TWO PARTS OF MODERN THOUGHT | 2007-01-13
Modern thought agrees that oil-producing countries have all the rights to what happens to be under their soil. But not one single OPEC country ever contributed anything to the technology that makes oil valuable. Not one OPEC country found the oil under its feet. OPEC countries are not capable of getting that oil out from under their feet themselves.
But every liberal, and therefore every respectable conservative, insists that the people of a country that has oil accidentally under their feet have the right to what it is worth, AND the right to set up a monopoly to keep that price up.
That is the FIRST agreement of modern thought. Here is the second:
While the people of oil producing countries have not had anything to do with oil production or value, countries where living standards are high BECAUSE of the citizens of the country have no right whatever to any of the benefits they have produced. Mexicans pour into the United States because Mexicans are lousy citizens of Mexico. They have made a disaster of their own country, so they seek "opportunities" in the United States.
Why does the United States provide these "opportunities but Mexico doesn't. There is one reason, and ONLY one reason: America is run by Americans and Mexico is run by Mexicans.
Ok, let's hit the standard excuse, The US has more resources than Mexico. Japan has fewer resources than Mexico by far, and it has a standard of living comparable to America's, though prices are out of sight. Exactly the same is true of every European country.
So people who happen to be born on oil-producing soil have aright to every dime's worth of oil they happen to be born on top of. But people who MAKT their country better than another have no right whatsoever to the higher living standard in America. The third world has the right to the same "opportunities" which they had nothing to do with earning.