July 31st is the birth date of one of the great intellectuals of the freedom philosophy. Milton Friedman (1912–2006) would have been 101 today.

Friedman Legacy Day is being celebrated at 144 events: 90 in 44 states and Washington,D.C., and 54 events in 25 countries abroad. Here in Houston, a “Milton Friedman Rocks” party is tonight.

Friedman was more than a technical economist and early Nobel Laureate in this field; he was a popularizer of the case for free markets. His shorter tracts and biweekly column for Newsweek covered a variety of in-the-news issues, including energy. And he became more libertarian and appreciative of Austrian School economics (market-process economics), the rival to his Chicago School of economics, as time went on.

Friedman’s insight into the distortions from government intervention shortages are timeless.…

“Government energy programs have been arrogant and, in many respects, irrational as well. Policymakers have often assumed that technological breakthroughs would occur simply because a law said they would happen. Of course, in reality, presidents, members of Congress, bureaucrats in the Department of Energy, or the EPA could not and cannot legislate, mandate, or decree technological advance.”

The U.S. will never have useful energy policies unless and until it abandons a 40-year-old half-truth: We consume more energy (particularly oil) than we produce and thus are “dangerously” dependent on world markets.

The story—what I call the U.S. energy narrative—was created in the 1970s, and was widely accepted because it superficially explained the energy crises.

In the story, the U.S. was the victim of big oil companies who wanted our money and Arab oil sheikhs who not only wanted our money but also sought to use oil as a weapon to affect a change in our international policies.…

“The oil and natural gas that we rely on for 75 percent of our energy are simply running out.… World oil production can probably keep going up for another 6 or 8 years. But sometime in the 1980’s, it can’t go up any more. Demand will overtake production. We have no choice about that.”

“To some degree, the sacrifices will be painful—but so is any meaningful sacrifice. It will lead to some higher costs and to some greater inconvenience for everyone. But the sacrifices can be gradual, realistic, and they are necessary.”

“We must not be selfish or timid if we hope to have a decent world for our children and our grandchildren.”

– Jimmy Carter, Energy Address to the Nation, April 18, 1977

Will Obama and his ilk learn the lessons of history?…

Editor note: The first post in in this three-part series was titled A Free Market Energy Vision (Part I: Worldview); the third is“Federal Energy Policy for America (Part III: Cato’s priorities–and a few more).”

The Obama Administration has been implementing an anti-energy agenda since coming to Washington. From day one, Obama and his “dream ‘green’ team” have worked to increase the cost of traditional energy to reduce usage and try to make uneconomic consumer-rejected energy (wind, solar, ethanol, electric vehicles) more economic.

The effects of these policies are now playing out in front of the American people: rising energy prices, tens of thousands of jobs destroyed, and increasing dependence on foreign state-owned energy companies. In response, the free market community has been playing defense.

But even before Obama, multiple-hundred-page interventionist legislation has been signed time and again by Republican presidents.…