Many conservative Christians in America are adamant that America should not in any way support terrorists or terrorism related activities. This is only natural, but for some reason their position doesn't extend so far as to cause them to need to make changes in their own lives. Terrorism must be stopped, but not if it creates inconvenience and not if forces any serious changes in one's lifestyle. It doesn't sound as though these conservative Christians are very committed to their principles, does it?
Usually this contradiction is pointed out in the context of how much oil from the Middle East is needed for things like Americans' large cars. The money spent on oil often ends up in the nations where terrorism and terrorists make their homes. The need to secure sources of oil tend to drive the foreign policies which people elsewhere find most objectionable and which seem to do the most to encourage support for religious or political extremism. So, if you want to reduce terrorism, doesn't it sound like a good idea to cut America's ties to Middle Eastern oil as much as possible?
Perhaps a similar connection can be made between these energy policies and great energy needs during the Christmas season. It is disturbing just how much more electricity is consumed for the sake of Christmas lights and seasonal displays. It's true that oil is not normally used to create electricity for homes, but energy is in many ways fungible so the resources used to produce electricity for lights is unavailable for other uses where oil may be directly employed. There is also the fact that almost all Christmas displays use a great deal of plastic and that is a petroleum product.
Somehow, though, I don't think that anyone will even consider making sacrifices like reducing holiday displays and their use of electricity for the sake of reducing economic support for terrorism.
The above image is taken from a World War II poster of a soldier dying on a beach because "Loose Talk" got their first, thus warning the enemy and allowing them to prepare an ambush. Americans were advised to keep quite about troop movements and military operations in order to keep American soldiers safe. Perhaps if we reduced our dependency on energy sources in the Middle East, we wouldn't have to send them into places where they would be in danger.
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