As for the higher prices, we could always pressure the corporate elite to accept lower salaries and perks. We could also buy less stuff and find other ways to fill our meaningless lives other than shopping.

If the war in Iraq was all about helping out his oil buddies, why has the price of gas gone up? It does the oil companies no good to make record profits now if people start using less gas in the future. When people actually start using less gas, then the oil companies profits will plunge. How does that help them?

Every dumbass who made the fool-ass decision to buy a car for normal use that gets less than 30 miles a gallon - to hell with them, they’re ruining my country.

Let efficiency and conservation be the new national obsession.

See, if the US had a socialized system, then all the profits, not just a tiny slice would go to the government. Why? because the entire system would be nationalized. In reality, the profit goes to private capitalist firms like Exxon, Hess, Lukeoil (sp?) and the rest. Production is also owned by private firms. Distrubution is done by private capitalist firms. And get this, so are retail sales of oil.

I’ll put it into a nice glib sound bite for you to understand

Socialized System = State Control
US Oil System = Private control, with limited state regulation
US Oil System =/ Socialized

=/ = not equal. I can’t do the math symbol.

As for Venezuela, they regulate their oil industry just like do in the US. They dont allow you to randomly set up derricks in that country, like in the US.

“If we depended on government to drill our oil, refine our oil and ship it to the stations, we should soon want gas.”

Did NASA really land on the moon? That was a hoax!

It took along time to capture the x-prize, an endeavor made easier by the fact government had already paved the way decades earlier. As for your statement “All the money we’ve wasted on NASA hasn’t even come close to duplicating what Brian Binnie and his private corporation accomplished.” I am not sure whether to cry or hit you with a elementary school history book. I mean, Christ the stupidity just oozes from that statement. I mean NASA landed on the moon, did all those space probes, is responsible for 30,000 different spinoffs, including scratch resistant coating on most glasses But then again, firing off a rocket twice is surely equal to that.

The internet was invented for the US military by universities receiving DARPA money. And big business are far worse than the government in supressing freedom online with DRM, the DMCA, and other bogus laws. And they’re getting away with it because they are completely unaccountable. You can’t vote them out of office, FOIA for their records, or in many cases prosecute them because arent real people.

Nor does the constitution apply to them. Which is why Wal-Mart can force all their employees to say hail Satan or Happy holidays without fear.

Railroads? I’d like you to try to prove to me that Amtrak is a huge government success story. It’s a sinkhole that the government pours more money down every year.

NASA? That’s a colossal waste of money. How much time did it take SpaceShipOne to capture the X Prize? All the money we’ve wasted on NASA hasn’t even come close to duplicating what Brian Binnie and his private corporation accomplished.

The internet was originally developed by mostly private Universities with private grants. (Not by Al Gore.) Right now the government is thinking about new Internet regulations that will ruin the free and open exchange of ideas that happens now.

Profit is the best motivator there is. Don’t even get me started on government accountability. If there was any kind of government accountability for the way they spend taxpayers money we wouldn’t have half the government buildings in WV named after the King of Pork, Robert Byrd.