I'm guessing Dr. Rand Paul is unmoved by the BP oil spill live feed posted by the House Energy Independence and Global Warming committee. I imagine he views photos of oil coated wildlife with similar equanimity. After all, as Dr. Paul stated last week, accidents happen, right? And, if you follow his logic, the real tragedy of the BP Oil Spill is not, in fact, the destruction of sea turtles or fragile aquatic habitats, or even the loss of revenue and jobs for the fishing and tourism industries. Rather, according the Senate hopeful from Kentucky, the disaster in the Gulf underscores the Obama Administration's persecution of poor, defenseless British Petroleum.
In an interview with Good Morning America, Dr. Paul called the president "un-American" and referred to governmental efforts to hold BP accountable for the ecological mess a "boot heel on the throat" of the oil giant. He goes on to offer that, "[m]aybe sometimes accidents happen," referring to both the Gulf oil spill and the recent coal mining disaster. If I'm inferring correctly, the candidate apparently believes the government should not seek to recover damages from BP, despite the fact that the company's failure to prevent this accident is projected to cost U.S. businesses and citizens billions.
Dr. Paul agreed to the Good Morning America interview in order to clear up earlier comments that seemed to question the constitutionality of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. But the interview veered off into a range of issues that cut straight to the candidate's philosophy regarding the role of the federal government in regulating private industry.
In one particularly telling clip, the candidate indicated to Fox News that he had little use for either the EPA or OSHA, and complained they should get out of Kentucky's coal mining business. Yet, when pressed for a response to his own words, Dr. Paul visibly bristled, and stammered out some talking points that did more to muddy his position than to clarify it.
Conservatives, when discussing military matters (and guns, of course) like to pithily state that "freedom isn't free." I'd like to remind the senatorial candidate from Kentucky that neither is free enterprise. The natural resources of the both the oil deposits and the Kentucky coal mines are exploited by energy companies because the government provides the leases, and or healthy subsidies that help to finance such production. Dr. Paul seems to have no problem with government greasing the wheels for energy production, but then objects that placing safety and environmental restrictions on companies whose very function depends upon government investment is somehow unfair.
This is typical of the extreme, pro-business conservative. They lobby for tax breaks, subsidies, improvements in infrastructure, and manipulation of energy prices in order to keep their costs low. But I have yet to hear Rand Paul, or any other advocate of unfettered free markets, advocate that corporations build their own energy or telecommunications grid, pave their own roads, dig their own wells, inspect their own raw and finished materials, or provide their own police and fire protections. All of these, which are gifts from taxpayers via the federal government, bring bigger profits and increased productivity to corporations large and small. And the "small government" crowd accepts said gifts without so much as batting an eyelash.
However, ask these same corporations to clean up their own messes, to provide safe working conditions for their employees, to pay a living wage, to reasonably accommodate those who would patronize their businesses with an access ramp or an elevator, or to modify their business practices to preserve or protect some of our most treasured resources and habitats, and suddenly the small government crowd behaves like petulant, ungrateful children (see Wall Street Reform).
This is the problem with Rand Paul, and also with the larger Tea Party movement. They want all the benefits of large government, but with none of the costs or inconveniences associated with it. That's not conservatism. That's just magical thinking.
Ky. gov criticizes Paul's 'radical philosophy'
Rand Paul on Oil Spill - Get off of BP's throat... it's unAmerican
Freethought San Marcos: Rand Paul, private property, and rigid political ideology
For Democrats, a Tea Party Target
Federal officials lash out at BP
California Senator Barbara Boxer and Rand Paul at odds over BP fault in Gulf ...
Many "real" conservatives do not want all the benefits of a large government.
THIS IS AN OPEN FORUM. GIVE US YOUR REFERENCES, YOUR THOUGHTS. WE'RE AWAITING YOUR SWIFT REPLY.
Is that a good start?
PS: Capslock is not "cruise control for cool".
The homebuyer's tax credit and the Energy Star appliance tax credit.
The list is virtually endless.
Classic liberals, now known as libertarians, don't argue that the government has a role, albeit strictly defined and limited. Among it's major functions are national defense and fascilitating interstate trade, i.e. the federal highway system.
Federally subsidized student loans are one of the major reasons that the cost of higher education has literally skyrocketed.
Social Security? No. The vast majority of people don't need it.
Medicare - I'd be fine with this if there wasn't so much fraud and abuse from both providers and recipients.
Farm subsidies - No. The government should not be paying people NOT to grow something, nor should they prop up the price of favored goods at taxpayer expense. This is 2010 - if you can't make money farming without taxpayer help, it's not a profession - it's an expensive hobby.
Let those affected sue BP for damages. And make THEM clean it up. Obviously THE GOVERNMENT doesn't have a clue of what to do (except ask for money to do some unspecified thing).
Something needs to be done SOON! It has been over a month now and BP has yet to find a solution to this problem! Someone needs to tell BP to google "how to clean and recycle oil spill" and they will have the solution to this problem.
According to the United States Fish and Wildlife Services, there are 108 species listed as threatened or endangered in the state of Florida alone, a state who has just declared a state of emergency for 26 counties due to the Oil Spill, and an additional 154 listed in the surrounding States. Our economy right now can not handle the strain this will put on the entire Gulf region, so we need to act fast as concerned citizens ourselves. Please help by sharing this comment and/or link with your local news and radio stations http://pitch.pe/65751. Thank you in advance for helping to do our part in cleaning the oil spill ourselves.
This needs to be solved NOW!
Bush Sr called it "voodoo economics"; essentially that's "magical thinking".
Those evil "corporations" out there are the ones that provide most of the jobs, invent most of the products, provide the raw materials, and pay the taxes that make this country possible. When we, as a society, represented by our government, make an "investment" in order to help a corporation do more or do it better, it is because that investment will, most of the time, return direct benefits in the form of jobs, or essential products, or tax revenue.
When a government, at any level, gives assistance or incentive to businesses in order to increase their productivity or encourage growth, we all benefit. These are not "gifts" from the government; they are truly investments that pay a dividend to society. These investments aren't always the best ones, and their is corruption and disappointment, but when government acts to facilitate or encourage commerce, it is fulfilling its primary role in promoting the general welfare.
Large parts of our country, for instance, depend on coal for their electricity. This process has many drawbacks, but it is a product that most people don't want to do without. The local and federal governments assist this effort because the product it is absolutely essential for the continuing operation of our society. That's not "big government", it's a bare necessity.
I'd like to take issue with your first paragraph sir and hopefully you can clarify a few things.
Small business not large corporations provide most of the jobs.
The earth provides the raw materials, not corporations as you claim.
Individuals pay the bulk of the taxes in this country not large corporations.
...it's hard to take your arguments seriously when you lead off your paragraph with falsehoods.
Try again.
"The earth" doesn't provide. It exists. For the most part, it is only the industry, investment, and toil of people - working for corporations - that turn the potential of the earth into raw materials and other useful output.
It's true that most tax revenue comes from individuals, but most of those individuals - and especially those that pay most of the taxes - work for corporations. So, it is the successful and (pardon the term) profitable operation of the corporation that makes the tax revenue possible.
In the old days we didn't have a concentration of only 6 corporations that provide all of the "news". We didn't have Fox "News" blasting from every tv in every public place, propagandizing us and making everyone feel that this tiny minority of religious-hate-filled-whackjobs, anti-goverment-secessionist-racists and free-market-Reaganomics-flat-earth -Thomas-Friedmann-crackpipe-smokin-crackpots who believe that the earth is only 6,000 years old matter in the least. We would have laughed at them.
http://elect.ky.gov/register.htm
All we need do is look to China as an example. Or the toxic dumps and poisoned lakes found in the former Soviet Union. And if we look to the past, we see things were even worse. Upton Sinclair's 'The Jungle' focused on the miserable lives of exploited workers in the meat packing industry. Black lung disease plagued coal miners of old. The death toll due to the negligence or lack of concern of the rich for the poor is historical proof that corporations absolutely cannot be let off the leash without dire consequences.
Without laws enforced by government and mostly voluntary adherence to them due to universal education, there would be no mechanism to pool investors’ resources and operate them, no stockholders, no intellectual or corporate property rights. Such laws evolved from the 17th century to the present. Government pays for codifying and enforcing laws and for universal education that enables us to follow them coherently..
Without an effective transportation infrastructure, largely paid for by government including the education for how business and individuals can use it jointly, policed by government to eliminate "highway robbery" as a cost of business, businesses couldn't deal with large markets without building in the cost of private security forces and weeks to transport goods.
The list goes on, but Rand Paul and other juvenile politicians lack any sense of the intimate involvement of a healthy government in any successful business; a role for which most large businesses already get a free ride! They are the greatest recipients of welfare, much of which the executives suck out of the companies to pad their compensations. We have created “hot house” corporations that couldn’t exist in a cold cruel world.
Of course, we do want government facilitation of industry and trade. This benefits our citizens. We also want government regulation and standardization to improve the quality and productivity of industry and trade. This benefits citizens and corporations alike.
If you think there are no intrinisic conflicts between corporate interests and those of citizens, then I suggest you need to re-examine your position. I started 4 companies, 2 successful, and was a CEO for 16 years.... I fully appreciate the benefits of corporations to society, but worked with intrinsic conflicts between the two for most of my career. There is nothing "wrong" with intrinsic conflicts.... they just are and must be properly managed, they can never be resolved. I've posted several essays on this subject on my blog. One of them is :
http://www.dismountingourtiger.com/business-health/how-we-abuse-entitlements-and-mismanage-intrinsic-conflicts-to-cripple-our-nation-part-2/