Hugo Chavez or House Democrat?

Who do you think gave us this fine quote:

We (the government) should own the refineries. Then we can control how much gets out into the market.

Rep. Maurice Hinchey (D-NY), member of the House Appropriations Committee and one of the most-ardent opponents of off-shore drilling

But could have come from Hugo’s blithering pie-hole.

June 19, 2008 - Posted by coloradoright | Democrats, Freedom, Liberals, future, idiots, oil | communists, demand, Democrats, drilling, nationalization, oil, refineries, supply, thief, US House of Representatives, venezuela | 3 Comments

3 Comments »

It makes sense, because the government has such a great track record of efficiency.

Comment by The Gentle Cricket | June 25, 2008 | Reply
GOP: “Government is inefficient. Watch, we’ll prove it.” (Turns record surplus into record deficit.)

Comment by perspicio | June 27, 2008 | Reply
Hmmmm.

Now if someone told me that my business was going to fail, and then proposed that I hand over control of it so that they could show me how it will fail, I would have to be really dumb to hand over my business to them.

Worse, if I actually did that, and they failed spectacularly, I would have to be borderline retarded to believe them if they say they’ll make it work now, using the same methods that made it fail.

That said, I can’t believe anyone would propose that what we need is to socialize the oil industry. After all, don’t we have government-chartered organizations running it now? How would DIRECT socialist control improve things?

I don’t think we need the government to run the oil business, but I don’t think we should continue to have the same kind of anti-republican organizations running the oil business, or any business, that we have now.

We don’t need better regulation. We need better corporations. Corporations should have internal and external republican checks and balances. They aren’t sole proprietorships or mom-and-pop grocery stores. They are governing bodies chartered by the government. If the constitution guarantees us republican government, then why are states allowed to charter anti-republican fiefdoms to govern our economic affairs?

Whenever you hear the words “Chairman and CEO,” ask yourself what kind of government we would have if the president were allowed to appoint himself Chief Justice while he was still president. Then imagine that the president also personally controls a majority of the seats in both houses of Congress, and you have the hat trick: majority shareholder who is also Chairman and CEO.

The common use of multiple titles is an aristocratic abuse of the corporate charter, and abolishing that practice is just one of the republican reforms of the corporate system needed to make better corporations.

How do we get there? Well, we would need a movement among state governors and attorney generals to revoke charters, go through receiverships, reclassify shares and mandate board elections after restricting share stakes. That’s the easy way. The hard way is by constitutional amendment. If you don’t like either of those, then push harder in the direction we’re headed and maybe you’ll see a revolution in your lifetime.

Comment by T.D. | September 11, 2008 | Reply