LETTER: Opening up our crude deposits is our only option, but it will take ‘guts’

As I recall, the Democrats, in taking over both houses of Congress in 2006, had made some promises. One that I remember in particular was they were going to bring down the price of gasoline. To date, I have never heard just how they proposed doing this and certainly have failed to see any results. Seems to be the price of gas at the pumps has nearly doubled since that promise.

There was no way they were able to influence the Middle East producers of crude oil. I don’t recall any large delegation of Democrats going to Saudi Arabia or any of the other producers of crude oil and withdrawing food and military assistance as a trade off. The only thing that could have helped was to vote to open up the coasts, the gulf and every other known deposit of crude within our legal borders to recover our own supply of crude and build pipelines and refineries to take care of our needs without the help of any Middle East monopolies.

Of course, any such action like this would upset the environmentalists and that would mean loss of votes and support in the next election. No one in either Congress or Senate dare take such a chance.

Our only hope is to get the votes in Washington to open up our own known deposits of crude. This would take guts, and they are very lacking when it comes to doing the only reasonable thing to overcome our self-made mistakes. At my age, I think I can weather our self-made destruction, but I fear for my children and grandchildren. We are leaving them to face a very bleak future unless something wakes us up in the very near future. Perhaps time has already run out for them, but we should be willing on their behalf to at least come together and try.

Those of us old enough to remember Dec. 7, 1941, remember how dark things looked as we were attacked by Japan and Germany that were prepared for war, and we were sitting here with the remnants of World War I weapons and our ships a the bottom of the sea.

The young men and women of America came forward and volunteered in huge numbers to save our country. It was worth fighting for then. God help us is we are unwilling today.

— Ted Roth,

Newton