June 2010

Thomas Sowell, as usual, cuts through the political demagoguery and CYA positioning surrounding the Gulf oil spill. In a pair of articles published at http://www.JewishWorldReview.com entitled “Oil and Snake Oil” and “Degeneration of Democracy” he calls us back to reason and establishes the central issues for our consideration.

I, personally, find it interesting that through all the rhetoric and finger pointing (which reminds me of my second grade class when our very stern looking teacher steps back into the room after a brief absence and stands glaring with her arms crossed) no one has presented one iota of evidence that BP has done anything illegal. Until that happens, BP must be considered the unfortunate victim of a terrible accident.  (What a concept: innocent until proven guilty!) In which case they are being crucified to help compound their misfortune and provide political currency.

The big oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is bad enough in itself. But politics can make anything worse.
Let’s stop and think. Either the government knows how to stop the oil spill or they don’t. If they know how to stop it, then why have they let thousands of barrels of oil per day keep gushing out, for weeks on end? All they have to do is tell BP to step aside, while the government comes in to do it right.
If they don’t know, then what is all this political grandstanding about keeping their boot on the neck of BP, the Attorney General of the United States going down to the Gulf to threaten lawsuits— on what charges was unspecified— and President Obama showing up in his shirt sleeves?
Just what is Obama going to do in his shirt sleeves, except impress the gullible? He might as well have shown up in a tuxedo with white tie, for all the difference it makes.
This government is not about governing. It is about creating an impression. That worked on the campaign trail in 2008, but it is a disaster in the White House, where rhetoric is no substitute for reality.
If the Obama administration was for real, and trying to help get the oil spill contained as soon as possible, the last thing its Attorney General would be doing is threatening a lawsuit. A lawsuit is not going to stop the oil, and creating a distraction can only make people at BP start directing their attention toward covering themselves, instead of covering the oil well.
If and when the Attorney General finds that BP did something illegal, that will be time enough to start a lawsuit. But making a public announcement at this time accomplishes absolutely nothing substantive. It is just more political grandstanding.
This is not about oil. This is about snake oil.

~~~~~AND~~~~~

Just where in the Constitution of the United States does it say that a president has the authority to extract vast sums of money from a private enterprise and distribute it as he sees fit to whomever he deems worthy of compensation? Nowhere.
And yet that is precisely what is happening with a $20 billion fund to be provided by BP to compensate people harmed by their oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Many among the public and in the media may think that the issue is simply whether BP’s oil spill has damaged many people, who ought to be compensated. But our government is supposed to be “a government of laws and not of men.” If our laws and our institutions determine that BP ought to pay $20 billion– or $50 billion or $100 billion– then so be it.
But the Constitution says that private property is not to be confiscated by the government without “due process of law.” Technically, it has not been confiscated by Barack Obama, but that is a distinction without a difference.
With vastly expanded powers of government available at the discretion of politicians and bureaucrats, private individuals and organizations can be forced into accepting the imposition of powers that were never granted to the government by the Constitution.

If you believe that the end justifies the means, then you don’t believe in Constitutional government. And, without Constitutional government, freedom cannot endure. There will always be a “crisis”– which, as the president’s chief of staff has said, cannot be allowed to “go to waste” as an opportunity to expand the government’s power.
That power will of course not be confined to BP or to the particular period of crisis that gave rise to the use of that power, much less to the particular issues.

Please enjoy both commentaries in their entirety at:

Oil and Snake Oil

and:

Degeneration of Democracy

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