In recent years there have been many things which have fallen under the term “Act of God.” Earthquakes, tornadoes, floods, natural disasters that have no cause other than the random nature of our universe.

You know what’s not an act of god? The Gulf of Mexico oil leak.

The oil disaster taking place on our shore is entirely our fault. Clearly our fault. Brilliantly and embarrassingly and completely mindbogglingly our fault. Despite attempts to shove it under the rug of divine catastrophes by Republican Texas Governor Rick Perry, the Deepwater Horizon leak is in no way, shape or form an “event outside of human control,” as per the legal definition. It was not an Act of God when BP refused to adhere to new rules proposed by the Interior Department regulating off-shore drilling. It was not an Act of God when the rig was found lacking basic blow-out prevention tools because they weren’t mandatory, thus not included. It wasn’t an Act of God when the cement filling in the area cracked, as they were warned it would, nor was it an Act of God that oil spreads, nor was it an Act of God that we were drilling off-shore to begin with. The leak, if anything, is an Act of Stupidity. One of the most prevantable disasters in living memory, every safety precaution available was ignored not by God but by Humans; the Angels did not descend from the heavens to kill off the livelihood of Louisiana.

We, especially in America, are quick to label things an Act of God when it’s obviously an Act of Us. Global warming is not an Act of God when we’re the ones creating the carbon emissions. The hole over the Ozone layer is not an Act of God when it directly sprang from CFCs (and, since we eliminated them from aerosol and other cans, has immediately shrunk to near-obsolescence). The recession is not an Act of God just as the Wall Street crashes are not an Act of God, just as Goldman Sachs and the failure of capitalism is not an Act of God, unless the last one is a result of charging usury (specifically forbidden in the Bible) and God has been reincarnated as a Senator on the GS Fraud Hearings. In which case you’d think there would be more turning into pillars of salt and less angry highlighting of passages from emails (Senator Collins works in mysterious ways).

So where do we get off blaming things that are obviously our fault on this God guy? Like a kid pointing at her brother for spilling the milk (sorry Luke), we’ve descended into a state of national immaturity, passing responsibility faster than a ball in a game of hot-potato. It isn’t just that we label sticking our tongues to freezing poles as an Act of God; we get mad if we have to pay taxes, get vaccines, even vote (no taxation for no representation!). And while it would be easy to blame it on our ADD media, or corporate interests, or terrorism, or capitalism, or socialism, or any number of things, this would accomplish nothing. Because we’d be doing the same exact thing we did before (Rick Perry is an act of God!).

We live in a Republic which, no matter how watered down, demands that The People shoulder responsibility for The People. If we feel powerless then it’s up to us to take back that power, through protests, through votes, through demands to our Government, through boycotts against the interests that threaten our environment. I’m not talking about Tea Parties, those descendants of the Know-Nothing Party, who excel in responsibility-shirking, or about those groups that form around hot-button issues and turn them into stalemates. I’m talking about realizing that our world is messed up, and its our fault. It’s about supporting those who are making a practical difference in our world. A Government is only as good as its people, and if people can get their Acts together, we could make a pretty good Government and a half-way decent planet.

So no more crying that Deepwater Horizon is an Act of God, a disaster no one can be held accountable for. We can hold BP completely accountable for it. But we must also hold our regulation-shy Government accountable too, and hold ourselves accountable for changing it. Otherwise, millions of years from now when intelligent life finally reaches us, there will be nothing left, and our extinction will be recorded in an alien log-book under the heading “Act of God.”