the government already makes a profit of oil by taxation and leasing and import duties it will not give up this golden goose.
“nobody should profit from a “necessity” like energy”
I certainly hope you meant the government should not profit from energy. If there were no profit in energy production, who would provide it?
“the government already makes a profit of oil by taxation and leasing and import duties it will not give up this golden goose.”
I didn’t saying progressives were logically consistent. I’m just saying that their irrational opposition to private sector profits likely would make them skeptical of even “green” ways to create energy. Hence, the only way they could rationalize it to themselves is if it were government-controlled.
Hypocisy is an enduring feature of progressivism: private monopolies=bad; public monopolies=good. Private profits=bad; public taxes=good. When evil private tobacco companies sell cigarettes, they are “exploiting” helpless smokers, but when government taxes those very same smokers, it is “helping” them by increasing their incentive to stop smoking.
It’s ironic that whenever gasoline prices go haywire, politicians are the first to point fingers at greedy oil companies, but I have NEVER seen in such circumstances politicians offering to lower gasoline taxes to alleviate the burden on consumers. Tobacco taxes, oil taxes: there’s a very long list of “golden gooses” on which politicians are all too happy to feed.