I disagree with you all on this. The whole "free market, personal freedom, do whatever you want, buy a 1000 hp Challenger because you can afford it, environmentalists stopped refineries" theory doesn't hold water. Nor is the "let's be entirely politically correct, let's save the world, buy a fortwo so we have a great car for vacations (yeah right)" theory practical. In reality, it is much more about balancing practicality and leaving a better world for future generations. The problem is not government. The problem is people that are more concerned about their own lives than believing they have a voice in THEIR government. Meanwhile corporations have infiltrated the federal government and essentially locked us out of it. I work for a local government as a city planner and I can assure you as person with a working class, practical background (I didn't grow up a green bean) that government can work for the people it represents and at the same time be idealistic, progressive, and environmentally conscious without losing sight of reality. At the local level governments are often very efficient and progressive and balance the two sides very well. Oil refineries have not been built in the last years mostly due to nearby whiny residents that didn't want them in their backyard (just to clarify they have never been proposed in someone's backyard!) and more and more since the oil companies aren't willing to take a 20 year bet to find out if they will pay off (because corporations are heavily weighted towards immediate payoff). What I mean is there should be an environmental impact process to properly review new refineries. Similar processes are needed all the time for many other types of developments in many cities. The problem is these processes not only provide professional review of projects and recommend conditions that benefit us all when something does get approved, they also bring out all the Not In My Backyard people who are often very unrealistic. There seems to never be any equal or greater representation at these meetings by the people that would benefit from the use, refinery or whatever. No, these people are busy "working" as a daytrader or sitting at home playing XBox or whatever. If they actually came out to the meetings there would be many more of them, but they don't.

I am unlike most people, in that through my job I aim to give back to others. While most have a job to make as much money for themselves as possible, I am trying to actually directly improve the country (or at least a little part of it). As much credit as military, firefighters, and police get credit for, you'd think there would be more people in this country that would want to get involved in government (as their job) so that we could improve the professionalism of our government. We need more professionals in government. No, most just want to keep working in their private company job and whine about "the government". I for one, can't stand that. When I get on the road though is when I get totally selfish, the Challenger will be my release.