The Horns of a Mantra

The right wing sits on the horns of a dilemma when addressing the issue of government regulation of and intervention in the corporate sector.  After arguing vociferously and repeatedly that the federal government had no business intervening in the financial products industry when it was imploding, they now have to argue as loudly and as often that the same bodies didn't intervene enough to prevent a catastrophe in another powerful industry:  oil, of course.  The logic they used to spin the former is diametrically opposed to the logic they have to use to spin the BP fiasco negatively.

The discrepancy raises multiple questions.  "Do you support regulation of corporate giants or not?"  "Should some industries be regulated and others not?  If so, why?"  "Are some corporations and/or industries more equal than others?"  "How do you reconcile ignoring the probable collapse of the entire financial system and supporting tying the government's hands to intervene with a position that accuses the government of not intervening enough in a similarly large and powerful industry?"  "Furthermore, what does any of this do to close the hole in the ocean?"

Governments, by their nature, can be either constructive or destructive.  They can tear down, or they can build up.  They can make an affordable college education available to anyone who’s qualified, or they can relegate advanced education, by default, to the more privileged students who can afford the exorbitant tuition, fees and books that now prevail.  They can provide every citizen with quality health care available somewhere other than an emergency room.   They can also provide emergency services, like police officers, fire fighters and EMT’s on the scene quickly because of the 911 system.

Government is not evil by definition.  It can be over-reaching or oblivious.  Defining the border between the two is a no-man’s-land like the DMZ in Korea.  Government either provides the structure that allows a people to flourish while protecting them, or it ignores the people all together. 

Those are the choices at the end of most days:  protect and maybe over-reach or ignore.

The critics of the administration basically say that it did not over-reach far enough.  My response is that they can’t have it both ways.  Trying to do so is fundamentally hypocritical and dishonest on every level.  I would not be surprised if the most vocal critics of the administration’s response took the most money from the oil companies they’re supposed to regulate but didn’t because “regulation is bad”.

I think that mantra is dead, laying on the floor of the Gulf of Mexico next to a geyser of oil that doesn’t want to stop.