As far as foreign oil is concerned, it is worth examining oilfield activity in the United States at various points in recent history. When oil was trading at $40 per barrel back in the 1970s, there was a boom in oil drilling in the U.S. in places like Oklahoma and Texas. When oil was trading at $12 per barrel a few years ago, these drilling operations came to a halt. The drilling didn't stop because we ran out of all, it stopped because it makes no sense to extract raw crude oil in Texas at a cost of $15 per barrel when the market price is $12.
It is estimated that the tar sands region in northern Canada contains enough oil to sustain 500 years worth of oil for all of North America at the current level of consumption. The problem is that the oil cannot be drilled from these tar sands -- the extraction process is actually a mining operation that involves removing the sand and separating the oil from it. This costs about $14 per barrel to produce, so nobody in their right mind is going to do it unless the price of oil is high enough (say, $25 per barrel) to guarantee a decent profit. Even at prices below $25 per barrel, there is still a substantial amount of oil activity in the Fort McMurray area of northern Alberta. If every Middle Eastern country stopped producing oil tomorrow, the price of oil would shoot up dramatically (let's say, up to $60 per barrel), at which time everyone in the oil business (and everyone who ever thought of being in the oil business) would be up in Alberta digging that oil out of the ground.
It might be worth your while to go back and do some research of all those "doomsday" predictions about an energy crisis since the 1940. Every one of them goes something like this (the actual numbers aren't real, but you get the point):
In 1950, someone determines that the world only has about 10 billion barrels of oil reserves left. Between 1950 and 1960, the oil industry refines 35 billion barrels of oil.
In 1960, someone else determines that the world has only 150 billion barrels of oil. Over the next ten years, the oil industry produces 400 billion barrels.
Etc., etc., etc.
What I find amazing is that the people who promote these "doomsday" scenarios are about 0 for 150 when it comes to the accuracy of their predictions, and yet many of us (maybe most of us!) are willing to listen to them the next time they make one of these predictions!
Our economic health and national security are at risk when countries that don't like us can interrupt our oil supply. And policies like those espoused by a bureaucratic, big government Dracula like Daschle can do serious harm to the nation. And don't forget, a doomsday scenario only has to come true once to ruin America's whole day.
And, Alberta's Child, if you believe that the economic and cultural "corrections" are painless, go ask some of the folks who lost their life savings when banks like Penn Square in Oklahoma City, Seattle First National in Washington state and Continental Illinois in Chicago crashed after the energy market collapsed in the early 80s. Those banks failed, to the tune of hundreds of millions in taxpayer dollars in bailout costs, due to horrendous government energy policies and foreign domination of the oil market at the time.
I would suggest reading Rush's article again.