Someone brought up to me the other day the notion that conservatives are completely illogical. Why?  Because they're anti-government regulation (we were debating the issue of oil prices and drilling off-shore).  Naturally, I see a few flaws in that extreme statement, so I felt compelled to write about it.

One, conservatism is not completely anti-regulation.  There must be some level of regulation in everything in order to maintain balance.
What we do not support is too much federal control.  Capitalism in its purest form, with absolutely no regulation, is obviously dangerous.  You end up with survival of the fittest, where only the Rockefellers and fellow elites are able to enjoy the successes of the free market.  An elite few control everything.  However, to go to the opposite extreme is also dangerous.  Over-regulating kills the life of creativity and vision.  It clogs the flow of progress.  So there must be a balance.  History has proven that capitalism works.  However history has also proven that there must be some level of regulation to keep things relatively fair and opportunity available to all Americans.  As it stands right now, there are more self-made millionaires in American than any time in our nation's history.  And the number continues to grow.  Essentially, with balanced capitalism, the little guy has a chance to take himself to another level (concerning financial success).  Yes, there are those that argue there is a vast and growing gap between the rich and poor in this nation.  But for those contending that point I would say, "When is the last time you ventured outside our nation's borders?"  If you want to see a vast gap between the rich and the poor, try visiting a communist nation, where a few elite government leaders own and control everything.  Literally.  The dictators live in palaces while the people are subjected to abject poverty.  The problem is so many of us have grown up in a free, prosperous, Western society and have never seen what else is out there.  We have no idea how good we have it in America, and we completely take it for granted.  Things aren't perfect, but we have no point of reference to compare our standard of living.  I would argue those considered "poor" in America are actually "well off" compared to a great majority of the rest of the world (I for one actually have been outside our nations borders, on many occasions).  So we must avoid gravitating towards extremes in our pursuit of bettering this great country we live in.  Balance is the healthiest way to approach every issue, especially the issue of capitalism, free markets, and the hot topic of the day, high oil prices.  We don't need to remove all regulation and just let the oil companies do whatever they want. There must be thoughtful, reasonable regulation. But I believe where we stand right now does not represent thoughtful and reasonable regulation.  More has to be done to come to a consensus on that.

Second point, it seems to be the Democrats are the illogical ones. "We can't drill our way out of this problem" was all that Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and Barrack Obama had to say about allowing exploration on the outer continental shelf.
Really?  Increasing the supply of oil on our own soil doesn't help bring down the price of gas?  Hm. Seems logical to me.  Will it solve the entire energy crisis in the long-haul? Not in and of itself. But increasing drilling and exploration on U.S. soil is part of a large, comprehensive solution to get this under control. We still need to pursue alternative energy sources, absolutely. That needs to be the long-term solution. But in the meantime, we're kidding ourselves if we think holding hearings to question oil executives about their yearly salaries is going to do anything to solve the problem, particularly when there are billions of barrels of oil sitting under our feet and off our coast.  But the oil companies have millions of acres of leases they could be drilling from!  So the Democrats contest.  Yes, but having a lease does not necessarily mean there is enough oil beneath the surface to make it worth the effort of drilling.  Or it may be more difficult to get to, etc.
That point aside, the Democrats just don't seem to have an open mind about the issue.  They don't want a comprehensive approach.  They want one thing - to squeeze.  Squeeze the American people so they lower their energy usage, and squeeze the oil companies by imposing windfall tax profits.  Sure, it's a great point to bring up to the oil companies that they have these leases to drill on, but we can't be narrow minded to think that's their only option and we're not going any other route.  The Democrats in Congress seem to have the attitude that, since the oil companies won't drill on every lease they currently have, we're not going to do a single thing to help them or the American people.  Let the people suffer because we don't want to appear like we're throwing the oil companies a bone.  They've made such a big deal about the oil companies being the problem they aren't willing to work with them to provide us, the people, with a solution.  We've got to stay focused on the big picture.  A noteworthy side-point:  while these evil oil companies are recording record profits, they're also providing an interesting by-product....more jobs*.  In addition, the media loves to talk about oil companies' record profits, but fails to elaborate on the net profit (what a novel concept that doing business in the oil industry actually costs money...).  In fact, while Google reported a net profit margin of 25% in its last quarter, the average net profit margin for oil companies on the S&P 500 was around 9%*.  Does that now make Google our evil enemy?

We know there is oil off our coast, we know there is oil in ANWR, so we need to go after it.  In addition, we need to increase our pursuit of alternative energy solutions.  The Democrats don't like the idea of clean coal or nuclear energy, yet those are two viable pieces that could fit into the energy crisis puzzle.  All in all, the Democrats don't seem to like any alternative to squeezing oil companies and squeezing the American people.  Yes, I believe it's the Democrats who are the illogical ones.  Not that they don't necessarily know what they're doing (in pursuing socialist agendas)....they are just too near-sighted to see the ultimate outcome.