I am sure, seeing this headline, some are expecting an essay contrasting the media's pillorying of Bush with the pass they have handed to Obama in their respective Gulf crises. But that is an essay that has been written more times than I care to count, and one that really cannot bear much more fruit. We all know that Obama is treated with kid gloves and that the press favors the left, is there much new material to be gained by rehashing those topics?

No, what I want to examine is, first, a topic I have explored previously ("Continuing Foolishness", "Zero Tolerance and Big Government"), the double standard of the right in this matter, and, more significantly, the damage that double standard does to the right. Most specifically, the way it sets us up for future losses to the left.

Before I begin, let me say that I am skeptical about government regulation, especially to ensure safety. As my posts "Worker Safety", "Fairness and the Free Market", "Greed Versus Evil", "In Praise of Contracts" and others show, I am convinced that, absent massive government intervention into the market, employers have a selfish interest in maintaining safety, and will do so in a more cost effective and reasonable manner than the government. In fact, as should be obvious from "Gun Control, The FDA and Regulating the Law Abiding", "Professional Education", "Licensing", "Business Licensing and Regulation", "Bad Economics Part 12", "Real Life and Regulation" and "Insider Trading", I am skeptical that any government regulation produces the benefits claimed, or any benefits at all. It seems to me that the end result of most regulation is not protection of consumer interests, or public safety, but economic stagnation and entrenched elites who enjoy unfair advantages in the market. ("Anti-Business Businesses", "Transparency, Corruption and Reform", "The Difference Between Public and Private, Or, The Real Monopolies and Cartels", "Bureaucratic Management", "The Bureaucratic Mind", "Bureaucracy Revisited", "The Inevitability of Bureaucratic Management in Government Enterprises", "Bureaucratic Management and Self-Policing")

But one does not need to agree with my position on regulation to accept my remaining arguments in this post. Similarly, one does not need  to accept my minimalist view of government. ( "My Vision of Government", "My Vision of Government Part II", "Man's Nature and Government", "Prelude", "An Analogy") While I think that the government's role, on the federal, state and local levels, is a very restricted one, my argument here does not rely upon that belief. I will take a moment to explain my position later, describing what I believe should have been the government response to the BP spill, but I will also provide several alternate arguments, based on more expansive views of the role of government.

In short, though this argument is made much more obvious, and far easier to justify, by adopting my beliefs on the role of government and the pointlessness of regulation, neither belief is necessary. One need only believe in small government with limited power¹, possibly with a more federalist structure ("Why I Am Not A Libertarian", "The Benefits of Federalism") for the argument to be found valid. So, although from time to time I will start an argument based upon my extremely minimal government position, please bear with me, as most such arguments will be followed by an alternative take, based on less extreme principles.

Having said all that, let us proceed with the first part of our argument, the flip side of the media's double standard in handling Gulf coast crises, the right's dual standards.

When Katrina struck, the media almost immediately began criticizing the Bush administration. Overlooking the fact that the federal government cannot become involved until it is asked by the states, the press acted as if Bush had somehow delayed action and made the crisis worse. On the other hand, the right, quite properly, argued that the state and city should have done more, and if they needed federal help, needed to call for it earlier. And, quite surprisingly, some on the right even mentioned that the first responsibility rested on the individuals themselves, and that those who sat and waited without even trying to help themselves were much more to blame than Bush.

Cut to the BP crisis and the roles are almost entirely reversed. The left is, rightly, arguing BP has the first responsibility for cleanup. They may be arguing the wrong approach, relying mainly on coercive federal action against BP, but they are right as to where the responsibility lies. On the other hand, the right is jumping into the "Great Job, Brownie" mode and blaming the Obama administration for doing too little². There is some valid grounds for complaint in how the Obama administration handled things, specifically their refusal to lift regulations barring foreign assistance, but as most of the criticism has focused on their lack of "action", I think it is fair to argue the right is essentially arguing the federal government was not intrusive enough.

A similar double standard also exists in the second criticism leveled by some on the right, that BP got waivers for "common sense" safety precautions. Just 2 or 3 years ago, when oil was in short supply, the right was (rightly) denouncing such bureaucracy as a needless intrusion into the productive process, and red tape which should be eliminated to allow us to import less oil. However, now that Obama is in the cross hairs, such regulations have become essential.  (See "Worker Safety" for my argument on this topic.) Whether or not you think the government needs to regulate safety, the fact remains the right has made themselves look foolish by, within a few years, going from calling the same regulations "red tape" and "common sense safety regulations." Whatever your beliefs, that does not look good.

Rather than go through each topic in detail, let me just point out the harm the right is doing to themselves by their arguments. We can then look at the right way to handle such questions in the future, and what doing it wrong entails.

First, let us look at the safety question. It has long been the left's position that businessmen are evil, heartless monsters who would kill every last employee to make a buck. Basically, the caricature you see in every Hollywood movie. The right, outside of a few paleo-cons and related populists ("Misplaced Blame and A Power Play", "Beware Populist Deception") have argued that businessmen are just like the rest of us, interested in bringing goods to market and no more inclined to do harm than anyone else. But now, thanks to our approach to this question, we have effectively argued that BP is that caricature, and that they happily ignored their own interests, didn't care about the safety of their investment, and basically took unreasonable risks because... um.. they like dumping oil? They are evil friends of Obama?

Whatever the reason, it belongs on the left, not the right. Businesses do not grow big by taking unreasonable risks, and, no matter how much we want to impugn Obama and his administration, calling BP evil businessmen does more to solidify the left's hold on America than it does to protect freedom.

The same goes or the charges that Obama did too little. In my mind, this sort of crisis may not even be a proper area for government involvement, being better handled by individual suits for damages against the offender, driving the company to make cleanup a priority. However, that is arguable, and I could see a case for this problem being of a nature requiring collective action which is easier through government³. But even if we adopt such a position, it seems to me the principle we applied in Katrina applies here as well, that the localities, and the states should be the first to respond. That the problem has occurred so far out in the Gulf does not change the fact that the states are the first responders in crises, the federal response should come only on the invitation of the states⁴.

By suddenly changing our position, by effectively arguing the federal government should arrogate all power to itself, should intervene in any emergency, whether invited or not, we are arguing in favor of an extremely large and powerful government, taking a position contrary to everything we have claimed to believer for the past 30 years or more⁵. As I said in "Continuing Foolishness", we are essentially giving up everything we have believed for the past several decades to score some political points against Obama.

It would be easy to go on, but it would likely become quite redundant. After all, the pattern should be obvious.

It is not hard to understand, either. Obama has brought out strong emotions among conservatives. If you want evidence, look at the enthusiasm which greeted the "birther" claims, even among those not normally inclined to support such conspiracy theories. ("Can Hawaiians Travel Overseas?", "Maybe Obama Was Born in Gulf Breeze, Florida") Partly because of his far left beliefs, partly because of his content free campaign, partly because of the feeling that the McCain nomination left us with no alternative, and probably partly for a hundred more reasons, conservatives feel strongly about Obama, and find the man hard to stomach.

But that is not the only reason. As I wrote before about the "Angry Right" ("A Quick Thought Inspired By Gibbon", "Excessive Claims", "In Defense of Civil Debate", "The Angry Right and Conservatives", "Rethinking My Earlier Position", "Our Rude Behavior", "Political Polarization and Divisive Politics"), conservatives are also unhappy with society in general. The left's control of media ("The Death of Impartial Media",  "The Impossibility of Unbiased Reporting", "Media Double Standards and a Proposed Solution","Checking In With the Professionals", "The Rebirth of Skepticism") and education ("The State Versus Universities", "Subsidies and Censorship", "Patronage Versus Choice", "Asking the Wrong Question", "My Censorship Is Your Discretion", "Publish Or Perish", "Funding and the Corruption of Science", "Reforming Education", "You Don't Drown in a Glass of Water - Vouchers Revisited", "Why Vouchers are not the Answer", "Never Ascribe To Evil, A Discussion of Education") mean that the left can hide a hundred mistakes, while a minor gaffe on the right becomes a major scandal. In addition, thanks to the massive influence the left wields over popular culture⁶, not only is the right scrutinized in a way the left never is, but the middle of the road moderates have an impression of the right which is unfair and damaging. And all these feelings of ostracism, the need to be ten times better than our opponents, the efforts taken to treat our rivals with kid gloves, and all the rest, that inevitably brings about extreme emotions, making our normal feelings more emphatic, amplifying our beliefs. ("All Life in a Day, or, How Our Mistaken View of History Distorts Our Understanding of Events")

And that is why we largely end up making arguments against Obama that could be damaging to our cause. Thanks to our anger, we fail to consider what we are saying, instead latching on to any possible weapon to take down our hated foe.

But that is the wrong approach. Obama will not be here forever, and though he may be harmful, there is something far worse. And that worse outcome is for us to fight him by giving victory to the next several decades of leftists thought. What good does it do to beat Obama only to surrender the government to even more radical leftists for the next two decades? We cannot win if we surrender our beliefs, and we gain nothing if to take down Obama we concede points to the left that undermine our positions.

What we must do is simple. We can point out mistakes, point out errors, and certainly point out corruption, but we must do so without surrendering our beliefs. For example, rather than arguing Obama broke necessary regulations, why not argue he broke regulations he himself claims to support? Rather than proclaiming our support for regulation and big government, why don't we instead paint him as hypocritical in his supposed support for regulations "reining in business", while at the same time breaking any and all of them for favored firms? That would not only maintain our principles intact, but I think it would be a much more effective argument as well.

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1. I have argued in the past ("Inescapable Logic", "Smaller Government , Fair Weather Friends and Special Cases", "Negative and Positive Rights", "Symmetry and Asymmetry in Government", "Best of the Web gets It Very, Very Wrong", "Free Speech, Absolute Rights and the Absurdity of "Balancing Tests"") that believing in small, limited government while making exceptions for "sensible regulation" ("Et Tu, Town Hall?", "Who Is Safer?") is actually self-defeating, as the contradictory beliefs will have to eventually resolve themselves in favor of one or the other, which almost always end up favoring intrusive government. However, for purposes of this essay, I am looking only at short term effects, and in that case accepting some small regulation, though even that favors the arguments for big government, is closer to true small government advocacy than the much more expansive liberal philosophy. See also "You Gotta Have Faith" and  "Government Quackery".

2. Not that the Obama administration did not make mistakes. In fact, some of their actions made things more difficult. However, those have not been the primary emphasis, the emphasis has been on Obama doing "too little". For a rather mixed bag of complaints, some valid some less so, see this article. The administration's obstruction of foreign help and legitimate efforts are clearly troubling, the complaints that they did too little, or did not impose enough regulations, are much less so.

3. I discussed before my ambivalence about using government to enact collective solutions, such as emergency response. I still believe some sort of non-governmental voluntary organization is a much better solution. (Compare volunteer fire departments, at least the ones still truly independent from the state, with the politicized professional departments.) But as the point is arguable, and not one I care to debate now, for the moment I will concede the possibility of using government.

4. I have always lamented the 1934 changes which allowed the FBI primary jurisdiction in so many types of cases. Prior to that the states, rightly, had to invite in the federal police. Of course, ideally, I would eliminate any federal interest in criminal law, but if we must have it, it should be invitational, the federal government should not have the primary role in any criminal issue. (Excepting perhaps crimes on military bases and federal lands. And, so long as we embrace the lunacy of managed currency, counterfeiting.)
 
5. Clearly there were individuals calling for small government since the time of Jefferson, but, as a significant segment of a political party, following the 1890's change of the Democrats, neither party had a small government faction until the Reagan revolution of 1980/1981. ("A Passing Thought", "The Political Spectrum", "The Best Historical Example", "Rethinking the Scopes Trial") There was the Goldwater faction of the Republicans for about 15 to 20 years preceding that, but their influence on a national, rather than local., scale was short lived, disappearing with the Civil Rights Act of 1964 ("Non Sequitur Allegations"), though they did enjoy something of a resurgence with Reagan's rise, perhaps as early as 1975 or 1976. On the other hand, the Reagan movement lasted, as an effective political force, only through about 1996, when the Contract with America fell apart. And, at present, though there are a number of small government conservatives, and even a number of ostensibly small government Republican candidates, in practice we have returned to the "echo chamber" of the 1960's and 1970's, with both parties espousing intrusive government, differing only on what should be regulated and to what degree. ("Clinton and Bush Killed the Center")

6. To be entirely accurate, this is a two way street, as our youth-obsessed, essentially amoral popular culture itself makes the beliefs of the left more appealing to those who chase cultural trends. Not that the recognition of this fact makes the right feel any better. If anything, it makes them even more estranged to discover that both politics and culture stand against them. See "Deadly Cynicism", "Self-Serving Cynicism and Our Cultural Immaturity", "Culture and Government", "In Defense of Standards", "Addenda to "In Defense of Standards"", "Our Complete Lack of Creativity", "Hoist By Your Own Petard", "The Fascination with Change", "Trophy Spouses" and "Cranky Old Man?".

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POSTSCRIPT

It may be useful to read several other posts in addition to this one. For example, on conceding points to a rival even while apparently opposing him, see "Defending Freedom?", "Impractical Pragmatists", "You Lose When You Think You Win", "Selling Yourself Cheap", "The FairTax's Liberal Assumptions", "Doing Something", ""Doing Something" Revisited", "What We Deserve",  "Don't Blame the Politicians", "Who Is To Blame?", "What is Wrong with Us", "The Single Greatest Weakness", "The Difficulty of Principle" and "Damn the Torpedoes!". However, one should also read "Cigarettes, Sudan and Abortion", as it makes an important distinction between valid and invalid compromise. It may also be helpful to read "The Inherent Disappointment of Authoritarianism", "Moral For Me, But Not For Thee" and "Liberalism, Its Origins and Consequences - Preface".