As I sit here in my home office writing this piece, the least expensive gas in the area is available at the COSTCO on Bradley. The price is $3.95 for regular unleaded. In Santa Barbara, the lowest price is $3.99 at Conserve fuel on La Cumbre Road.
Not surprisingly, gas prices in California are the highest in the country. The lowest gas prices are in Texas, Kansas, Missouri, Louisiana, Alabama, Tennessee, North Carolina, as well as in Virginia…in these states average gas prices are between $1.75 and $1.95 per gallon.
Our political masters in California require we pay gas prices that are two and almost three times higher than in the rest of the country because California is, well, a better place to live. And because we are, well, just better people. Sure we pay higher gas taxes and impose more elaborate rules and regulations on our oil and gas producers, refineries, and service stations than anywhere else, but it’s because we are just better human beings than exist everywhere else in the country. So just shut up and stop complaining.
Be grateful that our rulers are such an enlightened class of political elites who know more about pretty much everything…they certainly know more than you and I know, and also more than the politicians in all of the other states. In California we are trendsetters and example-setters…we are, um, leaders.
And stop complaining about these Edison, and PG&E power shutoffs already. I can’t even go on Facebook without reading posts about people losing their electricity as if it were some sort of human right. It’s not a right; it’s a privilege. Indeed, power in California is an unfair blessing bestowed on us by our benevolent political rulers. And now they’ve decided to end this blessing. Get over it!
Right now, 3 billion human beings on our planet lack electricity. What makes us so important that we should be allowed to power our refrigerators, TV’s, laptops, iPhone, stoves, ovens, or the AC or furnace with impunity? We must trust our political leaders who have told us this level of personal inconvenience is necessary to save the planet for the children.
Never mind the fact it is the children who are the most demanding when it comes to every modern convenience known to man; consider it tough love. A spoonful of medicine, an ounce of prevention…
After all, if you stop and think about it, shutting down oil production in California is the right thing to do so that we make sure gas prices don’t go down and are never low enough again that it becomes an incentive to drive more. That would be an environmental and ecological disaster.
And whatever we do let’s be sure not to allow our energy producers in California to provide us reliable, abundant and affordable fossil fuels and nuclear power…that will serve as encouragement to over-consume, and overproduce which would only accelerate the end of the world. Doing so would be penny-wise, and pound foolish.
Think about it, the last thing we want is for California’s superior breed of politicians to end up like those political Neanderthals in New Mexico. And I’m not talking about that state’s Republicans; I’m referring to New Mexico’s Democrat Governor and Democrat-controlled State Legislature.
Politicians in the Land of Enchantment are so backward in their thinking that they are approving oil and gas production like there’s many tomorrows. And they’ve seen in-state oil and gas production increase between 1981 and today, from 200,000 barrels a day to just shy of 1,000,000 barrels a day.
Oh, and guess what those rascals are doing with the hundreds of millions in revenues from that increased oil and gas production, besides empowering their lives? They are offering free two and 4-year college educations to every resident of the state, regardless of income.
I know, I know…it’s awful. So when you say your prayers tonight, thank the Almighty for our enlightened political leaders who protect us from such indignities as reliable power, modern conveniences, and free college for those who want it.
