One man's trash, another man's treasure

One man's trash, another man's treasure

I've been paying great attention to the news about the oil disaster in the Gulf and frankly, I'm very confused. Up until the oil began to flood the coast, there were many voices saying they wanted the government out of just about everything, especially businesses. Governors were saying they didn't want money to help their economy with most of them refusing to take funds to help the people in their states. Now all of a sudden, these same voices are saying the government isn't doing enough. So where were these voices when all government regulations were disregarded for the sake of business deals?

It seems many have taken on the attitude government is only good when it matters to them and not when they are personally detached from the situation. One man's trash, another man's treasure.

BP had a deal, basically to do what they wanted and when there wasn't a problem with safety, everything was hands off, allowing them to do what they wanted the way they wanted. They were supposed to have plans in place to deal with any problems but it turned out they didn't. When the oil rig exploded, lives were lost, a point that keeps getting forgotten in all of this except for the families suffering the loss. Now Anderson Cooper on CNN is in the Gulf joining everyone slamming the government as others jump on Commandant Admiral Thad Allen asking for him to resign. Why?

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Why does everyone seem to think that the government had any responsibility to come up with everything necessary to take care of what business didn't? Why should it have been the Coast Guards job to be able to instantaneously clean up the oil? Wasn't that the job of BP and the people in government issuing the permits to drill for oil in the first place? What were they thinking when they allowed the rig to be built in the beginning?

I've heard people compare this to Hurricane Katrina. Why? It was a hurricane that was coming and was expected to do major damage to New Orleans. The hurricane couldn't be prevented but the response after could have been better, should have been better and was the responsibility of the government to respond. This was supposed to be the governments job. This oil disaster was supposed to be the job of BP to take care of.

So now, with the experts working for BP, unprepared for what they were supposed to do and unable to do it even after all these years they had to be ready, now it's the government's fault they are not taking care of the problem. This makes no sense at all. It makes even less sense when you think of the voices in the media all these years saying they want government out of business unless they are giving them tax breaks. It is not the Coast Guard's fault this happened but it has become their problem. Why should Allen take blame for it? His job was not to take care of an oil rig. How is this President Obama's fault? Is he now supposed to take over the oil companies? What happened to all the voices saying goverment should stay out of business?

People wanted hands off the banking industry until it crashed and then it was up to the government to bail them out. Tax payers paid the price because no one thought about what could happen when they had freely operated without constraints for years. Now they make billions of profits and we suffer because we can't get loans. People wanted hands off on the pharmaceutical industry until the dangers of the drugs they were selling was found after they had already caused deaths. Then it was the government's job to have been checking the safety. Again, people suffered.

I guess it all comes down to who needs what and when. State's rights were an issue and the voices calling for government to stay out of it are now saying government is not doing enough. While I think the government does have a responsibility now to make sure the oil stops and cleans up what has already happened, we need to think about something. BP has had years to come up with plans it failed to do and the government has had only a matter of weeks to figure out what to do. As for who pays for this, it should be BP because they didn't care enough about the damage they could do while they were counting their money. BP had the attitude that "one man's trash (the Gulf Coast) was their treasure. It all comes down to what should have been done all along and now that it is a problem people are looking to government to fix it.

So please, help me out here. I'm really confused over this and can't understand why all of a sudden the same voices are singing a different tune.