The most notable thing about Bloodworth’s piece, though, is why it had to be written. While it’s not at all clear that progressives oppose tyranny, their opposition to fracking is unstinting, as is their opposition to all carbon-based energy production. This hostility is based on a narrative about saving the planet; the last thing it will permit is celebration of collapsing prices that encourage more energy consumption — not unless progressives are suddenly going to start being a lot more progressive than liberals are liberal.
This matters because progressives run Washington. The energy revolution has happened in spite of the federal government. It is driven by liberty: private property, far removed from the Beltway, exploited by private entrepreneurial initiative. Once again, the issue is not whether Democrats or Republicans in Washington have better ideas about regulation. It is about the widening disconnect between an entrenched, meddlesome, bipartisan ruling elite and a people for whom the concept of self-government does not entail being ruled.
What doesn’t work in Washington is . . . Washington — its officeholders-for-life, its strangling bureaucratic sprawl, its incestuous network of staffers and lobbyists, its naked cronyism, and its invested media.
The gridlock bewailed by Beltway insiders is actually a sign of political health, not dysfunction.
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