Moral hazard is to BP what blowback is to Al Qaeda
There’s a parallel to be drawn between the oil spill and terrorism.
The first thing war-supporting conservatives hear when they hear one of us say that 9/11 and other terrorist activities are blowback for U.S. foreign policy is that we are somehow “justifying” their atrocious actions. They refuse to do the necessary action of putting themselves in their attackers’ shoes because they’re afraid that in so doing they will begin to sympathize with the terrorists.
This seems to be related to why Shep can’t stomach the Judge’s circumspection, planting some of the blame squarely on the shoulders of the government and its regulatory practices. That’s irrelevant at this point, says Shep — it was BP who sprung the leak, and BP should pay to clean it up.
I agree wholeheartedly. Every last cent. And Al Qaeda’s actions are reprehensible and they deserve to be wiped out wherever they’re killing people. But being militantly reactionary and fastidiously avoiding diagnosing the cause of the problem doesn’t help prevent more such incidents in the future.
One of the central problems with government intervention is its invariable influence over others, who themselves may act immorally or carelessly in response. Yes, BP’s at fault and yes, the terrorists are murderers and yes, they should all be held fully accountable. But we can’t afford to settle for identifying the proximate cause of our problems.
The U.S. government is responsible for irking the Muslim world over the past half century and helping recruit terrorists who would attack us here, and it’s responsible for the moral hazard of feeding BP’s carelessness by letting them know they’d only be liable for $73 million.
By all means, hold the actual actor responsible, but don’t fault us for peeling back the curtain to find out who’s whispering suggestions from backstage.
