Political Lipskip

$20 Billion Extracted From BP Was Not Constitutional – Are We Not a Nation of Laws Anymore?

Our government essentially confiscated $20 billion from BP for compensation to those that have been harmed by the oil leak in the Gulf. I tried to understand that and really just went along with it because to speak out against it made you some sort of insensitive jerk to those in the Gulf whose livelihood has been trashed.

But I always wondered how we would feel if Hugo Chavez confiscated billions from one of our preeminent companies after a huge accident. I’m sure many, besides Sean Penn, would be cussing that a tyrannical monster was sticking it to the U.S. We would be livid that the rule of law was not followed. Why do we not share the same outrage? Thomas Sewell in IBD asks “Is U.S. Now On Slippery Slope To Tyranny?”

In our times, American democracy is being dismantled, piece by piece, before our very eyes by the current administration in Washington, and few people seem to be concerned about it.

The president’s poll numbers are going down because increasing numbers of people disagree with particular policies of his, but the damage being done to the fundamental structure of this nation goes far beyond particular counterproductive policies.

Just where in the Constitution of the United States does it say that a president has the authority to extract vast sums of money from a private enterprise and distribute it as he sees fit to whomever he deems worthy of compensation? Nowhere.

And yet that is precisely what is happening with a $20 billion fund to be provided by BP to compensate people harmed by their oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

Many among the public and in the media may think that the issue is simply whether BP’s oil spill has damaged many people, who ought to be compensated.

But our government is supposed to be “a government of laws and not of men.”

If our laws and our institutions determine that BP ought to pay $20 billion — or $50 billion or $100 billion — then so be it.

But the Constitution says that private property is not to be confiscated by the government without “due process of law.”

Technically, it has not been confiscated by Barack Obama, but that is a distinction without a difference.

With vastly expanded powers of government available at the discretion of politicians and bureaucrats, private individuals and organizations can be forced into accepting the imposition of powers that were never granted to the government by the Constitution.

If you believe that the end justifies the means, then you don’t believe in constitutional government.