Spilling Effects

When it comes to the secrecy surrounding the oil leak, there's both good news and bad news this week. On the bright side, the Coast Guard has pulled back from its policy of barring reporters from a 65-foot zone around the cleanup efforts. Less happily, when Rep. Paul Broun (R-Ga.) introduced an amendment to codify the more permissive access rules, the effort went nowhere.

Comments

[Pablo]

What the hell kind of political philosophy does this Paul Broun follow? Isn't he that guy who tried to keep the troops overseas from having access to Playboy?

[John Thacker]

Yes, that's him. There's also this article on him.

Feel free to attempt to categorize him. Seems like a political philosophy of the government shouldn't be involved in much, but should be free to, e.g., ban the sale of Playboys in the bases that it runs.

[prolefeed]

I believe it's called the political philosophy of being against government interference in our lives, unless that costs him too many votes.

This is somewhat better than the political philosophy of sending your grandmother to a Siberian gulag if that gets you even a single net vote. This is the default political philosophy of politicians, AFAIK.

[John Thacker]

It's also the old conundrum that often splits the left and right libertarians. "Sure, we agree that the government shouldn't be in this business if things were perfect, but now that it is, what should it do?"

See also the arguments about fetal stem cell research (remember that W. didn't ban private research, just federal funding), and the question of given government healthcare, what sort of rationing should go on.

[prolefeed]

I wouldn't call that a conundrum. Advocate for the perfect, but settle for even the tiniest net improvement in freedom over the status quo if you can get it.

[John Thacker]

Advocate for the perfect, but settle for even the tiniest net improvement in freedom over the status quo if you can get it.

Really? Which is the net improvement in freedom, less political interference in what research projects are selected, or the government avoiding getting in one area by not funding research?

Once you have government schools, do particular curriculum choices necessarily cause net improvements in freedom?

I don't think that many of those cases are easy calls at all.

[prolefeed]

Re: government healthcare, the appropriate libertarian response should be: you made this mess. You try to fix the unfixable, and I'll vote against pretty much everything.

It's not really a conundrum if the people who broke it are also incompetent to fix it. Politicians who are knee-jerk supporters of bigger government can be relied upon to propose "fixes" that further decrease liberty.

You could vote against 95%+ of the legislation coming out of Congress and be on the right side of more freedom on all those votes.

[http://www.case-diy.com]

Yes, but you forget who will be ruling over Hell and not serving in Heaven.

[Jesse Walker]

He's basically a right-wing populist.

[John Thacker]

So long as you note that he's a right-wing populist who is against the Drug War-- e.g., supported a bill to call off raids by the Drug Enforcement Administration on medical marijuana distributors, etc.

He's sort of close to Ron Paul, considering that Paul has a lot of right-wing cultural views.

[Jesse Walker]

I've encountered more than one right-wing populist who opposes some or all of the drug war. Populism comes in many flavors.

[John Thacker]

True enough.

Do you consider Ron Paul a right-wing populist? Or a right-wing populist libertarian? I sort of think that you have to, especially with his votes that please populists (against free trade agreements) for ostensible libertarian reasons.

[Jesse Walker]

I think "right-wing populist libertarian" fits Paul.

[Tulpa]

I guess the question is, who isn't a populist then?

[Jesse Walker]

Leona Helmsley and C. Everett Koop.

[mr simple]

Per CNBC the oil has stopped flowing into the gulf.

[?]

Broun's "right-wing cultural views" seem perfectly calculated to piss off the people who (really) edit Wikipedia. That's cool. They're assholes.

[prolefeed]

It's the Democratic version of the Republicans preventing coverage of all the flag-wrapped coffins returning from the Middle East (I'm assuming Obama is continuing the coffin policy too).

[The Gobbler]

No, that ban has ended (true that), but for some reason no one wants to take the pictures anymore.

Obama lied,
Soldiers died.

[Grouchy]

You know what pisses me off? When I click to the second page of an article and there is a single goddamned sentence.

The Toy Story 3 article, fix it.

[prolefeed]

I just don't click to the second page of those articles any more. Tired of being pwned like that. Three pages or more, sure, then I'll click.

[Barack Obama]

Per CNBC the oil has stopped flowing into the gulf.

Phew, that's good, because I was sick of Sasha yelling at me to "plug the damn hole, daddy!" Also, BP was running out of options that my administration would allow them to try.

The next ry was to use Proactiv to stop the oil from flowing. (That suggestion came from Malia.)

[Mike M.]

Congratulations on capping the well Barry!

Now, stop trying to illegally shut down the domestic oil industry, you jackass.

[The Unborn]

Ron Paul is for our right to live. That makes him more of a Libertarian - against the initiation of force.

[Hobie Hanson]

Unless your parents came from Mexico illegally, anchor fetus.

[cynical]

No, he still supports your right to live... in Mexico. Unless you're saying that's a fate worse than death, which would be a little racist.

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