By now it's become an annual winter ritual, as predictable as the bears going into hibernation -- I'm talking, of course, about the never-ending battle over snowmobile use in Yellowstone National Park. The forces of recreational-correctness want the machines incrementally banned, claiming they disturb the serenity, while the gateway towns that rely on winter tourists argue that capping the number of machines is capricious, unsupported by science and bad for the bottom line. So the arguments go, year after year, with snowmobile limits rising or falling (mostly the latter) depending on the most recent Park Service mandate or judge's ruling.
But perhaps there's a common sense solution that's been out there all along -- one that should have been considered years ago. Why not just plow the most popular routes during winter, allowing motorized access? It's an option many locals want the Park Service to seriously consider, as it begins drafting a new winter travel plan. Cars and SUVs are cleaner-burning than snowmobiles. They don't seem to disturb wildlife, judging from the roadside animal-watching that goes on in summer months. And the Park Service already plows an access road from the park’s north entrance.
Sounds like a sensible solution, all in all -- which is why it will probably be rejected by the public lands exclusionists, who will use any rationalization, no matter how flimsy, to limit public access to "public land." Just because they can say "no" they will say "no." And they'll probably say "no" to this idea, too. It's what separates the zealots from the reasonable people.
Showing posts with label recreational correctness. Show all posts
Showing posts with label recreational correctness. Show all posts
Sunday, March 21, 2010
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
How Predictable
How could I have predicted, as I did in my previous blog post, that the U.S. Forest Service would waste no time in closing the Rampart Range Road shooting area, in response to an accident that occurred there Saturday? It didn't take a crystal ball.
I predicted correctly because it was completely predictable.
These days, every tragedy that makes the papers generates a disproportional regulatory response from the safety uber alles crowd. Politicians and regulators are constantly scanning the headlines, looking for tragedies or "crises" they can turn into legislative or regulatory "fixes." If a family in Aspen dies of carbon monoxide poisoning, we'll within a week have a law moving through the statehouse, mandating that every new home in Colorado be built with carbon monoxide detectors. If some nut tries to set-off a shoe bomb in an airplane, we'll all henceforth have to put our shoes through a scanner at the airport (thank goodness he didn't use an underwear bomb). If a mismanaged pit bull mauls a child, pit bulls must be banned, or registered as lethal weapons.
Any excuse will spur the safety uber alles crowd into an irrational overreaction. All it took in this case was a complaint from the shooting victim's grieving father, who would rather blame the Forest Service for the death than his son's companion. And the papers generate a steady stream of similar excuses to act. This is how the freedoms of responsible people get whittled away, one "crisis," one tragedy, at the time.
Also easily predicted was the Forest Service's haste in closing the range -- though I've never, in my decades of watching federal bureaucracies in inaction, seen one move so fast on anything before. That's because the agency increasingly seems to view the public as a threat to the public lands -- as a hassle to be tolerated, controlled and told "no" -- rather than the rightful owners of these areas.
More people out enjoying the public lands means more work, more hassles, more potential headaches for forest service bureaucrats, so they are increasingly using "protection" as an excuse to close trails, close ranges, close areas and limit public access to public lands. Almost any excuse will do. And the justification for closing the shooting range came Saturday.
The agency also is succumbing to an attitude I describe as recreational correctness; it's the idea, somewhat analogous to political correctness, that only certain forms of "light on the land" recreation are to be allowed on public lands. Hiking is tolerated, because it's just about the only form of recreation that doesn't have environmental extremists (who today really give federal land agencies their marching orders) up in arms or bringing lawsuits. But all forms of motorized enjoyment of these lands, from snowmobiles to personal watercraft to off-road vehicles of various stripes, increasing are finding the welcome mat rolled up on them by federal land managers.
The continuing battle over snowmobile use at Yellowstone National Park -- see latest developments -- is one example of recreational correctness at work. Here's another recent example of recreational correctness in action.
Hunters are tolerated in national forests, at least for now, but they'll see restrictions and bans eventually, once the less powerful groups have been evicted. And how do shooters rate in this era of creeping recreational correctness? They occupy just about the bottom rung, from this perspective -- they're viewed as irresponsible redneck yahoos who are scaring away the birds and deer with their loud booms and are bound to get themselves or someone else killed, sooner or later.
And sure enough, a deadly mishap occurred at the Front Range Road shooting area Saturday, giving the agency an engraved invitation to do what it's been itching to do for some time. The irrational overreaction was completely predictable, given the factors I cite above, even if it's completely unfair, and bespeaks a double standard, since the Forest Service doesn't string barbed wire around a lake or river every time a boating accident occurs. And that's how I predicted it.
No crystal ball required.
I predicted correctly because it was completely predictable.
These days, every tragedy that makes the papers generates a disproportional regulatory response from the safety uber alles crowd. Politicians and regulators are constantly scanning the headlines, looking for tragedies or "crises" they can turn into legislative or regulatory "fixes." If a family in Aspen dies of carbon monoxide poisoning, we'll within a week have a law moving through the statehouse, mandating that every new home in Colorado be built with carbon monoxide detectors. If some nut tries to set-off a shoe bomb in an airplane, we'll all henceforth have to put our shoes through a scanner at the airport (thank goodness he didn't use an underwear bomb). If a mismanaged pit bull mauls a child, pit bulls must be banned, or registered as lethal weapons.
Any excuse will spur the safety uber alles crowd into an irrational overreaction. All it took in this case was a complaint from the shooting victim's grieving father, who would rather blame the Forest Service for the death than his son's companion. And the papers generate a steady stream of similar excuses to act. This is how the freedoms of responsible people get whittled away, one "crisis," one tragedy, at the time.
Also easily predicted was the Forest Service's haste in closing the range -- though I've never, in my decades of watching federal bureaucracies in inaction, seen one move so fast on anything before. That's because the agency increasingly seems to view the public as a threat to the public lands -- as a hassle to be tolerated, controlled and told "no" -- rather than the rightful owners of these areas.
More people out enjoying the public lands means more work, more hassles, more potential headaches for forest service bureaucrats, so they are increasingly using "protection" as an excuse to close trails, close ranges, close areas and limit public access to public lands. Almost any excuse will do. And the justification for closing the shooting range came Saturday.
The agency also is succumbing to an attitude I describe as recreational correctness; it's the idea, somewhat analogous to political correctness, that only certain forms of "light on the land" recreation are to be allowed on public lands. Hiking is tolerated, because it's just about the only form of recreation that doesn't have environmental extremists (who today really give federal land agencies their marching orders) up in arms or bringing lawsuits. But all forms of motorized enjoyment of these lands, from snowmobiles to personal watercraft to off-road vehicles of various stripes, increasing are finding the welcome mat rolled up on them by federal land managers.
The continuing battle over snowmobile use at Yellowstone National Park -- see latest developments -- is one example of recreational correctness at work. Here's another recent example of recreational correctness in action.
Hunters are tolerated in national forests, at least for now, but they'll see restrictions and bans eventually, once the less powerful groups have been evicted. And how do shooters rate in this era of creeping recreational correctness? They occupy just about the bottom rung, from this perspective -- they're viewed as irresponsible redneck yahoos who are scaring away the birds and deer with their loud booms and are bound to get themselves or someone else killed, sooner or later.
And sure enough, a deadly mishap occurred at the Front Range Road shooting area Saturday, giving the agency an engraved invitation to do what it's been itching to do for some time. The irrational overreaction was completely predictable, given the factors I cite above, even if it's completely unfair, and bespeaks a double standard, since the Forest Service doesn't string barbed wire around a lake or river every time a boating accident occurs. And that's how I predicted it.
No crystal ball required.
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Taking Hart to Heart
When the Democrats gathered in Denver for their convention, there was a lot of heady talk, and expectations were running high, that winning the West was within the party’s reach. It still may be. But the exuberance and self-assurance waned a bit when John McCain surprised nearly everyone by shrewdly selecting a down-to-earth, small-town Westerner (yes, Alaska counts), Sarah Palin, as a running mate. Palin is perceived as someone who knows how to speak the West’s language, and as someone who connects with Western values, something neither Barack Obama nor Joe Biden can claim. Now the West seems again up for grabs.
Former Colorado Sen. Gary Hart is trying to salvage his party’s Western strategy not so much by stumping for the Obama-Biden ticket, but my educating party insiders about what they need to do, issue-wise, to make lasting inroads in the region. And I think, for the most part, he offers some sound advice – if the party can take Hart to heart.
Hart’s ideas are distilled in a 10-point manifesto, which is condensed as follows by examiner.com:
-Protect the sanctity of property. The party should condemn the Supreme Court decision allowing eminent domain for commercial use.
-Protect natural resources. Except in the most rock-ribbed, pro-development areas, westerners are for balancing resource development with resource conservation. Most want minerals, timber, and other resources developed at a reasonable pace on a reasonable timetable.
-Energy and the environment. Development of coal, oil shale and other fossil fuels, uranium, nuclear power and hydro projects should be undertaken with maximum attention to the environment. Encourage renewables such as solar, wind and biomass.
-Public lands. The federal government is the dominant landlord in the West. National forests, public lands, national parks and wilderness areas put the federal government front and center in planning for the region.
-Recreation. Recreational industries are crucial to the region's economy. Their profits are tied to preservation.
-Growth and the economy. Westerners want to maximize contradictory values. Life-stylers want growth controlled and often limited. Entrepreneurs want resources developed to achieve maximum profit.
-Technology. The West is the technology base of America, and the Democratic Party should promote regional high technology education and training centers to stimulate this trend.
-Mediation and arbitration. All of this balancing requires political leadership which understands the history and culture of the region. The party has been seen almost exclusively as a captive of the environmental movement.
-National security. The West is keenly focused on national security issues, having been the base for much of the nation's Cold War military structure and defense contracts. Democrats are not seen as having a coherent outlook on America's military role in the 21st century.
-Principles and values. Westerners do not like the beliefs of others imposed on them and are people who believe in principles: integrity, honor, courage, accountability. The religious right preaches values. Democrats should espouse principles.
The problem, though, is that some of Hart’s best suggestions, like getting the Democrats on the right side of the property rights issue, are fundamentally at odd with the party’s collectivist, command and control mindset.
The Kelo decision, though abhorred in Mainstreet America, was cheered by many urban politicos -- a key party demographic -- who view intransigent property owners as an obstacle to their grand urban development plans. And the party’s incestuous relationship with green extremists, which view property rights as a major stumbling block to “saving the planet,” a hindrance to fuller implementation of all the major environmental laws, from ESA to NEPA, and a hassle for the “smart growth” and “sustainability” movements, inhibits the party’s ability to take the moderate, common sense tack on energy and public lands issues Hart proposes.
Another major challenge to winning over Westerners, which does not appear as one of Hart’s 10 points, is the party’s inconsistency and disingenuousness on the issue of federalism -- on the desire of Western states for more autonomy from Washington, and for a true partnership in managing federal lands. A party that seems all about Washington, as the Democrats still do – about amassing power and resources in, and imposing “solutions” from, the capital city – can’t also credibly reinvent itself as the party that would give the West more latitude to go its own way, on energy, on public lands and on loosening the federal regulatory controls that often fall hardest on the region. My August 22 blog post on Ken Salazar’s cowboy hat -- here -- lays out some specific inconsistencies.
Here, too, the party’s alliance with the environmental lobby is a major liability, since these groups prefer that almost complete control over Western land decisions be vested in Washington, where greens get a respectful and receptive hearing, from Eastern politicians especially, and their lobbying and legal clout is most focused. Most Westerners outside the city centers, unless they're transplants, quite rightly view The Sierra Club and similar groups as an alien enemy, not an ally, because these groups have come to see saturation litigation, endless red tape and the analysis paralysis endemic to Washington as good for their agenda. This agenda opposes active forest management, opposes realistic energy development, disregards property rights, refuses to reform Draconian laws like ESA and NEPA, and wants to evict a good portion of the public from the public lands, in a bow to what I call recreational correctness. And all these values clash with those of most common-sense Westerners.
Some Democrats have been trying to distance themselves from teachers’ unions, in a bid to move the party forward on public school reform. But until the party can do something similar with gang green, and begins to disavow the anti-property rights, anti-energy development, anti-capitalist, anti-free market, relentlessly extreme positions of this particular constituency, it will have little chance of making big gains in most of the non-urbanized West.
Former Colorado Sen. Gary Hart is trying to salvage his party’s Western strategy not so much by stumping for the Obama-Biden ticket, but my educating party insiders about what they need to do, issue-wise, to make lasting inroads in the region. And I think, for the most part, he offers some sound advice – if the party can take Hart to heart.
Hart’s ideas are distilled in a 10-point manifesto, which is condensed as follows by examiner.com:
-Protect the sanctity of property. The party should condemn the Supreme Court decision allowing eminent domain for commercial use.
-Protect natural resources. Except in the most rock-ribbed, pro-development areas, westerners are for balancing resource development with resource conservation. Most want minerals, timber, and other resources developed at a reasonable pace on a reasonable timetable.
-Energy and the environment. Development of coal, oil shale and other fossil fuels, uranium, nuclear power and hydro projects should be undertaken with maximum attention to the environment. Encourage renewables such as solar, wind and biomass.
-Public lands. The federal government is the dominant landlord in the West. National forests, public lands, national parks and wilderness areas put the federal government front and center in planning for the region.
-Recreation. Recreational industries are crucial to the region's economy. Their profits are tied to preservation.
-Growth and the economy. Westerners want to maximize contradictory values. Life-stylers want growth controlled and often limited. Entrepreneurs want resources developed to achieve maximum profit.
-Technology. The West is the technology base of America, and the Democratic Party should promote regional high technology education and training centers to stimulate this trend.
-Mediation and arbitration. All of this balancing requires political leadership which understands the history and culture of the region. The party has been seen almost exclusively as a captive of the environmental movement.
-National security. The West is keenly focused on national security issues, having been the base for much of the nation's Cold War military structure and defense contracts. Democrats are not seen as having a coherent outlook on America's military role in the 21st century.
-Principles and values. Westerners do not like the beliefs of others imposed on them and are people who believe in principles: integrity, honor, courage, accountability. The religious right preaches values. Democrats should espouse principles.
The problem, though, is that some of Hart’s best suggestions, like getting the Democrats on the right side of the property rights issue, are fundamentally at odd with the party’s collectivist, command and control mindset.
The Kelo decision, though abhorred in Mainstreet America, was cheered by many urban politicos -- a key party demographic -- who view intransigent property owners as an obstacle to their grand urban development plans. And the party’s incestuous relationship with green extremists, which view property rights as a major stumbling block to “saving the planet,” a hindrance to fuller implementation of all the major environmental laws, from ESA to NEPA, and a hassle for the “smart growth” and “sustainability” movements, inhibits the party’s ability to take the moderate, common sense tack on energy and public lands issues Hart proposes.
Another major challenge to winning over Westerners, which does not appear as one of Hart’s 10 points, is the party’s inconsistency and disingenuousness on the issue of federalism -- on the desire of Western states for more autonomy from Washington, and for a true partnership in managing federal lands. A party that seems all about Washington, as the Democrats still do – about amassing power and resources in, and imposing “solutions” from, the capital city – can’t also credibly reinvent itself as the party that would give the West more latitude to go its own way, on energy, on public lands and on loosening the federal regulatory controls that often fall hardest on the region. My August 22 blog post on Ken Salazar’s cowboy hat -- here -- lays out some specific inconsistencies.
Here, too, the party’s alliance with the environmental lobby is a major liability, since these groups prefer that almost complete control over Western land decisions be vested in Washington, where greens get a respectful and receptive hearing, from Eastern politicians especially, and their lobbying and legal clout is most focused. Most Westerners outside the city centers, unless they're transplants, quite rightly view The Sierra Club and similar groups as an alien enemy, not an ally, because these groups have come to see saturation litigation, endless red tape and the analysis paralysis endemic to Washington as good for their agenda. This agenda opposes active forest management, opposes realistic energy development, disregards property rights, refuses to reform Draconian laws like ESA and NEPA, and wants to evict a good portion of the public from the public lands, in a bow to what I call recreational correctness. And all these values clash with those of most common-sense Westerners.
Some Democrats have been trying to distance themselves from teachers’ unions, in a bid to move the party forward on public school reform. But until the party can do something similar with gang green, and begins to disavow the anti-property rights, anti-energy development, anti-capitalist, anti-free market, relentlessly extreme positions of this particular constituency, it will have little chance of making big gains in most of the non-urbanized West.
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