Squaring the Culture

The distinguished representative from New York’s 22nd district may have tipped the hard left’s hand yesterday when he waffled on nationalizing the oil industry.

We first heard Rep. Maxine Waters (D, CA) fumbling around for the word “nationalize” (”socialize” is what came out of her mouth) and finally announce “basically taking over and the government running all of your companies,” speaking to oil industry executives. Most of us thought that was a Dr. Strangelove moment for a knee-jerk socialist. We were mistaken. Wednesday, Rep. Maurice Hinchey (D, NY), who sits on two major committees that control national energy policy and is known throughout the House as a Democratic leader on energy issues, called a press conference and announced in front of TV cameras that he thought nationalizing oil refineries would allow him to control the amount of oil that’s produced:

“Should the people of the United States own refineries? Maybe so. Frankly, I think that’s a good idea. Then we could control the amount of refined product much more capably that gets out on the market…”

“So if there’s any seriousness about what some of our Republican colleagues are saying here in the House and elsewhere about improving the number of refineries, then maybe they’d be willing to have these refineries owned publicly, owned by the people of the United States, so that the people of the United States can determine how much of the product is refined and put out on the market.”

“To me, that sounds like a very good idea.”

Having dropped the threat in a very public way, Hinchey backed off of his draconian proposal the very next day, acknowledging that as a practical matter, nationalizing oil was unlikely.

But on Thursday, Hinchey avoided questions over his support for U.S. ownership of refineries in an interview with FOX News. He conceded, however, that the idea was unlikely.

Asked if he advocated the government taking over the oil business, he said: “Let’s be serious. The government is not going to be taking over these refineries. … But I do think we need to be putting national pressure on these oil companies … to let them know that we’re prepared to do whatever is in the national interest of the people of this country. That’s our job — do what is in the public interest.”

So let’s get this straight: both Waters and Hinchey were part of a Democratic strategy to threaten the oil companies with nationalization, in an attempt to get them voluntarily to lower oil prices. Then Hinchey publicly admits they’re not going to do it.

I’m inclined to quote the President from the recent movie, National Treasure: Book of Secrets (which is kinda fun for what it is, intellectual bubble gum). Dr. Gates (Nick Cage) has just genteelly “kidnapped” the President (Bruce Greenwood) by steering him into a subterranean maze and locking the door behind them. The President queries, “If I don’t tell you what you need, you won’t tell me how to get out of here?” Gates points to a passageway and politely informs the President, “The exit is down there, sir.” The President looks at Gates quizzically and observes, “You don’t negotiate very well, do you?”

Maybe Hinchey doesn’t negotiate very well. Maybe it’s just a Dr. Strangelove moment for the whole Democratic party.

Or, maybe it was part of a long-term Democratic strategy, as suggested yesterday at Gateway Pundit. Doug Ross also puts the ploy in a more sinister context. Check out the ObamaBot Babette on Ross’ site. If we can believe the nonsense coming out of her mouth, the Obama campaign does not believe in private property. What does that tell you? Is what we’re hearing a preparation for socialism under an Obama presidency?

Fraters Libertas also points out that Hinchey is not doing his job when he threatens extra-Constitutional tyranny. He’s actually violating his oath of office.

Of course, the entire enterprise is based on the absurdly silly conspiracy theory that’s frighteningly made its way into mainstream Democratic thinking: namely, that the oil companies are run by Greedy, Evil Gnomes who conspire in the dark, over their breakfast of tender, human infants, to restrict production in order to raise prices. This explains why Hinchey actually believes that oil prices would drop merely by the government taking over refining. This is just, plain ignorant of Economics 101: if refining oil were actually profitable, the sensible economic response would be to build more refineries, not restrict their output. You actually make more money that way. The restrictions on the building of oil refineries has more to do with the public’s dislike of large, smelly factories mucking up their beaches than it has to do with fantasy oil industry conspiracies. Oil companies are already running their refineries near capacity, with very tight margins. A government takeover would only raise the costs.

An interesting sidebar to this ham-fisted tactic by the Democrats is that the news media and the right have been responding to the threat by invoking images of Hugo Chavez. In actual fact, what the Democrats are threatening goes beyond what Chavez did. Chavez merely increased the government’s ownership stake in the Venezuelan oil rigs from 40% to 60%. The oil companies are continuing to operate the drills. What Waters and Hinchey threatened was an operational takeover. We seem to have reached the point where the only serious socialists in the entire world are in the US Democratic party. These are dangerous times.