Sure, it is a hardship for people with a long commute to work, and it does cause the rise of every product that has to be transported to go up. But look at the benefits.

1) It sticks it to the Russians, who are financing their butchery in Ukraine (and Georgia, Armenia, Syria, and Chechnya) with oil profits.

2) Its good for the environment, rather than tax energy, we can let the “free market” reduce the carbon footprint for a change.

3) It will raise the transport costs of imports, encouraging the rise of US manufacturing and bring jobs back from overseas.

4) Maybe, just maybe, it will finally convince the US motorist to give up gashog SUVs, muscle cars and monster trucks for fuel efficient vehicles.

5) It will not be necessary to dip into the Petroleum Reserve just to maintain our extravagant lifestyle, or to frack our environment all to hell or to destroy the oil shale beds.

6) It will encourage energy conservation, renewable energy source development, conservation and many other things that will not have to be financed with tax money. Isn’t that how “free enterprise” is supposed to work?

We should not see the rise in oil prices as drag on our economy, but as a way to derive necessary benefits from an expense we need to be making anyway.