More fun with PolitiFact's FaceBook "matrix"

I've posted before about the quirky results one obtains with the discussion area at PolitiFact's FaceBook page.

Here's another example of a post apparently made invisible to all save the friends of the one making the post.

Generic FaceBook account view:

 Account used to post comment:

As a debate forum, PolitiFact's FaceBook page is a joke.  These results I find inexplicable based on my admittedly limited experience with an organizational FaceBook account.  Probably PolitiFact has employed customizations that put them all or mostly in charge of what appears and to whom on their FaceBook page.  In other words, the discussion is most likely deliberately censored.

Answering Ken's question:

Here's why, Ken.

With property there is a thing called "mineral rights" that most folks don't get. That's something that governments retain control over. So, you can look at it like the government in most cases reserving oil resources to itself (not to mention that land not owned privately is claimed by the government. So, you've got the problem of getting resources that people need to the people who need it, such as Ken Jones. You could let the government do it (many nations do that). But that means the investment money and capital need to come from taxation. And liabilities such as oil spills are automatically the financial responsibility of the taxpayers assuming the government is willing to clean up its own messes (government's sometimes aren't so willing). In the United States we let private companies bring those resources to those who need it, using the profit motive to provide the incentive. Take away the profit and you lose the incentive. The government charges for leases and such, but obviously if the lease cost reaches a certain high point no private company will show interest. As a result, it is in the interests of our government to provide very adequate incentives for oil companies to take the oil from government lands and turn it into energy that you can use to get to work and connect to the Internet.

Our government takes its biggest share of the proceeds at the pump rather than by charging oil companies for the leases and such. Either way, we all foot the bill.

So, that's why it's private enterprise to provide tax breaks and loopholes to oil companies. If the government were simply doling out cash to oil companies (which isn't the case, so far as I can tell) then we'd have a problem. The smart people in government recognize that oil companies provide a crucial service, and to a reasonable person a middling profit margin isn't so very disturbing.