Who cares that it’s on fire?  Advertise it as a feature!  Saves the customer a step.

I drink your milkshake.  I DRINK IT UP!

There are all sorts of reasons why you might not want fracking to be used in a particular place (or by a particular company with a shitty safety record). I still draw the line before making it absolutely illegal in itself and under all circumstances.

Or rather, since I don’t get any say in it really, all I’m saying is I am not outraged that it is still legal. 

Because there is simply no evidence that drilling 3000 ft deep harms ground water wells.

“At this time, the EPA is in the midst of a major investigation into the safety of groundwater supplies that may be affected by fracking. Unfortunately it moves at government speeds; the investigation is due to last through 2012 with a report due in 2014. In the meantime, the good news is that the EPA has yet to document any confirmed groundwater contamination from fracking operations. Even the Duke University study found no evidence at all of any fracking fluid in any of the wells they sampled. However, there have been a number of cases of contamination from accidental surface spills, similar to what we see from virtually every industry that transports and pumps liquids.”

The videos showing people lighting their tap water on fire are deliberately misleading as there have long been areas in the US where well water is naturally contaminated by underlying deposits. People in that area were able to light their well water on fire long before fracking. That’s why the oil companies are interested in their land in the first place.

Exactly, this glorious disaster has already existed, and it took years and years of struggle and death to wrest some control from private business.  Of course, now we’ve been slowly heading back toward that small government nightmare for decades.

Yes, things were wonderful when “Big Government” didn’t get in the way of business.  Remember the awesome pollution free,  awesome labor conditions of the Gilded Age? Robber barons, murderous private police , goon squads, child labor…..

Ironically, if you want to see how business works almost completely unfettered, you only have to go to the manufacturing district in China.

Libertarianism, much like a communism requires a convenient dismissal of human history, human nature, and the very function of capitalism. When it all goes wrong we can just say that ‘the conditions weren’t right’..

If you think that the private property rights of some peasant are as important as the private property rights of a multi-billion entity, you may want to look at history before you implement a society on such a splendid scheme.

Well, the “peasant” needs a place to live and needs clean water to drink and healthful food to eat whereas the “multi-billion entity” needs none of those things and is in fact a legal fiction.  So I completely disagree, the property rights of the “peasant” are much more important.

Yes.  I present as evidence: ICBMs armed with 1.2 megaton nuclear warheads.

Usually the oil/gas is way, *way* below groundwater or aquifer level trapped under an impervious layer of rock.

If you fracture the impervious rock trapping the hydrocarbon deposits, or have a leak from your well into groundwater you’re indisputably Doing It Wrong.

Which is not to say that when someone is doing it wrong they shouldn’t be held responsible – of course they should. But you shouldn’t flat-out outlaw everything that someone might do ineptly and thereby cause harm.  That would outlaw all the cool stuff like 3d printers and probably C compilers too :)