Friday, June 18, 2004

I had, like, eight million ideas while I was driving yesterday... and, of course, pretty much forgot them all by the time I got home. The one thing I am able to remember, however, is that I think I'm actually really glad that the price of gasoline is going up. The higher the better. And here's why...

Americans love their cars, and our towns and cities are so damned spread out that we have to drive all the time to get anywhere. And most places don't have jack for public transportation. Because it's always been economical and easy to just drive yourself everywhere.

Americans also love their money. In fact, I'd venture to say that we love money more than we love our cars. If gas prices continue to rise, these two loves are going to find it more and more difficult to co-exist. Personally, I think that our love of money is going to win out on this one.

As much as I like to bash western culture and American society, I DO think that we're a fairly inventive bunch. But we seem to need something to kick us in the ass to give us the spark to really start inventing. And the best kick in the ass for Americans is to start taking away their money. I really seriously doubt that any of the presidential candidates would be talking about self-reliance (as far as energy goes) if it wasn't for rising gas prices and, therefore, public pressure to do something about it. I took down the John Kerry banner on the site b/c it mentioned higher gas prices. It turns out that I actually DO want higher gas prices. It'll suck for a while, but if the price of gas keeps rising, we'll figure out something else to do. The slow decay of our environment hasn't been enough to make us REALLY try to change our ways. If it takes a hit to the wallet to make us look at these problems, then so be it.

This entry sucks ass, but I wanted to write something down before I completely forgot what I was thinking about. Maybe I'll try to make it better later...

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