The ultimate patriotic statement

We are a very patriotic nation. Most nations are. It’s natural to be proud of where we live, even if we recognize some things could be better. Even people in war-torn, dictator-lead, impoverished nations are patriotic, and they have it way worse than we do. But here in the states we do wave our flag every chance we get. Just look at your Facebook friends’ posts, and you’ll see, at least once a day, someone posting a meme about something like “support our troops”, or “American ingenuity”.

But what are we doing, on a real, actionable basis, to noticeably improve our way of life and better our nation in a real and permanent way? What can we do? In many ways we are too busy just working and caring for our families to be able to do anything that would make any huge difference in our society’s quality of life. Aren’t we?

But what if we could, without much work at all, make a small change in our individual lives, that would contribute greatly to the well being of our nation, and significantly improve the lifestyle of everyone of our fellow citizens? Could it be one of the best ways to “wave our flag”? Would we do it? Would you do it? 

Every year we Americans give trillions of our hard earned dollars away to foreign countries, in many cases, countries that don’t even like us, - and that laugh as they use those funds to buy up our American assets like real estate and media companies out from under us. Of course, I’m talking about oil. What else is that big and powerful and costly and breeds that much competition from country to country?

Every American citizen who drives a car gives over $100,000.00 over their lifetime away to people who are trying to destroy our nation. “Fueling” their efforts, quite literally, and then wondering why we can’t get ahead as the peace-loving, democracy-promoting, force we think of ourselves as.

In addition to having to buy their oil, we also need to maintain an almost unfathomly-immense military presence around the world, to protect our interests, and keep that oil flowing. What does that cost us? In dollars, and in the lives of our soldiers? We are 5% of the world’s population, and yet we use 25% of the world’s oil. How long do we think that can continue? How patriotic is it of us to succumb to the will of our enemies, every time we pull up to the gas pump?

Of course, I’m going talk about electric cars. Anyone who knows me knows I’m always talking about electric cars. If not for their obvious solution to the climate crises, which helps the whole planet, then about the huge health benefits of reduced pollution right here where we live, - which again, is another patriotic issue! If I’m not talking about the smooth quiet ride and the high-torque fun performance, then I’m usually explaining to everyone about how they are the only cars that pay you back for their purchase price in just 5 years (and go on to save you $10,000.00/yr. over the cost of a gas car.   http://fredbellows.blogspot.com/2011/12/is-your-car-paying-you-back-for.html

  

First of all, we only need to reduce our oil use by about a third to be able to live off of the amount of oil we extract and refine right here in the U.S.  So, all we have to do, (for the short-term, until we start to run out of oil –since oil is finite, it took millions of yrs. to make it, and we’re burning thru it quite fast) is just replace a third of our driving with electric driving. Electricity can be totally renewable as easily as putting a few solar panels on your roof to off-set the total cost of charging the car each day. The oil companies can (and will) simply diversify and get into the solar-makin’ business, and everybody’s still happy!

Pure electrics’ currently only go a hundred miles, so not everyone can utilize them yet. But remember, we only need to replace A THIRD of our miles driven, so, for example, the most likely first customers are two-car households, where there can easily be an electric and a gas car. The electric gets used the most (up to it’s max range/day), say, for the person that commutes the farthest, set amount, - like 30-40 miles each way. And the gas car is used by the person that has sporadic, unknown range requirements, and some days’ needs to drive over 100 miles.

“Plug-in Hybrid” cars could solve our national security needs all by themselves! Nationally, we only drive an average of 30 miles/day. And plug-in hybrids’ travel their first 10-40 miles (depending on the model) each day on clean, “home grown” electricity! So if we all drove those, and replaced a third of our oil miles with electric miles,… we’d be domestically sustainable already!

But if you’re a patriotic American, like I am, and want our country to succeed in so many ways by simply getting our oil use down to a sustainable, domestically produced level, then please consider how surprisingly easily you could adapt to some electric transportation.

So please, for the sake of our country as a whole, and to help you save thousands of dollars/yr., consider making the ultimate patriotic statement, and reduce your oil use by a third, right now, and start driving electrically. It’s easier than you think. If you have any questions about it, please let me know.