Thus far, the US government has adopted a (mostly) hands-off attitude toward the Gulf spill, putting the onus on BP to stop it and clean it up. Thus far, this concept of private disaster reponse doesn’t look to be doing too well.
If you’re of the laissez-faire bent, how do you reconcile this with your worldview? Would the government have gotten the same results–or fouled it up even more? Is BP just a remarkably bad example of responsibility in the private sphere? Or is this one of the rare instances where even John Galt would have called in the Corps of Engineers?
John Galt would have invented a rupture proof pipe and valve system that would operate off the residual electrical field surrounding plankton. If, by some odd fluke of nature, there was a spill, his buddy Ragnar would mobilize a fleet of specially designed oil skimming ships, cleaning the whole mess up in time meet his incredibly hot wife for some wild sex before her Oscar winning performance in her latest blockbuster movie.
As a libertarian leaning guy, I have no problem with sending in “the troops” to do whatever has to be done to clean things up and slapping BP with a big-ass bill for the whole thing. That is, assuming “the troops” have some capability in this arena that the BP doesn’t, which isn’t at all clear to me.
ideologues generally don’t let facts get in the way of their beliefs. rand paul thinks the gulf catastrophe is just an accident, like when car-surfing teenagers fall off and die. just an accident, nothing that could have been anticipated and prevented.
also, this may be the wrong forum, but why do anarchists get away with calling themselves libertarians? i won’t even get into what i think of the people who call themselves conservatives.
I don’t think the US gov’t has much in the way of capability to plug the leak, I can’t really comeup with any reason the US miliitary would keep deep sea drilling equipment and the like around, anyways. So there’s not much choice as far as relying on oil companies to plug the leak. I think the slowness in fixing the leak is simply because its hard to do, I doubt the Coast gurad or the Army Core of Engineers would have it fixed by now either.
As far as cleanup/containment goes, I’ve read of a dozen or more gov’t agencies participating, so I don’t think its accurate that the gov’t isn’t involved.
The US Navy has had networks of hydrophones and the like covering the seabed since the start of the Cold War. Don’t know how much drilling is involved, but they certainly have plenty of experience with deepwater operations.
i don;t recall mentioning obama, or anything about his identification with libertarianism or conservativism. oh, i get it, you must call yourself a libertarian or a conservative. nevermind, i don’t have time to explain it you.
nobody knows how to stop this leak based on experience. one continuing problem is that a failed attempt to seal the well will make it more difficult to stop the leakage.
Certainly the US gov’t has a lot of experience with underwater science and naval operations, but my vague impression from reports regarding the spill is that this doesn’t really transfer to an ability to work with deep sea wells.
I guess the question for the OP is what specifically should the gov’t be doing that they aren’t already doing? I don’t think they have the capability to just push BP aside and take over drilling a relief well, but if you have evidence to the contrary I’d certainly be interested to read it.
Well, as an outside observer I get the impression that BP is trying to do this as cheaply as possible, rather than as quickly as possible. Hence BP not beginning work on a relief well until its first three attempts to fix the leak failed.
This. In my opinion, the core of the libertarian view is that Person A should not be made to suffer by the government for Person B’s failure. Having the government perform the cleanup is not contrary to this view, as long as it is BP or Transocean and not the taxpayer in general that receives the bill.
That sounds fair to me. BP made the mess. they can either clean it up (if they ever get their shit together) or pay the bill for someone else to clean up their mess. As it is, I would say they should have a hefty bill to pay, for the damages caused already.
BP made a mess. The Gulf is now polluted, and sooner or later, all that oil will ride the Gulf Stream to other places. It affects the fisheries, the marshes and wetlands where new fishing stock breeds, any machinery that operates in the Gulf or uses its water for cooling, filtering, etc, beaches and vaction areas, tourist industries, etc etc etc etc ad infinitum. There is a big big ripple effect. The Gulf states will be dealing with the aftermath for a long long time. Expecting BP to clean it up and pay for damages is NOT the fascist boot heal of oppression. Maybe Mr Paul should stay out of it.