Maybe that’s just a little sarcastic.

What pollsters should be asking is this: The effect of offshore drilling will be to lower the cost of a gallon of gas by a few cents in a decade or more from now — do you favor drilling under these circumstances?

That would represent informed opinion, which should be valuable from a political and policy perspective.

It should be countered by think, think, think.

Stop being so stupid. We have already drilled. The oil and gas companies have put in more than half a million holes in the ground in North America. They have other areas to drill and look for oil. The areas now closed off to drilling don’t preclude not drilling in those areas that are open to drilling.

Stop being so stupid. Just drilling more holes and extracting more oil and natural gas just gets us to extracting all the oil and natural gas sooner. There is talk of Oil Peak, certainly in the United States and what it has access to. Just extracting it faster from the United States means it is faster depleted. Strength thru exhaustion is not a method that works.

Stop being so stupid. there are alot of things that we can do to slow the use of fuel that have already brought the price down from July. Energy avoidance, efficiency, source substitution all work and will help bring down our energy prices and the total costs. (I prefer to use the words avoidance and efficiency instead of conservation; some who would call themselves conservatives have nothing to do with energy use avoidance and efficiency.)

Perhaps it’s time for those with a more Progressive/Environmental stance to start a language campaign. Not a campaign of putting others down. While I agree with Ronald that people should “Stop being so stupid”, a better approach might be to attack the ideas/positions, not people.

(People who are attacked are more likely to become entrenched in their position and not as likely to be won over.)

How about a campaign along the lines of “Abandon Ignorance”?

Abandon Ignorance. Don’t fall for the bull that we can drill our way to cheap gas.

Abandon Ignorance. Learn how to drastically cut your fuel and electric bill with conservation. Keep a lot more of your money to spend the way you want to.l

Abandon Ignorance. Learn how we can both improve and protect our environment by building more wind and solar plants and reduce our use of dirty, expensive coal.

Abandon Ignorance. Learn how we can support our country by moving away from gas-powered cars and quit shipping our money to foreign countries.

(And, ideally, link each of those to places where the real information is spelled out in easily accessible terms.)