If the world seems stranger than normal, Victor Davis Hanson has an explanation. Ideology, he argues, is the ancient enemy of civilization. It makes people, even politicians, do crazy things.
What ultimately destroyed the evil empires of Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia were bankrupt dogmas. Crackpot ideology destroyed free expression. It ruined meritocracy and ensured unequal application of the laws—and so paved the way for far worse. The Nazi idea of a superior Aryan race adjudicated everything from physics to tank design. Soviet commissars did the same, subordinating rational thought to communist agendas. Zealots in both systems infiltrated the universities and schools to institutionalize indoctrination. Wokeism, while not yet as lethal, is similar.
Quos Deus vult perdere prius dementat—those who the gods wish to destroy they first make mad. Precisely who’s gone crazy is a matter for debate. But some of the headlines seem to hint at odd behavior by ostensibly sober statesmen. It is almost as if they’ve forgotten how to act in their own best interests. After two years of demonizing “fossil fuels,” decommissioning nuclear plants, and shifting energy grids to things like windmills, the West is suddenly facing an oil shortage crisis that makes it vulnerable to blackmail by Vladimir Putin.
Oil prices have risen to well over $90 a barrel — their highest levels since 2014 — in recent days as fears of war have grown. Many energy experts say an invasion would easily propel the price above $100 a barrel. The average price for regular gasoline in the United States has risen to nearly $3.50, a rise of almost 20 cents over the last month and nearly $1 more than a year ago, according to AAA. Diesel prices have been rising a penny a gallon every day recently.
An establishment that was only recently trying to rid itself of the stink of gas is now desperate to find it. It’s like those 19th-century morality stories where the wastrel begins by lighting cigars with $20 bills and finishes by trying to pry out small coins fallen between the floorboards of his decaying mansion. Like the wastrels, the establishment could have avoided the shortage, but didn’t, and given a respite from Russia and weather, they’ll go back to windmills.
[Interesting Read]
