I honestly don't see what's wrong with this argument. No other system of reducing petroleum consumption has any chance of passing, and so cap-and-trade is it. Less oil means less money for governments that support terrorism. It was valid when Bush used it, and it's still valid now.

The "oh, it doesn't matter who's in power, they're all the same" argument is really quite tired and blatantly untrue. Yes, there are certain ugly constants in politics, but at some point you have to accept those if you believe a republic is fundamentally a good way of governing. The two parties, however, have completely different agendas, and if the Republicans had 59 votes in the Senate right now we'd be seeing some very different legislations. The argument that politicians are politicians are politicians is just cynicism taken to an extreme - a gut reaction that completely ignores the complexity of actual politics. I've heard it too many times.

Yes, the legislation they pass is different. But it's also essentially the same in character -- large subsidies for powerful supporters. Take a closer look at this cap-and-trade monstrosity. If they were to pass the bill Obama campaigned on -- cap-and-trade as a pure auction (better yet, without the carbon offset scam), that would be one thing. But a bill with massive giveaways to large, powerful constituencies is garbage. All it does is use the government to protect entrenched companies at the expense of possible future competitors. The Republicans did this sort of thing for a decade. Surest way to tell what a bill really means is to negate its name. Fortunately, the Senate will likely defang the worst parts of the bill, because the Senate is typically a much more reasonable outfit than the House.

As for needing this bill to protect ourselves from terrorists, I hardly know where to start. Was it really the fact that we buy oil from the Middle East that enabled bin Laden to send people hurtling into the Twin Towers? No. Should we simply stop trading with everyone because they might someday use the money they gain from trade to fight wars with us? No -- that will put us back in the Stone Ages. Because, well, we gain a great deal from trade, too. All this Representative is doing is trying to stoke people's fear to get them to release all reason and trust in the all-knowing government to save them. Bush did this all the time, and it was, in my mind, one of his great weaknesses as a leader.

I will also say that cynicism with respect to government is a very healthy thing. Our country is more or less founded on this principle, and it has served us pretty well for the last couple centuries.

Just for you, a little non-cynicism: I think Obama has handled the Iran situation exceptionally well, despite all the right-wing lunatics berating him, and it's been an example of why I trusted his temperament in foreign affairs a lot more than McCain's...

What I'm arguing against, though, is excessive, unreasonable cynicism. Yeah, bills tend to benefit legislators' supporters. But there are two reasons this doesn't make all of them equal: first, the actual legislation is different. I doubt a Republican congress would be passing climate change legislation, which is certainly necessary. Second, you need to disentangle correlation and causation here. Corruption is an insidious problem which needs to be resisted at all costs, but the tendency of lawmakers to vote for things in the interest of those they receive money from is not necessarily a result of the money - the money is a result of the votes. It would be excessively naïve to say that money never influenced politicians, but I think this is one place where people often forget the difference between correlation and causation.

Cynicism to the extent of the Who song is really just unproductive. As a society, we can work to solve corruption and influence issues. We can't, however, just give up and say "oh, they're all the same, it doesn't matter." They aren't the same. There are vast differences in the way Democrats and Republicans govern. The political process is not an easy one, and so things don't necessarily go as a person wants, but that's natural and has to be accepted. We can't just give up on the process - that's the path to ruin in a democracy.

With regard to the argument in question, most goods we trade for don't directly support terrorism. Buying Middle East oil, in many cases, does.

OK, you're now saying "climate change legislation is needed". That's very different (and much more defensible) than saying "we need this legislation to prevent terrorists from killing us", which is the argument I'm saying is deeply wrongheaded.

Now, as to the point "climate change legislation is needed so we need this bill", I think this makes the error "something must be done, this is something, so this must be done". Even if I were to feel that "climate change legislation is needed" RIGHT NOW, I would not want this bill. (I'll note that Greenpeace agrees with me on this, though probably for different reasons.) I'm not arguing against cap-and-trade in general; I'm arguing against the cap-and-trade this bill represents, which looks to me like a massive subsidy of taxpayers to heavy polluters. Polluters get protected industries, politicians get their bill, everyone's happy but those of us who have to pay for it and those who might compete against the polluters in the future. I don't think my cynicism is unwarranted. Perhaps once someone actually reads the bill (to be fair, I haven't, and neither has anyone else, which is yet another reason to be cynical about the "we need this right now to protect us from the terrorists" logic).

I also don't buy the "some oil money went to terrorists, so it's worth spending a great deal of money to not buy oil" argument. The climate change argument is much, much stronger. We have gotten a great deal of good out of our oil-fueled economy. We wouldn't even be having this discussion about health care if it weren't for the advances fossil-fuels have brought us. Sure, it would be nice to not have to deal with terrorists, but it's a small price to pay for the benefits fossil fuels have brought us. (And besides, it's not like the terrorists go away if the oil issue abates -- there were anarchist terrorists a century ago assassinating presidents and dukes for nothing, literally, nothing. That's a tough group to appease!)

If there were a magic, free wand to wave and get off oil, great, by all means, wave it. There's not, and no amount of wishing will make it so. There's a price to be paid to reduce our dependence on oil -- it's not clear what that price is, but it is quite possible that the price is currently too high. Lest I sound like a head-in-the-sand "drive my Hummer 'til I die" wacko, I'll note that I paid up to put solar on my house last year *even before the additional fed government hand-out came along and cut the final bill a bit* (thanks for that--you'll be paying for it for longer than I will), and I'm currently on the lamentably long wait list to get an Aptera.

I'm perfectly fine paying for your solar - with that I buy a functional atmosphere. We don't have time to continue with oil. We have to change, and quickly - really, the price we pay now is minuscule compared to the price we would pay in the future to deal with an altered climate.

This bill passed by only 7 votes (or a 3-vote swing) even after all the amendments and compromises. I honestly don't think a better bill could pass. We need to do something, and this is the best we can do. The claim that the bill subsidizes heavy polluters is just ridiculous.

I'm not saying that terrorism is the strongest argument. It is, however, valid. If the terrorist don't have funds, they are restricted to small-scale attacks - no money for flight school means no 9/11.