Such are the joys of listening to a true libertarian unfiltered.
The Tea Party crowd may get GOP voters to go ga ga over the likes of Kentucky Senate candidate Rand Paul — son of Ron (but not named after Ayn). But that’s only because the “mainstream” GOP is so extreme that they barely noticed how anarchical a pure libertarian is.
Fundamentally, libertarians think the government should be out of the civil rights and regulation business entirely. Environmental harm should be dealt with through private lawsuits. Safety regulations should either be nonexistent or left to local officials. I hope we get more tough interviewers exposing his dangerous views.
Today, ABC News’ Good Morning America today, host George Stephanopoulos pushed Paul on “how far” he would “push” his anti-government views. The answer is pretty damn far, as this video (via TP) reveals:
STEPHANOPOULOS: But you don’t want to get rid of the EPA?
PAUL: No, the thing is is that drilling right now and the problem we’re having now is in international waters and I think there needs to be regulation of that and always has been regulation. What I don’t like from the president’s administration is this sort of, you know, “I’ll put my boot heel on the throat of BP.” I think that sounds really un-American in his criticism of business. I’ve heard nothing from BP about not paying for the spill. And I think it’s part of this sort of blame game society in the sense that it’s always got to be someone’s fault. Instead of the fact that maybe sometimes accidents happen. I mean, we had a mining accident that was very tragic and I’ve met a lot of these miners and their families. They’re very brave people to do a dangerous job. But then we come in and it’s always someone’s fault. Maybe sometimes accidents happen.
Uhh, yeah, accidents happen — to companies run with Recklessness, Arrogance, and Hubris.
We now have a pretty clear understanding that BP was grossly negligent — and still is (see “Should you believe anything BP says?” and “NWF: BP cover-up begins to unravel“). BP has been working overtime to hid the true scale of the undersea gusher from the nation — but for Paul, apparently that really isn’t anybody’s business but the executives of British Petroleum.
Paul’s hypocrisy is staggering. In the worldview of extreme libertarians like Paul — and yes, the phrase is a somewhat redundant — it is government that is to blame for all of our woes. That’s why Paul demands utterly unfettered capitalism, as in this 2010 interview with a local newspaper, The Middlesboro Daily News:
MDN: Regarding energy policy, on your website, you wrote: ‘By subsidizing certain new energies like solar and wind, we distort the marketplace and make it impossible for companies to know what is really the most efficient solution.’ Can you elaborate on your idea of sound energy policy?
RP: I would say that my energy policy is let the marketplace decide through capitalism. So it shouldn’t be me saying: ‘I like wind mills and I hate coal, so therefore I’m going to give all these benefits to wind mills and punish coal.’ That’s kind of what I think the Obama administration is doing. Mine would be more of: let’s step back and let the marketplace decide. Coal’s still pretty cheap and it’s a cheap form of producing electricity. As far as the mining aspect of it, it should be decided in Perry county and Pike county and all these individual counties should make the rules for how the mining occurs. I don’t think Washington should have anything to do with the mining.
Yes, the federal government should have nothing to do with overseeing the mining industry. Now that position just happens to be pretty close to what Bush and Cheney believed and enacted. The result:
- 25 dead, 4 missing in Massey coal mine disaster
- Deadly Record: Massey’s Montcoal mine cited for 3,000 violations, over $2.2 million in fines
It seems like Paul shares the Darwinian worldview of the Massey CEO — Don Blankenship warned West Virginia that he believes in “survival of the fittest”
He blames government for everything, including our energy crisis. But when a self-regulating, self-certifying oil company recklessly causes a tragic catastrophe, he attacks anyone who tries to blame them.
Well, at least he is intellectually consistent — except, of course, when he isn’t (see TP’s Rand Paul opposes government spending — except for when it benefits him).
Rand Paul is a good face for the Tea Party extemists and the new Republican Party. Let’s hope he continues to get as much airtime as possible with people who know how to ask reasonably tough questions.
Related Post:
- TP: Rand Paul: ‘The Hard Part Of Believing In Freedom’ Is Opposing Ban On Whites-Only Lunch Counters
- Virginia AG mocks dangers of CO2, telling Tea Partiers to hold their breath and make the EPA happy.
- Irony-gate 2: Modern day Tea Partiers outsource denial to Lord Monckton — a British peer!
- Is BP the Goldman Sachs of Big Oil? CEO Hayward says to fellow executives: “What the hell did we do to deserve this?” Let’s see: How about a spotty safety record, insistence on voluntary ‘trust me’ self-regulation, a drilling plan that ignored key risks, and failure to use best shut-off technology to save a few bucks?