This is a load of the familiar brown article.
I don't know any "liberals" who want $9 a gallon fuel here, and you don't either. The distances here are greater than Europe, and long-haul trucking is more important. (Yes I know trucks use diesel. But that stuff costs money too.)
I know a lot of people who would like us to use less fuel. That's different.
I'm sick of "the left." I'm not convinced that you can tell a real left from Spy vs. Spy. You get your idea of a left from radio talk show hosts. It's all propaganda and images from long gone history.
What you are doing there is taking all the good things a place like Norway has and asking why don't we have that here. While ignoring the details in what they have to do to make those good things happen. Two examples being a 51% effective tax rate and $9 a gallon gas.
You act as if we could have the social programs Norway has without any disruption of our current lives and without a massive tax increase along with massive changes to the way we spend our current tax dollars.