All the world’s history of government falls into two chapters: You have the older chapter of agricultural societies, in which a single individual does whatever he wants to do, engaging a machinery of bureaucracy to carry out his dictates with all sorts of hidden agendas at that layer — they all claim to be acting on behalf of God. Then, after the Industrial Revolution, you have a similar arrangement in which one individual does whatever he wants, with the assistance of a bureaucracy chock full of hidden agendas, and they claim to be acting on behalf of a new god called “The People.”

Neal Boortz says (and he’s absolutely right) —

Now remember how this administration works: never let a good crisis go to waste. The financial collapse, housing, the auto industry, healthcare – the narrative is this: first you have to have to create or exaggerate a “crisis” and then the government swoops in to fix it. By “fix” I mean, take it over. Run it. Permanently. Just remember that there is no such thing as “temporary” to the federal government, or any government, for that matter.

Acting on behalf of The People, our government is getting ready to pounce on “The Oil Companies” and take them over. Basically take them over. Oh, how I do loathe that word “basically”; for whoever truly labors to communicate with honesty, no-holds-barred, this word has no meaning and no purpose.

Not clear on what I mean by that? Watch this.

Yeah it’s all about a different word. “Sociali– uh, er, ah, basically…”

I do not typically approve of sarcasm being used to completely support a point. When that is done, the entire argument is typically dragged down into the lower realms of idiocy, stupidity and abject silliness. But some things are patently absurd and can only be revealed as absurd through exaggeration. What our god-kings are trying to do with “Those Oil Companies” has started to come under this heading. The theme that is permeating throughout all of these plans, the core underlying philosphy, is bollywonkers.

Let us illustrate the absurdity.

Don’t let them drill anywhere. Inland, offshore. And slap a huge excise tax on any oil imported. Regulate how the oil is imported, regulate how it is exchanged, regulate how it is refined, regulate how it is transported. And then regulate the regulators. Slap a big fat surcharge on anything these Bad People do with the oil. Demand a new environmental impact statement anytime a gas station so much as sells a new brand of chewing gum. Tax their refineries, tax their trucks, tax their pumps, tax their buildings, tax their land, tax their office equipment, tax them when they pay their taxes. Slap a national ceiling on gas at the pump, gasoline futures, light sweet crude, cap their bonuses, cap their salaries, audit them whenever they declare a dividend, when the stock splits, make ’em pay, pay, pay. Make it impossible for anyone to make a profit in that wicked business, anywhere, anytime, doing anything.

Then let’s all stand back and watch those gas prices fall like a stone!

Basically.

Let’s pop back into the real world for a second now…

What we have with this oil spill, is a lesson in the folly of appealing to Gaea. We had all sorts of strict environmental rules put in place, and successfully enforced. They didn’t even all have to do with the petroleum products industries, a lot of them just had to do with preserving this-or-that bear/bird/seal/moose whatever. Our oil exploration efforts were pushed way out to sea in order to comply with these environmental dictates, and now you see the results.

Gaea’s pissed. Of course it makes sense for her to be pissed now…but what about our move to push the oil drilling out to sea, to preserve the snail darter and the Mynah bird? Don’t we at least get an A for effort? Is Gaea gonna tell us she’s really upset about the oil in the gulf but she appreciates what we were trying to do?

This is the trouble with government’s third chapter, in which the guy-at-the-top and the hidden-agenda-bureaucracies purport to represent this new god called Gaea: The outcome is predetermined. Mankind is never at its best, or even at adequate. It’s always a screw-up.

Had we just called the whole thing off and told the environmentalists to go piss up a rope, there wouldn’t be an oil spill in the gulf right now. That’s a fact.

Mister Vice President, sir, as soon as those papers are finalized I think you might be ready to report in.

Update: Ahh…who doesn’t believe in coincidences? Look what just popped up on the news wire.

My dear girl, keeping Dom Perignon above 38 degrees is like listening to The Beatles without earmuffs.

Eugene Robinson’s ignorance stuns and amazes me. Is there a longtime Robinson reader out there, somewhere, who can point me to the last time this writer has ever recognized an unintended consequence of something?

It would benefit him to see that Charles Krauthammer piece to which I linked Sunday, but I’ve got a feeling it would be a case of leading a horse to water.

It’s a pretty simple situation.

When you drill in a mile of water, and a pipe ruptures, it is really, really hard to shut off the flow of oil. Of course it’s a monumental task to clean the oil off the flora and fauna once it gets into the water.

We need oil. Now. We cannot import it all.

So let’s drill on land. And if someone comes up with some species of mammal that might possibly, maybe, perhaps, we don’t know, find it difficult to live/eat/hunt/breed around the resulting apparatus, we show them a few dead oil-covered pelicans from the Gulf. If they still have something to say, then just walk away because they’re only weighing one side of the argument.

Drill-baby-drill is dead now? It just got vindicated.

Fox News:

A Michigan lawmaker wants to license reporters to ensure they’re credible and vet them for “good moral character.”

Senator Bruce Patterson is introducing legislation that will regulate reporters much like the state does with hairdressers, auto mechanics and plumbers. Patterson, who also practices constitutional law, says that the general public is being overwhelmed by an increasing number of media outlets–traditional, online and citizen generated–and an even greater amount misinformation.

“Legitimate media sources are critically important to our government,” he said.

He told FoxNews.com that some reporters covering state politics don’t know what they’re talking about and they’re working for publications he’s never heard of, so he wants to install a process that’ll help him and the general public figure out which reporters to trust.

“We have to be able to get good information,” he said. “We have to be able to rely on the source and to understand the credentials of the source.”

Go for it, jerk. In fact, after you get that one on the books why don’t you get word of it to our U.S. Congress. Maybe they can get a nationwide-counterpart bill started, in time to make an issue out of it for this year’s elections. Let’s see if the people are in favor of it. Run on it.

I like that idea a lot. I think you should do it.

Hat tip to Joe America, who is brother & annoying liberal gadfly to Mark.

Much more fun to be had at hipster expense, at Unhappy Hipsters.