It’s A Gray Area:

One of the lessons I learned in law school was that the answer to most questions is: It depends. What does that mean? Well, before you can give a reasoned answer to a question, you should know the circumstances and the context in which the question arises.

Another and slightly bawdy way of saying this is illustrated by one man asking another man the question “How’s your wife?” with the answer being: “Compared to what?”

Children often do not understand or employ the “it depends” way of thinking. For them things are usually “all or nothing.” But when they mature they begin to realize that the answers to most questions depend upon the situation, and the risks or benefits of action or inaction. Even though most adults innately understand this approach, many do not employ it consciously.

One example of where a question cries out for an “it depends” answer is whether we should drill for oil off our coasts and in Alaska. For people to think only in terms of “drill everywhere,” or “drill nowhere” is shortsighted to the extreme. Some important issues to consider are: Where is the oil? How can it be reached? What are the risks of oil spillage or other potential pollution problems at a particular site? Will the extracting company be bonded for environmental problems? Of course all of our land is sacred, but is this site particularly unique or picturesque? In addition, will new developments in technology allow the oil to be extracted a longer way from the drilling site? Only when we get answers to those and other similar questions can we begin to make intelligent decisions on the issue.

The same myopic arguments of all or nothing were used by some people in the debate several years ago about whether we should have constructed the Alaska pipeline. Fortunately, other more sophisticated people used a risks-and-benefits analysis, made some modifications to the original proposed plans, and then went ahead with the project. Not only has the pipeline been successful, I am actually not aware of any significant problems with it at all. So for our elected officials now to take positions of all or nothing regarding offshore or Alaska drilling is irresponsible, and even insulting. We are smarter than that; why aren’t they?