Conservatism's Death Gusher

[CrusaderFrank]

Corporate greed destroyed the Gulf.

BP was spending a $1 million dollars a day on the well, and they couldn't wait, so over the objections of the drillmaster, BP's exectutive ordered them to pump seawater into the well instead of heavy mud.

That's the reason the well blew up.

Corporate greed, pure and simple.

The economy collapsed for the same reason.

Right, seawater killed the economy.

 

[HUGGY]

I don't think anybody seriously believed there was "zero risk." There is no such thing. But no rational person should over-react when a risk is realized.

For example: There is a risk associated with driving motor vehicles. One manifestation of it is a US motor vehicle associated death rate of somewhere around 30 thousand per year (33,963 in 2009).

We don't react to that by putting a moratorium on using motor vehicles. Why? Because we judge that the benefits of using motor vehicles exceed the manifestation of the risk. We look at ways of reducing the risk and implement them. Sometimes we go overboard on that front. At least that's what I think. But we do not panic and say, "NO MORE DRIVING MOTOR VEHICLES UNTIL WE REDUCE THE RISK TO ZERO!!!!"

So we have had one major deepwater drilling adverse event now. It's not going to destroy the Gulf environment. People have already identifed actions and/or lack of actions that could have reduced the risk. A moratorium on deepwater drilling in the Gulf is going to hurt the Gulf region more than the oil spill is going to hurt it. It is insane.

Deepwater drilling proceeded for decades without a major accident. So what are the odds that there would be another major accident over six months? Very low; especially in an atomosphere in which people are going to be very careful about it. The risk is going to be lower than it was during the decades during which no major events occured.

Could another major event occur over the next six months? Sure. It's possible. I once read a about a guy who won a lottery in the midwestern state, moved to Florida, played the lottery in Florida, and won the lottery in that state too. Unlikely things do happen. But it's still unlikely. The fact that the risk was realized once doesn't change that. People do win the lottery. But it doesn't mean it's likely...at all...that you are going to win the lottery next time you go out and buy a lottery ticket.

And after six months, there will still be a risk. No matter what we do, that will be the case. The already small risk may be somewhat smaller. But there will be a risk. And if we outlawed oil entirely there would be risks associated with that as well.

Meanwhile, if they stop deepwater drilling in the Gulf for six months it's not going to be a situation where they lift the moratorium things will go back to normal. The deepwater rigs will be gone. They will have taken other contracts and they will not be available.

You are an idiot. There are more holes in that bullshit than I have time to point out and respond to. That on about losing the deepwater rigs is about as stupid asit gets..What happened ..did we run out of steel?.

 

[LuckyDan]

Corporate greed destroyed the Gulf.

BP was spending a $1 million dollars a day on the well, and they couldn't wait, so over the objections of the drillmaster, BP's exectutive ordered them to pump seawater into the well instead of heavy mud.

That's the reason the well blew up.

Corporate greed, pure and simple.

The economy collapsed for the same reason.

Right, seawater killed the economy.

And the genius of it is, seawater is free! No that's how to maximize profits. Brilliant.

Now to put these bogus claims to death.

 

[CrusaderFrank]

Notice how diabolically clever we Conservatives are.

Did we stop ObamaCare? No!

Did we privitize SocSec? No!

What did we do? We went right for the jugular and pumped seawater when we should have pumped mud.

I wouldn't want to meet up with any Conservatives in a dark alley. We're killaz!

I've read a lot of moronic Lib OP's and articles but, damn! The OP here is a hoot!

 

[The T]

Corrupt relationships between corporate bigwigs and Interior Department staff bureaucrats isn't laissez-faire, numbnuts.

But then I saw that George Lakoff was the writer of that dreck, hence intellectual honesty went straight down the crapper.

Rhymes with Whackoff...

What Whackoff an Bfgrn still have to come to grips with is that Life on the planet is not without risk...and that includes the endeavour by BP and other Corporations.

Hell? To read this shit? Life is unfair...and Conservatives are the authors.

Synopsis? Conservatives are responsible for everything...Good and bad.

No one wants to take responsibility for themselves or the risks of LIFE itself. Everyone is a victim at the hands of Conservatives. And these Statists will exact their punishment on Conservatives just for Statists being alive.

Perhaps this is why Statists favour Abortion? To save future generations from becoming slaves to Gubmint?

'Nuff said.

 

[Oddball]

Actually, that's really not 'nuf said.

One of Whackoff's frequently recurring themes (I've listened to a few of his lectures on cable) is framing issues. The central feature of his diatribes is how republicans are the stern martinet father figure and progressive Fabian democratics are the sexually ambiguous "nurturing" parent.

What apparently either hasn't occurred to him or that he distracts from (a much more likely probability), is the fact that his model puts gubmint in the role of parent and the hoi polloy in the role of subservient little children.

And ivory tower dwelling elitist snobs like him wonder how they come to be deemed ivory tower dwelling elitist snobs.

 

[Bfgrn]

Corrupt relationships between corporate bigwigs and Interior Department staff bureaucrats isn't laissez-faire, numbnuts.

But then I saw that George Lakoff was the writer of that dreck, hence intellectual honesty went straight down the crapper.

Hey Jethro, mommy and daddy were sleeping and you decided you could handle this one without adult supervision...BIG mistake.

As an adult, I will stand in as a surrogate...

Here is the pretext you need to read son, because you have made a gross cognitive error. But we are used to it. And don't fret, it's not as bad as when you tried to put a telephone in the truck when you wanted to be a double naught spy.

It was conservative, laissez-faire, free-market ideology - that maximizing profit comes first - that led to:

* the corrupt relationship between the oil companies and the Interior Department staff that was supposedly regulating them

 

[CrusaderFrank]

Corrupt relationships between corporate bigwigs and Interior Department staff bureaucrats isn't laissez-faire, numbnuts.

But then I saw that George Lakoff was the writer of that dreck, hence intellectual honesty went straight down the crapper.

Hey Jethro, mommy and daddy were sleeping and you decided you could handle this one without adult supervision...BIG mistake.

As an adult, I will stand in as a surrogate...

Here is the pretext you need to read son, because you have made a gross cognitive error. But we are used to it. And don't fret, it's not as bad as when you tried to put a telephone in the truck when you wanted to be a double naught spy.

It was conservative, laissez-faire, free-market ideology - that maximizing profit comes first - that led to:

* the corrupt relationship between the oil companies and the Interior Department staff that was supposedly regulating them

Right, deep sea drilling is totally unregulated!

What a total fucking retard!

Conservatives managed to carve out deep water drilling as the one and only place where we rule.

Total Fucking Retard. Send this to Rahm Emanuel and tell him you want to be a Democrat politician.

 

[Oddball]

Corrupt relationships between corporate bigwigs and Interior Department staff bureaucrats isn't laissez-faire, numbnuts.

But then I saw that George Lakoff was the writer of that dreck, hence intellectual honesty went straight down the crapper.

Hey Jethro, mommy and daddy were sleeping and you decided you could handle this one without adult supervision...BIG mistake.

As an adult, I will stand in as a surrogate...

Here is the pretext you need to read son, because you have made a gross cognitive error. But we are used to it. And don't fret, it's not as bad as when you tried to put a telephone in the truck when you wanted to be a double naught spy.

It was conservative, laissez-faire, free-market ideology - that maximizing profit comes first - that led to:

* the corrupt relationship between the oil companies and the Interior Department staff that was supposedly regulating them

That ain't laissez-faire you imbecile...It's the corporatism you usually rail against when you don't have a bigger booger man (Big Oil in this instance) to scapegoat. Moreover, the premise is that maximizing profits is, as a matter of course and necessity, what businessmen operating in a free market model prioritize first and foremost is another strawman argument.

Best go back to playing a Double Nut spy, fool.

 

[Bfgrn]

Corrupt relationships between corporate bigwigs and Interior Department staff bureaucrats isn't laissez-faire, numbnuts.

But then I saw that George Lakoff was the writer of that dreck, hence intellectual honesty went straight down the crapper.

Hey Jethro, mommy and daddy were sleeping and you decided you could handle this one without adult supervision...BIG mistake.

As an adult, I will stand in as a surrogate...

Here is the pretext you need to read son, because you have made a gross cognitive error. But we are used to it. And don't fret, it's not as bad as when you tried to put a telephone in the truck when you wanted to be a double naught spy.

It was conservative, laissez-faire, free-market ideology - that maximizing profit comes first - that led to:

* the corrupt relationship between the oil companies and the Interior Department staff that was supposedly regulating them

That ain't laissez-faire you imbecile...It's the corporatism you usually rail against when you don't have a bigger booger man (Big Oil in this instance) to scapegoat. Moreover, the premise is that maximizing profits is, as a matter of course and necessity, what businessmen operating in a free market model prioritize first and foremost is another strawman argument.

Best go back to playing a Double Nut spy, fool.

Again...boy you must wear out mommy and daddy if they're still sleeping.

Literally, laissez-faire is French for "let it be."

It was conservative, "let it be", free-market ideology - that maximizing profit comes first - that led to:

* the corrupt relationship between the oil companies and the Interior Department staff that was supposedly regulating them

 

[Oddball]

You're a tool and a hack.

Mercantilism and corporatism are not laissez-faire.

Your and Whackoff's strawman building project are towering fails.

 

[Bfgrn]

You're a tool and a hack.

Mercantilism and corporatism are not laissez-faire.

Your and Whackoff's strawman building project are towering fails.

Is your problem a mental block or just a lack of?

Let's try this, maybe a light will go on.

It was conservative, laissez-faire (leave it alone), free-market ideology - that maximizing profit comes first - that led to:

* Mercantilism and corporatism (the corrupt relationship between the oil companies and the Interior Department staff that was supposedly regulating them)

 

[editec]

Krill, Baby! Krill!​

 

[JohnStOnge]

BF, what I"m getting at is that it's not the disaster it's being portrayed as. Are some animals dying? Yes. Is it something that is destroying the Gulf environment? No.

I was out there again today making observations. It's not that bad. The media get out there and focus on the worse case vicinities. But what you're seeing in the media does not represent the overall picture. What you're seeing is extremely biased.

Actually, our response to what's happening is doing a whole lot more damage than the event itself is doing. I'm not talking about the response in terms of containing, cleaning up, and stopping the oil flow. I'm talking about the psychological response that results in things like closing areas to fishing when there's not really a health hazard, avoiding Gulf beaches when most people wouldn't even notice anything if they hadn't been watching news accounts, and (yes) putting a moratorium on deepwater drilling.

This is NOT a huge environmental disaster ecologically. It really isn't. The Gulf environment will recover from this very quickly. And actually it isn't even substantially impeded by it. The general public perception due to media accounts and the reality are two totally different things.

 

[georgephillip]

The kind of death gushing at ten thousand pounds per square inch from a mile below the surface of the sea.

The laissez-faire, free-market driven death of eleven workers and unknowable thousands of sea birds, sea turtles, dolphins, fish, oyster beds, shrimp, beaches, and a way of life based on the beauty and bounty of the Gulf coast.

It's at least ironic that many of the Gulf residents most affected by BP's profit driven death pageant are rock-ribbed, right-wing Republicans blind to the possibility that conservatism itself is largely responsible for the destruction of their economic existence.

George Lakoff argues it's the conservative worldview which gives man dominion over nature, that nature exists for human monetary profit that allows self identified conservatives to love and appreciate the beauty of the Gulf prior to the Death Gusher, yet be incapable of considering the culpability of laissez-faire markets and the absolute right to profit from nature as a systemic cause of tens of thousands of barrels of death a day.

"(Conservatives) will not be able to see the causal role of conservatism itself in the Death Gusher, and in the conservative ideology of greed and death that has given us the global... disaster(s) we now face worldwide."

"Conservatism gushes death - and not only in the Gulf of Mexico."

 

[Bfgrn]

BF, what I"m getting at is that it's not the disaster it's being portrayed as. Are some animals dying? Yes. Is it something that is destroying the Gulf environment? No.

I was out there again today making observations. It's not that bad. The media get out there and focus on the worse case vicinities. But what you're seeing in the media does not represent the overall picture. What you're seeing is extremely biased.

Actually, our response to what's happening is doing a whole lot more damage than the event itself is doing. I'm not talking about the response in terms of containing, cleaning up, and stopping the oil flow. I'm talking about the psychological response that results in things like closing areas to fishing when there's not really a health hazard, avoiding Gulf beaches when most people wouldn't even notice anything if they hadn't been watching news accounts, and (yes) putting a moratorium on deepwater drilling.

This is NOT a huge environmental disaster ecologically. It really isn't. The Gulf environment will recover from this very quickly. And actually it isn't even substantially impeded by it. The general public perception due to media accounts and the reality are two totally different things.

I sincerely hope and pray you are right, but I am very skeptical of your dismissal of the impact it will have on the environment and people's lives, not because of media coverage or psychological factors. It will be because of realities that have not manifested yet.

I concur that some of the response to this disaster has exacerbated the situation. But again it is not media or psychological. I believe BP's use of EPA banned toxic dispersants will create serious health issues for workers cleaning up the spill. Already there are signs of it. And workers are forbidden from wearing any protective gear. They will be fired if they do. It sure appears BP is more concerned with hiding the seriousness of this and limiting their liabilities.

Time will tell...

 

[Soggy in NOLA]

Oh great, another thread blaming the oil spill on Bush and Cheney. How imaginative. Now, a great complimentary piece would be how only conservatives benefit from petroleum.

 

[Big Fitz]

Corrupt relationships between corporate bigwigs and Interior Department staff bureaucrats isn't laissez-faire, numbnuts.

But then I saw that George Lakoff was the writer of that dreck, hence intellectual honesty went straight down the crapper.

It is the very definition of laissez-faire.

Lassaiez Faire would not tolerate government regulation of the industry. This was a collusion between government and big business to subvert regulations in which both sides profited. Now, the government's hung BP out to dry like a dirty cop.

That's more of what's been going on these last few years... not lassaiez faire but 'dirty cop' capitalism.

 

[Soggy in NOLA]

BF, what I"m getting at is that it's not the disaster it's being portrayed as. Are some animals dying? Yes. Is it something that is destroying the Gulf environment? No.

I was out there again today making observations. It's not that bad. The media get out there and focus on the worse case vicinities. But what you're seeing in the media does not represent the overall picture. What you're seeing is extremely biased.

Actually, our response to what's happening is doing a whole lot more damage than the event itself is doing. I'm not talking about the response in terms of containing, cleaning up, and stopping the oil flow. I'm talking about the psychological response that results in things like closing areas to fishing when there's not really a health hazard, avoiding Gulf beaches when most people wouldn't even notice anything if they hadn't been watching news accounts, and (yes) putting a moratorium on deepwater drilling.

This is NOT a huge environmental disaster ecologically. It really isn't. The Gulf environment will recover from this very quickly. And actually it isn't even substantially impeded by it. The general public perception due to media accounts and the reality are two totally different things.

I sincerely hope and pray you are right, but I am very skeptical of your dismissal of the impact it will have on the environment and people's lives, not because of media coverage or psychological factors. It will be because of realities that have not manifested yet.

I concur that some of the response to this disaster has exacerbated the situation. But again it is not media or psychological. I believe BP's use of EPA banned toxic dispersants will create serious health issues for workers cleaning up the spill. Already there are signs of it. And workers are forbidden from wearing any protective gear. They will be fired if they do. It sure appears BP is more concerned with hiding the seriousness of this and limiting their liabilities.

Time will tell...

And the Obama administration CRIMIANLIZED media contact with the cleanup people because......

 

[Annie]

BF, what I"m getting at is that it's not the disaster it's being portrayed as. Are some animals dying? Yes. Is it something that is destroying the Gulf environment? No.

I was out there again today making observations. It's not that bad. The media get out there and focus on the worse case vicinities. But what you're seeing in the media does not represent the overall picture. What you're seeing is extremely biased.

Actually, our response to what's happening is doing a whole lot more damage than the event itself is doing. I'm not talking about the response in terms of containing, cleaning up, and stopping the oil flow. I'm talking about the psychological response that results in things like closing areas to fishing when there's not really a health hazard, avoiding Gulf beaches when most people wouldn't even notice anything if they hadn't been watching news accounts, and (yes) putting a moratorium on deepwater drilling.

This is NOT a huge environmental disaster ecologically. It really isn't. The Gulf environment will recover from this very quickly. And actually it isn't even substantially impeded by it. The general public perception due to media accounts and the reality are two totally different things.

I sincerely hope and pray you are right, but I am very skeptical of your dismissal of the impact it will have on the environment and people's lives, not because of media coverage or psychological factors. It will be because of realities that have not manifested yet.

I concur that some of the response to this disaster has exacerbated the situation. But again it is not media or psychological. I believe BP's use of EPA banned toxic dispersants will create serious health issues for workers cleaning up the spill. Already there are signs of it. And workers are forbidden from wearing any protective gear. They will be fired if they do. It sure appears BP is more concerned with hiding the seriousness of this and limiting their liabilities.

Time will tell...

I don't often make predictions but here I go: In a few months we're going to be hearing from the administration how quickly the Gulf States recover, all due to the actions taken by the government. Especially those to punish BP.