Right wingers, bless their cold little hearts, scorn vegetarianism and environmentalism and conservation. As Bush has said: "You cannot conserve your way to dominance" & "We need an energy bill that encourages consumption". Now, for all the merits of conservation and alternative energy sources, there is a perfectly defensible justification for all this SUV-driving, red-meat-eating, and fast-food-napkin-hording: the defense of liberty via the assertion of liberty. We possess a God-given right to make individual choices contrary to utilitarian ideals. In other words:

The state should not impose on its citizens a preferred way of life, even for their own good, because doing so will reduce the sum of human happiness, at least in the long run. It is better that people choose for themselves.

That sure sounds fine and freedom-loving, and there's more than a little truth there too. But anyone who's ever been cornered at a party by a libertarian, or who has screamed, "Hey Pal, we live in a society" upon begin cut off in traffic, knows there are (and ought to be) limits to this doctrine. Limits that meet basic standards of equitability and moral (gasp) accountability. I accept that. Now, as long as government mandates fuel economy standards there will be people who will regard subverting such mandates as a point of pride; not unlike the college sophomore who has a bi-sexual liaison to prove to his/her parents that they are, incontrovertibly, their own person, thank you very much! Hey, I understand this. I applaud it, actually. And I'm certainly not going to go around slashing the tires of SUV's in a lame attempt to punish people for what is, essentially, an act of environmental non-conformity. Promiscuity and tailpipe exhaust both contribute tiny blows to the betterment of humanity, but to restrict either too much would be even more detrimental to the purposes of human liberty. Which brings me, at long last, to the President's call to "protect the sanctity of marriage" and promote "abstinence" while refusing to tighten limits on emissions and/or provide incentives to automobile manufacturers regarding fuel economy. I am left to draw one of two conclusions after analyzing the President's position; either (a) liberty truly is the handmaiden of economics or (b) the President is a hypocrite.