1 I've always said there are two types of liberals: stupid and evil. The stupid ones are just the pie in the sky hippy types who want everything to be "groovy", etc. The evil ones KNOW their way doesn't really work but they go right on pushing it with lies and brainwashing, because their way means dependence on government and they love the power. http://csc5502dsays.typepad.com/my_weblog/

2 And you're correct, CSC. I think you could put those with "good intentions" and "compassion" in the first category...

3 My main man John at therapysessions also did a post on this. Don't think he quoted you, though. Anyway, as I told him, I'll tell you. Feel free to point out the error of my ways. 1) The huge number of mergers in oil companies in the last few years has severely dwindled the amount of competition. Not sure if there's anything that should have been done about that, just pointing out the fact that it's not as free a market as it could be. 2) Oil companies own the entire pipeline - from discovery, to drilling, to refining/processing to selling. Barnes and Noble got in all sorts of trouble for having the same thing - I think it was a trust violation - and they were forced to either sell their distribution centers or their printing centers. And they only sell books. Though I love books, we don't depend on them economically. Not that I'm saying, again, that govt should do anything about that. I just think it's suspect that the situation has never been touched by govt. (*)>

4 Competition may have dwindled, but it is still there. Just watch gas stations on different corners of the intersection. We still have gas wars occasionally, where two stations will just keep dropping prices to be lower than the next. I don't think we're anywhere near a monopoly on gasoline yet. In most cases, the oil companies don't own that much. It's normally one company that drills, another that does refining, and yet another that sells the gasoline to people. Sure there's franchises, but they're all owned by different people too. Should McDonalds be "allowed" to open a farm to get their own beef?