Author: Shannon Rodgers (25 Articles)
First, President Obama did not cause the oil spill. No one reading this believes he did and those who are spewing such things are blinded by Obama Derangement Syndrome. Second, President Obama takes advice from those around him and I cannot believe that for political purposes, they encouraged him to ignore the law mandating that his office coordinate spill abatement activities while the spill worsened. Granted, he listened to them when they suggested that standing on an oil tainted beach with bussed in “cleanup crews” who left with him, would make things better. These are all minor issues we all seem to have with his response to this disaster. In the end, we have to admit that there are few things President Obama can do, or could have done, to make things any different than they are.
Why then are progressives just as unhappy as conservatives with his reaction, or lack thereof? Is one perspective accurate and the other politics? The answer to these questions can be reduced to the heart of all the modern day debates about the appropriate roll of a national government in a modern society. In a word, it is about theology. This story serves to contrast the two apposing perspectives.
First, progressives believe that intellect and ideology are more important than experience. They believe that a person who has the greater good at heart, will draw better conclusions than someone with their own self interest at heart, intelligent or otherwise. They believe that all intelligent people come to the same conclusion, that serving the greater good of humanity always leads the intellectual to the correct answer, in other words, the perfect solution. Looking after one’s own personal interests seems not only selfish to the progressive, but inefficient as it cannot lead to more than an imperfect, self serving solution.
Second, conservatives believe, as the founders did, that individuals seeking to better their individual lives discover the best answers in a world where almost all answers are compromises in outcome. They believe the more complex the variables, the more likely the answer will be a compromise. In other words, there are no perfect solutions, but everyone can adopt the solution that minimizes the compromises most important to the individual while maximizing the benefits most important to the individual.
As it relates to the oil spill, the progressive believes that the collective intellect, concentrated in academia and national government, better considerers appropriate action than leaving private individuals and groups of individuals called companies to consider the risks of doing business and preparing to meet their responsibilities. Progressives passed a law, the Oil Pollution Act, et. al. which put coordinating oil spill discharge abatement and cleanup funding and coordination squarely in the federal responsibility column. They used the crisis of the Exxon Valdez spill as an example of the imperfect disaster response produced by the private sector. This act limited the liability of an individual company and put the responsibility on the taxpayer. The result is a skewed view of liability and responsibility and more potentially catastrophic, the view of risk tolerance. The EPA describes it like this,
The Oil Pollution Act (OPA) was signed into law in August 1990, largely in response to rising public concern following the Exxon Valdez incident. The OPA improved the nation’s ability to prevent and respond to oil spills by establishing provisions that expand the federal government’s ability, and provide the money and resources necessary, to respond to oil spills. The OPA also created the national Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund, which is available to provide up to one billion dollars per spill incident.
(Please know that I am sure this was written by some public relations liaison or similar who liked the way this sounds, without any concern that it gives insight into the liberal leanings of the writer or that taking it grammatically literally changes the meaning to one that could not have been intended. I suspect the writer was more interested in saying thank you for the increased funding than in stating liberal intent. But the hair splitter in me must be appeased. – Shannon)
Consider carefully the wording. It was in response to, “public concern.” It was not in response to cleanup technology or techniques, but in response to opinion. No politician ever poled public understanding of technology or techniques, they all pole opinion. The assumption was that the shortcomings in the Valdez spill response were not human or technological shortcomings or the best combination of compromises, but an imperfect response when a more perfect one obviously existed, evidenced by public opinion.
Second, and more profoundly, the assertion that the, “OPA improved the nation’s ability . . . by establishing provisions.” This statement asserts that such national ability improving provisions are affective by, “expand[ing] the federal government’s ability.” Can one really say that, “our nation’s ability to prevent and respond to oil spills” shows any signs of improvement? Just as confusing is the assertion that our abilities improved, “by establishing provisions that expand the federal government’s ability to prevent and respond to spills.” I read this as asserting that simply writing “provisions” to expand federal government abilities, increased the nation’s abilities. Remember for a minute that the federal government gets its “money and resources,” its abilities, from the nation. The presumption and blatant statement is that simply shifting money and resources, and by doing so transferring responsibility and authority, from state governments, individuals and companies of individuals to the federal government, improved the nation’s abilities to prevent spills. How is that working out.
Ok, so what does this have to do with the collective diametric ideologues’ agreement to be offended with the President’s response? There are two areas where big government is the appropriate blunt instrument. One is when a hindrance is wanted to deter some behavior, such as controlling immigration or the import of dangerous materials like e coli tainted lettuce from Mexico. The second is when we want something done which has no immediate economic justification but has general populace support, like putting a man on the moon or using the military to spread democracy and free markets.
The progressives believe that the President had everything he needed to save the Gulf region because he had authority and resources to do so, but did nothing. The President could have denied requests for safety waivers, perhaps preventing the spill, and could have commandeered cleanup vessels and started burning off excess oil after the spill, in accordance with the established safety plan. He did none of these things. The conservatives are unhappy because the blunt instruments of hindrance were not waived when the circumstance warranted it. The environmental hindrances to private development have been misapplied to disaster prevention and the Gulf state’s governments are awaiting permits pending environmental review intended to derail said private development. Oil skimming boats sent by other governments are being held pending safety inspections, not inspections to prevent damage or injury to Americans and our property, but to prevent danger to their crews. They are checking to see if they have enough life boats, life jackets, and fire extinguishers to be allowed into our waters. These people came in the boats they work in every day, to waters patrolled by the U.S. Coast Guard, a decidedly safer condition than they left behind, only to be stopped for their own safety.
Simply, progressives consider President Obama a traitor. He must certainly have access to the best liberal intellects and therefore must be able to determine the best solution. They decide the only reason he would not implement such a solution, must be to better himself politically at the expense of the Gulf ecology. This is not just traitorous, but blasphemous to their theology. They see him as having said the right (left) things to get elected but was not a true believer.
Conservatives see a President who surrounds himself with legal experts in legal hindrance, who refuses to talk to the experts in private industry because he does not trust them to be honest with him. Why would a private expert (even one working for BP) not be honest with the President, especially when it is their shinny hinny’s on the line? The conservative believes his reason is based in the theological belief that all oil industry employees are evil, selfish and insincere.
There are only two things in my opinion that President Obama could possibly do to help things in the Gulf. Both are contrary to his theology. Recognizing that they are nonetheless the most feasible compromise, could establish him as a great leader. First, he could suspend the hindrance culture and let the experts do their thing. Second, he could convene a group of BP-competitor experts to determine how to put the proverbial man on the moon. They have self interest motivation and expertise. The worst he could do, and I suspect will do with religious conviction, is to convene a group of Harvard Law professors to decide who’s ass to kick, and threaten criminal prosecution of those responsible. In other words, listen to his cabinet and advisors.
If he continues to float the idea that he might hold people on the lost oil rig criminally responsible post mortem, I predict he will be contemplating what went wrong, post Gulf economy, and ultimately post political defeat.