When I first heard this argument I thought the guy was nuts! We are a cheaper-the-better nation of WalMart shoppers after all, aren’t we?

The trouble is, the guy was not nuts… He was Tom Friedman, the well-known NYT columnist whose views I respect a lot. So why would someone like Friedman risk his reputation by advocating a huge hike for at-the-pump gas prices?

Simple. For energy independence, for one. And so that the pride of our youth would not die in the hellholes of the Middle East.

I’m not mentioning “Afghanistan” because that’s something else. They hit us first and we had to go and clean their clocks. It’s as simple as that.

But Iraq? More and more I’m convinced that if the gas we use for our cars and trucks was at least $5 a gallon, we wouldn’t be in “Falluja” or “Anbar Province” today.

Let me try to explain…

The reason why we are so tangled up in the Middle East, humoring two-bit dictators and monarchs, is simple – oil. Everybody knows that.

So how come we cannot develop alternative sources of energy?

Is it because we don’t have the technology? No, of course not. We have figured out the ins and outs of the wind, solar etc. based energy technologies better than anybody else in the world thank you.

So what is holding us back? One word: PRICE. As long as gas is sold for $2 or $3 a gallon, these other energies are not “economically feasible.” And as long as they are “not feasible,” we’ll never use them.

Would you buy a hi-tech energy-cell operated car if it costs you $500 a month to replenish its fuel -- in contrast to spending only $250 on gasoline? Of course you wouldn’t.

But what if gas also starts to cost you $500 a month? Then would it still be worth it to send our precious men and women to fight and die in the Middle East in order to protect our “strategic national interest” in oil and gasoline? Of course not.

But wouldn’t such an “artificial scarcity” double up the already outrageous profits of oil giants? If not planned and regulated carefully, of course it would.

There has to be a mechanism to make sure that the extra income from higher gas prices would directly go to the development and implementation of new oil-free technologies. Pump all that extra cash to the hungry minds in Silicon Valley and see what happens!

I don’t know about you, but I’m willing to pay $5 a gallon (and not drive as much as I used to) in order to help develop alternative and 100% US-made technologies to break our deadly dependence on Middle East oil.

Until we take the courageous step of disciplining ourselves and creating a regulatory mechanism through which extra revenues would immediately be channeled to new technologies, not only our children but even grandchildren will continue to pay the very high cost of our gas-guzzling lifestyle on the cheap.