Point by James Hull

Am I the only one utterly amazed - of course, I'm not - at the absolute hypocrisy being displayed by the Intolerants? (Yes, I have finally found a name to describe that segment of Americans who are intolerant of racial and cultural diversity, bipartisanship, stricter regulations on big business, and more stringent controls to protect our environment.)

I am disheartened by how reticent the Intolerants have been, not speaking out against the sheer devastation taking place in our nation's Gulf Coast: Literally hundreds of thousands of gallons of oil a day spilling into our precious wetlands, polluting our oyster beds, killing our shrimp harvests and destroying our prime fishing areas. We have not heard a peep of dismay, outrage or fear from them.

And why haven't we? Because it is largely their policies which are to blame. It's Intolerants like Sarah Palin - who, before the Deepwater Horizon's explosion, were enjoining others to chant "Drill, Baby Drill," at rallies in support of more off-shore oil drilling - who, all along, have supported Big Oil and not the land, air and water they pollute. It is the Intolerants who've decried environmental protections. And it is the Intolerants who have turned this country over to Big Business, foreign and domestic like BP.

You see, for the Intolerants to say now that the Gulf oil spill is a bad thing is to admit they've been advocating bad policies all along. And to add insult to injury, Sarah Palin is now going around now, blaming the environmentalists for the spill. Huh?

Why can't the Intolerants just be like the baseball umpire who blew the Perfect Game call? Why can't they just admit they were wrong?

Counterpoint by Ed Holliday

With all due respect to my friend Rev. Hull, my first thought is: excuuuuse me! I have heard from all sides of the political spectrum that this oil leak is a man-made disaster. Sounds like to me Rev. Hull needs to increase his diversity of media sources.

What is shocking is the amount of time it took to get federal leadership to respond to this disaster. This disaster happened in April. State leaders such as Gov. Jindal of Louisiana have been begging for leadership to cut through burdensome federal red-tape from the Army Corps of Engineers, the Environmental Protection Agency and a plethora of other federal government agencies. How long does it take for leadership to emerge?

Even President Obama's moratorium on offshore drilling was cumbersome. Bipartisan efforts had to be used (Rev. Hull, this destroys your theory on the intolerants) to convince the President that he was wrong to force a moratorium on both deep sea and shallow water offshore drilling. The President just this week backed down from his original decision which would have cost the region the further loss of thousands more jobs, more diminished state tax collections, and sent drilling rigs from America to the West African coast.

We do need to learn from this disaster to better enforce regulations and to make conditions safer. But in the economic real world, if our liberal leaders, who control all of Washington today, shut down offshore drilling and continue to keep us away from land sources of oil in the U.S., then gas prices will skyrocket - as will our dependence on Middle Eastern oil. Such liberal policies will lead to a diminished economy that will hurt everyone, but the hard-working middle class and the hard-working poor will suffer the most.

James Hull is an award-winning journalist and consultant. Contact him at hullmultimedia@aol.com. Dr. Ed Holliday is a Tupelo dentist who has written two successful books. Contact him at ed@teaparty.ms.