I guess it’s because I retain just a sliver of hope (or naivety one) that my worst fears are just paranoia. Here are the juicy quotes, one of which could have been lifted verbatim from Atlas.

We (the government) should own the refineries. Then we can control how much gets out into the market.

Wow. And exactly why would they be more qualified or competent than the legitimate leaders of these companies? Do they have some secret bureaucrat tactic for crude oil refinery that would increase supply? No. Of course not. But, they do have the illigitimate power to redistribute wealth. What they could do is offset a decrease in the price at the pump with revenue from their their favorite weapon - taxes.

They’ll raise taxes, which basically redistributes the cost of gas amongst their tax victims. Considering the typical levels of incompetency, negligence and economic inefficiency that are hallmarks of government run entities, we’ll then be paying more per capita for a gallon of gas than we were back in the days of privatization. Imagine a man with a widget factory who can make 100 widgets/year at a cost of $100. He then sells the widgets for $2 dollar each. Let’s say the man is overtaken by another man who then funds the widget production by stealing pennies from people. He can boldly proclaim that he sells widgets for 50¢. What he wouldn’t disclose is that he’s not the best businessman, therefore it took 200 stolen pennies to make each widget - twice the cost of the original owner. Sure, people are paying half as much for widgets, but their right to property was violated, plus the total cost for everyone is higher. That extra cost represents the economic waste and destruction of government meddling.

Even though the pump might say $2/gallon, the additional cost would come from taxation, which is much easier for them to sweep under the rug. For those oblivious to reality, Government will appear to have saved the day, but really they will have not only raised the cost of gas due to their inherent overhead, but trampled the rights of millions of individuals in the process. This is symptomatic of a crumbling nation, and is exactly what they would do with a nationalized system.

What we do has to be in the interest of the American people. Not major corporations.

What can I say? These collectivist thugs see an individual (the business owner) not as a sovereign being, but as a blank entity subject to whatever trampling that’s needed as a means to their ends. Keep in mind these are not flagrant Hollywood leftists, agenda driven pundits or silly activists talking, but powerful government officials whispering notions of socializing a major industry.