State Of The Union

[DuncanONeil]

Your knee jerk response was that, of course our oil gets sold overseas. The evil oil company wants to make as much money as possible. By implication that would mean all of it!
Now to try and lay off that because of transportation. Sorry but all they would have to do is to sell the oil FOB origin. Then the transportation does not matter.
Free trade has little to do with but to seriously refute would take more time than this site will allow for a response.

I don't see how exporting 12.5% means that I'm wrong about this. Most of the time the most profitable contract will be in the US because the transport costs are far lower. Also markets fluctuate wildly, so sometimes it will be profitable to sell abroad.

Nothing I said earlier says that the US would sell every drop of oil abroad, just that they are allowed to under free trade agreements, and thus will when they have the economic incentive to do so.

I'm frequently responding to arguments on this board of the form "As a taxpayer I believe X therefore the government should support X." yet when I point out that there are also taxpayers who believe the opposite of X you dismiss it as irrelevant. My argument is not that the government should support X or the opposite, its rather that if you want to argue the government has an obligation to support only services a particular taxpayer is willing to pay for then the government can't provide any services at all because for every service there exists a taxpayer who wouldn't want to pay for it. Some criminals pay taxes (they don't want to go down like Capone did), I'm sure they'd be happy if every level of government spent $0 on police. Similarly for arsonists and fire departments, etc..

What has this got to do with oil??

As for reading of various national documents, people can't even agree on what those are or what mandates they provide.

I thought this was a response to a discussion on oil? What documents are you talking about?

For instance, I don't see how any US document gives the federal government a mandate to occupy a foreign country after already having declared victory in the war for which those troops were present.

Care to be a little more specific? Or is this just intended as filler or just a snide remark?

If an American citizen has an entitlement to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, does the entitlement to life include medically necessary care? If so, since the government is responsible for providing said right, are they responsible for compensating the health care providers for it?

No one in the US is denied medically necessary care! And those that receive it are not funded by the Government

What does a right of freedom of speech even mean for Americans? You live in a country where the chief justice of the supreme court sent war protesters to jail for protesting a war with the oft quoted line "Freedom of speech does not give one the right to yell fire in a crowded theatre." yet freedom of speech supports KKK marches. You live in a country where leftist discussions lead to the McCarthy witch hunts and the shameful trial of Oppenheimer under the Eisenhower administration, yet freedom of speech supports neo-nazi demonstrations. It seems to me your governments and courts have a long history of acting in violation of the rights afforded to you by your fancy paper documents.

Based on this comment you would fit in quite well at the ACLU. First of all the Supreme Court sends no one to jail! And you provide, again, no specifics for analysis. Then there is the propensity to through up past history as if it was headlines in yesterdays daily paper!