Minor Thoughts from me to you

The Munchkin Wrangler had a great rant recently.

You know what I can’t stand to hear about anymore? That we Americans are addicted to oil. It’s a smarmy term that tries to couch an economic and environmental argument in pathological terms.

I’m not addicted to oil. I’m addicted to being able to drive into town on my own schedule. I’m addicted to being able to haul home a week’s worth of groceries with two little kids in tow without having to wait for the fucking bus with eighty pounds of filled plastic bags in my hands. (That’s disregarding the fact that I live out in the sticks, and the nearest bus stop is four miles away, which is one hell of a hike with the aforementioned two little kids and week’s worth of groceries.)

...

Until then, shut the fuck up about my addiction to oil. It does nobody any good to try and debate economic and logistical necessities while using terminology to imply people who disagree with your view are mentally ill.

On a related note, I get frustrated whenever I hear someone say that buying oil is bad for the U.S. economy. For instance:

That’s money taken out of our economy and sent to foreign nations, and it will continue to drain the life from our economy for as long as we fail to stop the bleeding.

Really? That money is just taken out of our economy? And we get nothing from it? And it "drains the life from our economy"? Foreign oil is the vampire that's sucking our economy dry? Really?

I get quite a lot out of foreign oil. For instance, the ability to drive to work every day. I don't know about you, but that does quite a lot for my personal economy. I get to have plastics that keep my food fresh and uncontaminated—keeping me healthy. I get to have UPS delivery trucks that bring me products—saving me multiple trips to the store each week.

I’ll tell you what: I get far more benefits from foreign oil than I pay in costs. The cost of foreign oil is dirt cheap. Far from draining the life from our economy, oil pumps life into our economy each and every day.