Shouldn't CONSERVAtives want to CONSERVE?

I know labels don't necessarily mean anything. A turd by any other name would smell as rank. But I think it's true that the word "conservative" originally had a connotation of preserving, conserving, being frugal, being self-reliant (which would exclude wastefulness), and so on.

So we're having another round of the periodic Energy Crisis. And what is the solution, the only solution? Drill more! But what is left out and ridiculed? The fairly obvious, common sense idea that we CONSERVE what we have. You know, as in CONSERVative?

Time magazine looks at some of the Republicans' moronic ridicule of the idea of keeping your tires properly inflated:

But who's really out of touch? The Bush Administration estimates that expanded offshore drilling could increase oil production by 200,000 bbl. per day by 2030. We use about 20 million bbl. per day, so that would meet about 1% of our demand two decades from now. Meanwhile, efficiency experts say that keeping tires inflated can improve gas mileage 3%, and regular maintenance can add another 4%. Many drivers already follow their advice, but if everyone did, we could immediately reduce demand several percentage points. In other words: Obama is right.

You can improve gas mileage by 7%. And if it's only half true, that's still significant.

In your wildest dreams you never ever imagined that something as fundamentally true as the benefits of proper maintenance would become a partisan issue. It's like debating whether what goes up must come down or whether circles are different from triangles.

Silly season, indeed. Stupid season, on the part of these so-called CONSERVatives.