Re: Drill, baby, Drill! Environmentalists Have the Last Laugh.
Nope - nobody is having a laugh. Just a great big "I told you so".
Speaking of which, where are all the loud mouth Tea Baggers?
Up to just a month ago they were shouting shttt from here to Kingdom come but have clammed up all of a sudden. NO GOVERNMENT they screamed but are now begging for government handouts:
Thomas Frank: Laissez-Faire Meets the Oil Spill - WSJ.com
Lassez-Faire Meets the Oil Spill
Among the chatterati these days the favorite topic of conjecture is what the catastrophic Gulf oil spill means for President Obama. Pundits argue hotly over the correct historical comparison: Will the spill prove to be his Hurricane Katrina? His Three Mile Island? Or maybe his Iranian Hostage Crisis?
Meanwhile, a strange reticence has taken hold of Mr. Obama's ideological opponents. Where are the livid patriots who enthralled us for months with their fevered dreams of a socialist-minded, power-hungry federal government?
Only a short while ago, of course, the populist right was riding high, sweeping the primaries and insisting that the operations of the market must not be interfered with; that government intervention of even the slightest kind dangerously diminishes human freedom.
Just last week, for example, the Washington Post featured a 2,500-word essay by Arthur C. Brooks, head of the American Enterprise Institute, calling for a "New Culture War" for laissez-faire capitalism—a grand moral debate over the right relationship of business and government that Mr. Brooks felt his side was sure to win.
Well, the Gulf spill has given Mr. Brooks and his movement the perfect opportunity to stage that debate. On one side, we've got the liberty-minded oil companies, the gentle giants that, just two months ago, the right was so keen to liberate from federal interference and to unleash on the nation's coastline.
And on the side of government, we've got the Obama administration, which has backtracked on its new offshore-drilling policy and even announced plans to beef up drilling regulations. True, for most Americans that's not a lot of statism to deplore, but the tea party movement is accustomed to regard even the most insignificant regulatory initiative as a front in the eternal war between freedom and socialism.
Back in April, for example, Rep. Ron Paul (R., Texas) greeted the president's drilling policy with the suggestion that the Environmental Protection Agency be abolished and "the energy market" freed from bureaucrats so that it might answer to "the demands of the people and the decisions of private investors."
But what say the tea partiers today? Who will step forward now and demand that the "energy market" be rescued from regulatory bondage?
Other than Rand Paul, who will honor the snakeflag slogan and demand that the government stop treading on BP? Who will unmask the Gulf situation as just another fake crisis manufactured by power-hungry liberals? Who will lament the persecution of productive business executives by the looters of Washington, D.C., posturing so arrogantly in their hearing rooms but trembling in private as they contemplate the tsunami of liberty heading their way this November?
Most importantly, who will find an inventive way to blame government for the disaster? Not blame it for reacting too slowly after the spill—that is merely a statist reflex in disguise—but for somehow causing the spill with its meddlesome concerns for safety and the environment?
WHERE ARE THE TEA BAGGERS???????????
Nope - nobody is having a laugh. Just a great big "I told you so".
Speaking of which, where are all the loud mouth Tea Baggers?
Up to just a month ago they were shouting shttt from here to Kingdom come but have clammed up all of a sudden. NO GOVERNMENT they screamed but are now begging for government handouts:
Thomas Frank: Laissez-Faire Meets the Oil Spill - WSJ.com
Lassez-Faire Meets the Oil Spill
Among the chatterati these days the favorite topic of conjecture is what the catastrophic Gulf oil spill means for President Obama. Pundits argue hotly over the correct historical comparison: Will the spill prove to be his Hurricane Katrina? His Three Mile Island? Or maybe his Iranian Hostage Crisis?
Meanwhile, a strange reticence has taken hold of Mr. Obama's ideological opponents. Where are the livid patriots who enthralled us for months with their fevered dreams of a socialist-minded, power-hungry federal government?
Only a short while ago, of course, the populist right was riding high, sweeping the primaries and insisting that the operations of the market must not be interfered with; that government intervention of even the slightest kind dangerously diminishes human freedom.
Just last week, for example, the Washington Post featured a 2,500-word essay by Arthur C. Brooks, head of the American Enterprise Institute, calling for a "New Culture War" for laissez-faire capitalism—a grand moral debate over the right relationship of business and government that Mr. Brooks felt his side was sure to win.
Well, the Gulf spill has given Mr. Brooks and his movement the perfect opportunity to stage that debate. On one side, we've got the liberty-minded oil companies, the gentle giants that, just two months ago, the right was so keen to liberate from federal interference and to unleash on the nation's coastline.
And on the side of government, we've got the Obama administration, which has backtracked on its new offshore-drilling policy and even announced plans to beef up drilling regulations. True, for most Americans that's not a lot of statism to deplore, but the tea party movement is accustomed to regard even the most insignificant regulatory initiative as a front in the eternal war between freedom and socialism.
Back in April, for example, Rep. Ron Paul (R., Texas) greeted the president's drilling policy with the suggestion that the Environmental Protection Agency be abolished and "the energy market" freed from bureaucrats so that it might answer to "the demands of the people and the decisions of private investors."
But what say the tea partiers today? Who will step forward now and demand that the "energy market" be rescued from regulatory bondage?
Other than Rand Paul, who will honor the snakeflag slogan and demand that the government stop treading on BP? Who will unmask the Gulf situation as just another fake crisis manufactured by power-hungry liberals? Who will lament the persecution of productive business executives by the looters of Washington, D.C., posturing so arrogantly in their hearing rooms but trembling in private as they contemplate the tsunami of liberty heading their way this November?
Most importantly, who will find an inventive way to blame government for the disaster? Not blame it for reacting too slowly after the spill—that is merely a statist reflex in disguise—but for somehow causing the spill with its meddlesome concerns for safety and the environment?
WHERE ARE THE TEA BAGGERS???????????
