Tarred Till Totally FUBARred

The popularized terms SNAFU (Situation Normal All Fouled Up) and FUBAR (Fouled up Beyond All Recognition) didn’t originate from a corporate boardroom not even the one at British Petroleum, but from government. While their true origin can be disputed, it’s a good bet that they were coined around WWI or WWII when due to the draft many Americans were recruited for the first time into the wonderful world of government who had never before dealt with its utter incompetence.

By it very nature, government is incompetent like a lumbering whale stuck on a beach. That doesn’t mean no government is better. There are some things that government does not well, but the job is either so big that the investment required in beyond the capability of the private sector or the endeavor is absolutely essential, but profit in doing it is not possible or desirable.

So, it is with national defense. Something must protect this nation’s laws and liberty, and while the US military is one of the world’s best, it’s also responsible for the terms FUBAR and SNAFU. No entity like government, even one by the people, for the people and of the people can create normal operating conditions so fouled up to extremes where no one should ever go.

In the private sector businesses who regularly FUBAR customers soon would have no customers. Businesses, where their situation normal is truly fouled up, would find it so impossible to operate that they’d simply fail to stay in operation. Imagine a restaurant that when it eventually delivers the order is wrong, totally unrecognizable and tastes so bad projectile vomiting is no longer just a possibility. Yeah, that’s the government run cafeteria of the US Senate.

It was the founders of this nation that realized one of the biggest hindrances to human progress was government. Look at all the greatest inventions of the last two some centuries. Most arose from government who hired the brightest minds, developed an effective strategy for implementation and then distributed the new inventions so that most Americans could have and appreciate the new technology. NOT!

In fact, governments’ biggest accomplishment in the 20th century has been mass murder of millions and devastating wars of millions more. And in just one decade of the 21st century, it doesn’t look like that trend is in any way slowing. But in pro-regressives’ minds the solution to government’s wreaking of havoc on their citizens is only more government.

While American governance has been rather docile in comparison, that may soon change when it assumes 60% control of the US economy if and when Obama’s financial reform i.e. takeover of the banks passes. Under his proposal, he should have the power to walk into any bank and declare it insolvent without any judicial, congressional or minutely sane oversight.

One just has to see his handling of the oil slick to know that idea should be tarred and feathered ASAP. In addition to the federal government’s dreadfully slow response from day one, Obama has had what could only in the nicest terms be called a Contradictory Responses of Abysmal Proportions or CRAP.

After 39 days when it appeared that BP would finally stop the leak with “Top Kill”, Obama finally said, “I’m in charge.” Apparently, timed to take credit had it worked, but when asked who fired the head of the Minerals Management Service (MMS) agency that granted BP’s Deep “to be in doodoo” Horizons rig a “categorical exclusion” last year, Obama said he only found out about “the resignation” that morning. Oh, so he’s put himself in charge only “Moments before that question was asked” ago.

His administration isn’t much better. While Interior Secretary Ken Salazar uttered the totally bizarre outside BP headquarters saying the administration may “push them out of the way appropriately,” Admiral Thad Allen correctly observed pushing BP out of the way would raise this question, “Replace them with what?” How about an Oil “Slick Willy” Czar, Bill Clinton anyone?

But pro-regressives only argue that this incompetence in the government’s response means America needs more government. In fact, they quote Louisiana’s new Republican and conservative governor Bobby Jindal (notice after Katrina that state voted the Democrat out) as complaining the federal government isn’t doing enough to help. Could it be that Obama’s administration isn’t the only contradictory one?

No, Jindal is only asking the federal government to do what it should be doing. Make resources available, approve permits allowing the building of protective barriers and partnering effectively not adversarial with BP, in other words, a government which works with all the people in this dire catastrophe. Unfortunately, Obama’s change is a government that tries to do so much it’s not supposed to do that it’s only created one that’s now SNAFUed up the Wazoo.