With the masses screaming for every sort of lynching imaginable, The gulf disaster is an immense gift for Obama and the czars. While nationalizing (to any extent) BP would doubtless bring pleasure to Che’ Hollywood, I suspect he’ll opt for the more lucrative option, i.e., using the incident as political capital.

First, exactly what would qualify a team of bureaucratic goons to better handle the situation than those who’ve spent their engineering and scientific careers in the industry? Just like handing an iPad to a caveman, government would have neither the intellectual ability nor the proper motivation necessary for efficacy. Moreover, “receivership” would have the political baggage of constituent outrage from at least some segment (albeit minor) of our population. Even though most Americans don’t understand the proper role of government, there are now more of those with the awareness that they *should* know, and who are on the lookout for the statist machine which steamrolled the auto and healthcare industries. I don’t think this administration would dare risk the potential backlash (from even a small segment of voters) that would result if they assumed any type official dominance over BP.

Instead, consider the widespread anti-business and environmental rage that this ordeal has invoked, and how that rage could be funneled into a moral crusade with enough leverage to push through cap-n-trade and/or virtually any other suite of environmentally oriented regulations and economic controls.

Can a pragmatist think long(er)-term?

Why risk it when they can play it safe and hit the power jackpot? Why offend 30% of the population for a quickie when you can coddle 90% of them and get a lusty lifetime affair? What tyrant would trade short-term power with a political cost for long-term, farther reaching power which also bolsters their political image? Who was it that said “never let a crisis go to waste“?

This event could be the most generous gift of political capital the thug administration could wish for. Who knows, maybe they did?

This entry was posted on Friday, June 4th, 2010 at 12:14 pm and is filed under Environmentalism, Statism. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.