You said combat the lies but it was the democrats who pushed defund the police.

Dave… This is a good example of what I see from conservatives on a daily basis. You take a few people who might support something, and extrapolate it to the entire party. 

The leader of the Democrats, Joe Biden, has forcefully rejected the idea of defunding the police. Leaders within the African American wing of the party, for example Jim Clyburn and Al Sharpton have also dismissed the idea. Latino Democrats don’t support the defund movement either.

Now, can you find Democrats who do support the defund movement? Of course. But the point here is this… when the Democratic Party was faced with an extreme viewpoint, as a party their leaders came out and spoke against it. This effectively marginalized that viewpoint.

You should contrast their approach to an extreme viewpoint like Defund the Police with how the GOP handled another extreme viewpoint, Stop the Steal. Not only did they not denounce it, they promoted it and continue to do so, to the detriment of our country. 

Skud… It is the democrats who are responsible for rising fuel prices with their hate oil movement. 

Dave… I’m glad Skud that you are helping drive up ratings by staying fixated on FOX News talking points. Oil prices rise for many reasons. In this case, the recent run up is a product of many of different causes. I know like many conservatives like you prefer binary thinking, but it doesn’t work when it comes to oil.

Oil prices rise and fall on supply and demand. US oil companies during the pandemic, when demand was low and oil literally went into negative territory, shuttered wells across the country. Also, with that low demand, Big Oil chose not to develop new oil fields or explore for new oil sources.

Now as America emerges from the pandemic, demand around the world for oil has risen and the oil companies are behind in raising production. It takes months to restart those shuttered wells. But also factoring in here is a reluctance by Big Oil to increase production because, wait for it, rising prices bring higher profits, which their mostly American stockholders on the right and the left, demand.

Couple that with an unprovoked war by Russia, a leading world oil producer and you have incredible volatility in the world oil market. And it is that world oil market where prices are set.

All of that is before we even get to the over 9000 oil leases the US Government has approved for Big Oil that are not being drilled and we have a recipe for disaster as it relates to prices.

Skud… Biden is in a no win with Ukraine and whatever he does is not going to be enough. As a country and world we have let russia [sic] build back bigger and badder so shame on us. When someone said russia [sic] is 20 years ago that set the tone for the country, ignore them and they will melt. Problem is that didn't happen. We spent 4 years blaming them for causing a hated candidate to lose. Now trump is being rightfully attacked but the entire focus is on him and not the world and US issues.

Dave… What would be enough Skud? A no-fly zone? That risks direct war with Russia. Would that be enough? Let’s remember, Russia has nuclear weapons. 

As for the election to which you allude, yes, as I’ve said numerous times, HRC was a terrible candidate, and I did not vote for her. But the time we, as a nation, spent trying to uncover wrong doing from the Trump campaign was not a waste. 

There was credible evidence of the Trump campaign colluding with the Russian government during that election. In the following election, we found even more evidence of the Trump campaign trying to use foreign governments again to influence our elections.

In fact, in the run up to that election, President Trump called the president of Ukraine and pressured him to help his campaign or lose valuable “already approved weapons.”

Sadly, people like you and other conservatives, somehow never seem to remember that it was President Trump who bears some responsibility for Ukraine not having the weapons it needs to defend itself today against the Russian invasion.

You see how so much of this is related to the former guy?

Skud… Now we need to give away more money to bring down inflation…

Dave… Who in the Democratic Party is advocating giving away money to lower inflation? There are some from the progressive wing who advocate continuing Covid related relief programs that lifted millions of children above the poverty line, but that is not related to lowering inflation.

Skud… We shouldn't remove unnecessary regulations on the oil industry to bring down costs and increase production, really. The rapid push to renewable energy and a maligning of the fossil fuels industry has helped create the current supply shortages that have sent oil and gas prices surging but of course the administration blames the industry.

Dave… That’s a pretty convoluted statement Skud. I’m not sure you are being serious or sarcastic. If you want to talk about “unnecessary regulations”, give us some examples. Since you, like a lot of the FOX News crowd and others critical of government, use that term frequently, I’m sure you have some specific examples.

It would be helpful for you to state them with precision, otherwise, you are just spouting  unfounded talking points. Because most liberals would agree, YES, we’d say. If the regulations are unnecessary, let’s get rid of them.

As for the supposed “rapid push” to renewable energy, count me as skeptical. It was during the Carter Admin when Democrats started talking about renewables, going so far as to install solar panel on the White House. That’s forty five years ago. If that is rapid, what would slow and deliberate be?

Your take it slower approach is similar to the protestations we heard from conservatives when it came to Civil Rights for black people in the 50’s and 60’s. We support the premise they said, but we can’t risk moving too fast because it will unsettle America.

Blame the industry? Has Big Oil ever been part of moving us away from fossil fuels? Of course not. Because they are fighting for their very life. Did Big Tobacco willfully accept limits even though they knew their product was deadly? Not at all.

Like tobacco, the use of fossil fuels are in fact harming us. That’s not blame, it’s fact.

Skud… The answer to down ballot voting is simple, people are tired of the we know better than you how to run your life and we have done such a shitty job of educating your children we deserve to lose.

Dave… Skud, you posited no solution in your word salad. I will say this as it relates to people raising their kids… there are hundreds of examples of where parents have no idea how to care for their kids and are in fact abusive. And I’m not talking about the generally accepted stuff like beatings and sexual abuse.

Is smoking in the house, in which a baby’s lungs are permanently damaged, abuse? Is a parent who abuses drugs fit to have their kids in the house? Is it wrong for a mom to feed her kids a Happy Meal everyday because it’s the only food she can afford?

As it relates to raising children, the problems out there are myriad and again, do not lend themselves to easy binary right/wrong answers or solutions.

Finally, let me say this… I am not unsympathetic to many of the issues conservatives have raised about where America is these days. Many on the right, particularly in rural America, are in a bad spot. They need help and support. They need two parties listening to them, something the Democrats have not done well.

But if we persist in seeing our issues as simply being left/right or us/them, we will never move forward. Government functions best when our two parties choose to work together for the common good.

Unfortunately, as has been true since the Gingrich Contract for America, the GOP today does not seem to want to do that. I could cite numerous examples for you, but I’ll hold that for another post.

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Dave Miller