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So, over at Simberg's Flying Circus, I'm told that the BP escrow account for the oil spill is extorting twenty billion dollars from a private business as a political slush fund! This is despite the fact that Kenneth Fineburg, the guy who ran the 9/11 compensation, is handling the money. Commenters at The Circus tell me that it's okay if a (government-run) court orders payment after the conclusion of a lawsuit, but anything else is Evil Personified (tm). Of course, the Exxon Valdez lawsuit took 17 years, a fact not mentioned by the commenter.
Here's one of the many, many problems with libertarians: they act as if a multinational corporation is somehow equal to Joe the bait-shack guy. The corporation is not. It's got vastly more power. In a legal dispute, the corporation can simply run out the clock, spending decades and a few millions in lawyers to avoid paying many billions in damages.
Libertarians wonder why people consider them heartless bastards, and don't understand why they can't win elections.
ETA In fairness, there is an alternative explanation, passed by this fellow, namely that conservatives are believing their own BS. To summarize for those not clicking through:
Meme #1: Obama not only hates capitalism but is seeking to destroy capitalism in America.
Meme #2: Obama has an unholy lust for corporations -- he wants to take as many of them over as possible.
Meme #3: Obama is the sinister gene-spliced hellspawn of Al Capone and Saul Alinsky, with Bill Ayers and Piven and Cloward thrown in -- for him, capitalist enterprises are there to be shaken down, Mob-style, but the proceeds, instead of being pocketed, are to be redistributed to Obama's ideological "cronies" (ACORN! SEIU!).
Meme #4: Everything that upsets right-wingers about Obama upsets them because it's in violation of the Constitution. It's not merely that they don't like any of it -- it's that it's all illegal, every last bit of it, from reforming health care to hiring advisers the press refers to as "czars."
This is certainly a less-flattering idea (falling for your own BS is never good) but it's certainly an alternative.
Here's one of the many, many problems with libertarians: they act as if a multinational corporation is somehow equal to Joe the bait-shack guy. The corporation is not. It's got vastly more power. In a legal dispute, the corporation can simply run out the clock, spending decades and a few millions in lawyers to avoid paying many billions in damages.
Libertarians wonder why people consider them heartless bastards, and don't understand why they can't win elections.
ETA In fairness, there is an alternative explanation, passed by this fellow, namely that conservatives are believing their own BS. To summarize for those not clicking through:
Meme #1: Obama not only hates capitalism but is seeking to destroy capitalism in America.
Meme #2: Obama has an unholy lust for corporations -- he wants to take as many of them over as possible.
Meme #3: Obama is the sinister gene-spliced hellspawn of Al Capone and Saul Alinsky, with Bill Ayers and Piven and Cloward thrown in -- for him, capitalist enterprises are there to be shaken down, Mob-style, but the proceeds, instead of being pocketed, are to be redistributed to Obama's ideological "cronies" (ACORN! SEIU!).
Meme #4: Everything that upsets right-wingers about Obama upsets them because it's in violation of the Constitution. It's not merely that they don't like any of it -- it's that it's all illegal, every last bit of it, from reforming health care to hiring advisers the press refers to as "czars."
This is certainly a less-flattering idea (falling for your own BS is never good) but it's certainly an alternative.
