The liberal New York Times published the following conservative opinion piece this morning. (It's an "op-ed", that is, it doesn't necessarily reflect the opinion of the newspaper's editors.) To be sure our website is the best possible website we can create to promote development of local clean energy markets, please make notes (IN ALL CAPS) in the text below that might help us make YourEnergyOptions appeal to the economic conservative, the social conservative, and the foreign-policy conservative.

Thank you.


Lance

(THIS IS A TEST OF OUR WIKI SYSTEM.)
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Turning the Triple Play

By DAVID FRUM
New York Times Op-Ed Published: January 25, 2008

WHY is the Republicans’ three-legged stool wobbling?


Why aren’t economic, social and political conservatives pulling together during this primary season the way they have in the past? To understand, let’s imagine that we had three conservatives in the room with us — and that they said exactly what was on their minds.

The Economic Conservative:

It’s not my fault that we’re in such trouble.

You foreign policy conservatives got us into this endless war in the Mideast. You’ve driven up oil prices and busted the budget. And you social conservatives: Your obsession with same-sex marriage makes us look as if we’re from the Middle Ages. And why can’t you people pay for your own prescription drugs? The Iraq war was bad, but Medicare Part D could cost at least 15 times as much.

What this party needs is a return to the good old Reagan message: less spending, lower taxes and no more of these weird social and foreign adventures.

The Social Conservative:

You’re blaming us? It’s our votes that pass your tax cuts — and what do we get in return?

Of course you can’t understand why we care about the marriage issue. You’re rich and secure and highly educated. The divorce rates for people like you have plunged since 1979. With your big new salaries up there, mothers can quit their jobs and stay home with the children — while your illegal-immigrant housekeepers make the beds. Down here, though, it’s still the 1970s. Our wages are stagnant. Both parents need to work, and those megachurches you laugh at provide the day care that makes it possible.

We can’t afford a single mistake. We need government to send consistent moral messages to offset the poison your Viacoms and Facebooks are dripping into our children’s minds(WHAT POISON ARE THESE SITES GIVING TO THE YOUTH OF TODAY? WHERE IS THE EVIDENCE? AS A FACEBOOK USER I FIND THIS SITE AS A WAY TO KEEP IN CONTACT WITH FRIENDS WHILE AT SCHOOL OR ON VACATION AND FIND EVENTS OR GROUPS THAT PEAK MY INTEREST)

You got a tax cut. We didn’t. That big increase in the per-child tax credit with which you garnished your big payday? We can’t use it. It’s only credited against income tax, and many of us don’t pay very much income tax. And even if we could use it, it usually gets clawed back by the alternative minimum tax. We are the party — but we’ve got little enough to show for it. It’s about time we ran it.

The Foreign-Policy Conservative:

Have you people gone crazy? Have you forgotten there’s a war on? And that we’re in real danger of losing? Don’t you have any sense of priorities?

You tax guys insisted on fighting this war on the cheap. So we didn’t expand the armed forces after 9/11 — and fought Iraq with half the troops the generals told us we’d need. You social conservatives are happy to talk about putting tariffs on Chinese toys. But the real issue is that the Chinese are underwriting Iranian energy development — and the North Korean weapons program. Can we do something about that, please?

If we’re going to fight terrorism, we need to get off oil. But that means accepting higher energy prices, including energy-tax increases, and you economic conservatives always reject those.

And is it too much to ask you social conservatives to support a presidential candidate with some kind of background in foreign affairs, maybe one who can find Pakistan on a map? Christian leadership is all very well, but this is no moment to turn the other cheek.

Can this stool be saved? It’s not too late, but it’s going to require much more tact and understanding than we have seen so far.

Economic conservatives are right to want lower taxes on saving and investment. They need to recognize, however, that supply-side tax cuts are no longer a vote-winner. If Republicans want to hold their down-market voters, economic conservatives must learn to talk about health care with the same urgency, passion and detail that they are accustomed to bringing to taxes and over-regulation.

Social traditionalists too need to adapt to new realities. Opposition to same-sex marriage is dwindling. The pro-life cause, though gaining strength, remains a minority point of view. If social conservatives can avoid seeming judgmental or punitive, their core message will become more relevant than ever to an America where marriage is equaling college as a tollgate to the middle class.

Last, foreign-policy conservatives must recognize that crucial blocs of voters have wrongly but unmistakeably put 9/11 behind them. The apparent success of the Iraq surge — along with the National Intelligence Estimate taking Iran’s nuclear program off the table — have transformed 2008 into a domestic-issues year. Uncontrolled immigration has replaced weapons of mass destruction as the supreme security concern.

What the Republican Party desperately needs is a domestic program that responds to the values and needs of the tens of millions of American families making around $70,000 a year. That’s not an impossible order. But it will take some new thinking by our presidential candidates and other leaders to meet it.

David Frum, a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, is the author of “Comeback: Conservatism That Can Win Again.”

(THE ONLY THING THAT CAN BE TAKEN AWAY FROM THIS FOR THE MEANS OF OUR WEBSITE IS THE IDEA OF OUR DEPENDANCY ON FOREIGN OIL)

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http://www.focusthenation.org/nationalteachin.php

"January 31st 2008, Focus the Nation is a national teach-in engaging millions of students and citizens with political leaders and decision makers about Global Warming Solutions.

We stand at a unique moment in human history. Decisions that are ours to make today – to stabilize global warming pollution and invest in clean energy solutions – will have a profound impact not only on our lives and the lives of our children, but indeed for every human being who will ever walk the face of the planet from now until the end of time. At this moment in time, we owe our young people one day of focused discussion about global warming solutions for America

More than just that one day, Focus the Nation: Global Warming Solutions for America is an unprecedented educational initiative, involving over a thousand colleges, universities, high schools, middle schools, faith groups, civic organizations and businesses. Focus the Nation is a catalyzing force helping shift the national conversation about global warming towards a determination to face this civilizational challenge.

A teach-in is a day when an entire school turns its attention to a single issue—when faculty, students and staff put aside business as usual, and focus the full weight of campus engagement on one topic.

The key to a successful teach-in is widespread faculty involvement. Focus the Nation challenges participating schools to engage at least fifty faculty members in their role as educators (as well as students, staff, alumni, and community members). With fifty plus faculty engaged from disciplines across the curriculum—art, science, politics, psychology, engineering, philosophy—the event will involve thousands of students on each campus, and millions of students nationwide. Campus-wide engagement at this scale sounds difficult to organize, but in fact, our TEACH-IN MODEL charts a simple path to success that requires only a month or two of lead time.

Our model has 45 suggested educational panels with slots for 110 faculty members. For example, the days events could include a session on “Obstacles to Change” with a psychology professor talking about denial, a communications professor talking about the media, and an engineer or economist talking about technology obstacles. Each professor talks for ten minutes, and then helps lead a discussion for the remaining half an hour of class time. Next a session on “Life Without Polar Bears”, with an artist talking about what makes these animals such powerful, iconic images; a philosophy or religious studies professor talking about the moral implications of mass extinction; and a biologist or ecologist providing hope, perhaps, that there may be remnant habitat for these beautiful creatures. Hold three more sessions, and a dozen faculty are engaged just in the first hour alone.

Faculty will say yes to involvement for two reasons. First, the Focus the Nation model requires them to talk for only 10 minutes in a subject area close to their discipline, and then help lead a half an hour discussion. Faculty do not have to be climate change experts to participate, nor invest heavily in preparation. Second, faculty across the curriculum are eager to be asked. As educators and as parents, they understand the magnitude of the global warming challenge, and are looking for an opportunity to engage with students on this critical issue. And once 50+ faculty are involved, then Presidents and Deans will be supportive. Most critically, thousands of students will attend, because faculty will require them to go, or give them extra credit, because other faculty will “focus” their classes, and travel with them to attend the sessions, but primarily because global warming solutions will be the exciting focus of discussion that day. Using this model, we view 2 million students nationwide as a realistic participation goal.

At two and four year colleges, and universities, building a teach-in that involves fifty plus faculty, and thousands of students is what these times demand. Educators and students at this level should settle for nothing less. Some high schools will be able to pursue this model as well.

For high schools unable to build a teach-in, and for faith organizations and civic groups, there is a second way to Focus the Nation: host a screening of our free, live interactive webcast, THE 2% SOLUTION, the night of Wednesday, January 30th. (Showing The 2% Solution is also the way to kick-off your teach-in)

Finally, K-12 schools can also look to curricular ideas from Focus the Nation’s RESOURCES page, The Earthday Network (available in early January), or at Climate Change Education."