Mike Church learned a new word today...

Laissez-faire.

For those that don't know, it is a French phrase that means "Let Do", and has been adopted by policiticians and economists alike to refer to a "hands off" governmental policy towards a free market economic system (like that enjoyed in the US, for example).

While running to and from the market today, I was listening to a re-run of the Mike Church show on the satellite radio, and he must have used that phrase 50 times in less than 20 minutes. He used the phrase in reference to the proposed Federal bail-out of high interest mortgages that are facing foreclosure... a thoroughly apropos usage, I believe. He used the phrase in reference to the historical S&L bail-out by Reagan... also perfectly applicable. I even agree with his usage of the phrase when referring to the re-institution of the capital gains tax in 1986 by a stubbornly Democratic Congress bent on fighting "Reaganomics" at every turn.

It was his repeated... and repeated and repeated... use of the term concerning Federal regulation of gasoline prices that pisses me off to no end.

Would it surprise anyone to know that Ryan and I have fought over this issue time and time again? I didn't think so...

Ryan, Hannity, Church... hell, every neo-conservative, Reagan-ite Republican in the country screams that it is bad for the economy to regulate fuel prices. It cuts into profits for the big oil companies which then pass that cost on to the consumer and drive prices higher still, costing the Government more and more in the long run. Nothing new to any of this... not one iota.

This would be fine if we were talking about an economy that was working in a terror-free, peace-time period of history... but guess what? WE AREN'T IN A TERROR-FREE, PEACE-TIME PERIOD IN HISTORY, are we?

So I listen to Church (and by extension EVERY GOP pundit) rant about drilling in ANWAR and the Arctic circle, about un-capping the national natural gas reserves, about re-opening the Ohio and Pennsylvania and West Virginia coal fields to pit mining to tear every single ounce of coal out of the ground... all to increase our domestic production rate to keep up with growing consumer demand and rising oil prices.

No one is as prone to complaining about the price of gas as I am... but if I knew there was a concerted NATIONAL effort to develop the means to remove our DAILY INCREASING DEPENDENCE on foreign oil, I would gladly pay the high prices.

I just can't understand Church's insistence at using the term "laissez-faire" in this discussion, however. While he is calling for the defense of Big Oil's record-breaking PROFITS... this nation is slipping further into a foreign oil addiction by 1.8 million barrels of light-sweet crude ON A MONTHLY BASIS!!! Investors in the five largest US and British oil companies can expect continued profits that beat most Western European GNPs, and the US remains with the ball-and-chain of the single greatest national security threat WE HAVE EVER KNOWN... the ability of foreign nationals to dictate on a fucking WHIM how this nation is able to function on a daily... even minute-to-minute... basis.

There is no bigger FAN of the free market system of economics than myself... period. But if you ask me which is the greater priority for this nation's next ten years... securing this country from the threat of foreign country's control our energy needs OR 6 to 10 multi-national conglomerates logging a CONTINUED multi-BILLION dollar quarterly profit record while the rest of the American economy drags along at a snail's pace trying to catch up to the cost of fuel... then I say...

Fuck BIG OIL... regulate the prices and find the alternative energy we need to REMAIN the independent leader of the Free World we have been for the last 180 years.