Please tell your advisers that they have mistaken wrath for frustration and disgust, to a great extent, due to having higher expectations of genuine and authentic conservatives, especially here on FR.
Please see my response to Grampa Dave, above and relay that point of view to your advisers as soon as you can, ok??? I think they'll actually understand what I'm stating.
I thought this was a rhetorical question.
The true answer is that we are a nation of disparate types. Yes, there are many who are willing to climb on your bandwagon, but there are also many who get just as excited about the opposite point of view.
Does this mean we are doomed to stagnation? No. The prudent types will prevail, after observing a few sensible experiments.
In the meantime, we can all do more. Regardless of your feelings about the efficacy of ethanol production, it makes sense to insist that your next vehicle be as flexible in its fuel requirements as possible.
My interest is essentially intellectual curiosity. I do not intend to join anyone's pitchforks at Midnight parade.
I would like to see an impartial investigation into the possibility of producing butanol from agricultural waste and food byproducts. If the hype is in any way reliable, butanol could be brought into the fuel mix without serious repercussions.
One of the points raised above is that American agricultural procedures can bring forth an astonishing variety of useful things besides food. I have long thought that one way to boost a farm's productivity and profitability is to reduce its fuel costs. Fuel plants grown on the farm, and the resultant fuel being used on that farm, would reduce the farmer's need for imported, and expensive, petroleum-based fuel.
I am at the same time a lover of tradition and a lover of innovation. I love the look and feel of a book, for example. But if kenaf fiber can produce a high-quality paper and preserve wood growth for the building industry, I think it is conservative to endorse it.
Similarly, if new techniques for producing fuel from otherwise unused or scrap materials can help us to reduce our addiction to foreign oil, I'm all for that, too.