Roy Huggins Says Stuff

I just got an email from MoveOn, like I do.

The gist of the message is a request for members to support a bill currently sitting in front of Congress that would make it a federal crime to price gouge for gasoline. The punishment would be up to 10 years in prison. Hmm…

I know gas is expensive. I know it effects all Americans heavily when gas costs a lot. I know that oil interests are utilizing the current political climate to price gouge. But come on. Make that specific thing a federal crime with significant prison time? That’s going too far and is certainly a slippery slope issue.

I like MoveOn. But sometimes it isn’t the best idea to support something just because it’s a chance to stick it to the Republicans.

Personally, I like to think systemically about this one. Maybe if gas does top $4 then that’s one more price point in the direction of convincing even the most grossly consumerist, SUV-driving Americans that maybe it’d be a good idea to work towards more sustainable energy practices.

I have something to confess.

It’s hard to say it… But I’m not really convinced that having our troops just leave Iraq in six months is necessarily a good idea.

What I do know is that our Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad President has gotten us into exactly the kind of nasty mess that war opponents were screaming about way back before the “Mission Accomplished” debacle went down. I also know that cleaning up after him is going to be drastically painful.

But if we just up and leave I’m not sure things will be any better. One thing I’ve learned about Iraq from all the screen time they’ve been getting is that they were never a “people” like we think of that word around these parts. It seems it’s a lot of “peoples”, some of which would be perfectly happy to see some of the other “peoples” take a long walk off a short pier, and was previously glued in place by a powerful despotic warlord¹. It seems we’ve replaced said local despotic warlord with a foreign almost-despotic warlord. Funny enough, many locals seem upset about that.

Yes, the American people are really unhappy about being in this position. I imagine most of the people living in Baghdad are pretty bummed about it, too. Whether we wanted to be dragged into it or not, we’re there now. I can’t help but feel that a plan in which we simply leave would make for a serious case of abandonment. I think the most healthy plan is a lot more difficult than that. I think it would take a lot more “hard work” to get us out of President Warbucks‘ special little hole.

I don’t have an alternative plan to contribute, however. Just my opinion.

1. That we put there for that purpose [↩]