Free Republic

Oops. Not the NYT. Well, I'm still keeping the article. :)

Gosh! I'm gonna earmark this piece for reference so I can use these quotes the next time the NTY gets giddy about the announcement of a new "Wilderness Area." And, what about that 1.6 million acres Clinton took from Utah in '86? How many people have been forced off their property WITHOUT JUST COMPENSATION due to extreme environmental policies?

Message to Bush-bashing NYT: Get a life.

Stop whining. They can come here ... if fact, we encourage all to come here ... LEGALLY. Period. No exceptions. If they don't want to apply to come here legally, then I'm going to assume that they are out for a free ride, and I'm sick and tired of free-loaders.

There is no scheme other than the one you mentioned: The enviros extreme policies have led to this. Ask any forester, you can't leave forests to thicken for 10+ years and not expect disaster to happen. Adding to that is the fact that many of these forests have been declared "Wilderness Areas" in which all roads through the forests have been removed.

As those out west say: "Fire trucks can't fly!"

I've said all along that the Demos are so busy trying to smear Bush that they're exposing themselves. The best thing that occurred with Enron is that the people saw that Democrats were also receiving money from big corporations. This was news to many, believe me.

It's surprising to see this in the NYT.

Hmmm. Where does one start?

In a bold experiment, three conservation groups have persuaded Mr. Rusk and five other ranchers to sign a unique covenant limiting the kinds of development that they – or any future buyers – can do with the land. The conservation easements forbid the ranchers from converting their 1,500 acres into trophy homes, golf courses, and condominiums.

I wonder how they persuaded them? I wonder if they know how little control they'll have over their land with an easement? For instance, how many banks will loan them money against their land now?

"This is as big and ambitious a program to protect ranching and the environment in a single effort as I know of," says Woody Beardsley of the Trust for Public Land, which has shepherded through the deal, along with the Colorado Cattleman's Agricultural Land Trust and Colorado Conservation Trust.

Which one of these groups are representing the private property owner?

This whole article could have been written by the Sierra Club. Who is going to own these conservation easements now? When the land passes to the children, will they be able to remain on as ranchers? Don't bet on it.

At the same time, the county would purchase land from property owners for open space buffers, often a mile wide along the Sacramento River and Sutter County line.

Purchase land from property owners for open space buffers. Nice. Wonder how many of those property owners are going to be willing sellers?

Do you remember the old Ann Landers? She was quite different. Some say that her divorce, which was a shock, changed her. After that, her advice became much more liberal.

I agree 100 percent with you. Sometimes I wonder what happened to the old "Free Republic."

What's next to pull from a bag at the airport? Kotex? Birth control bills? Laxatives? Hey, what the heck? Viagra? Those APES at the airport are uneducated, unprofessional idiots and I hope she wins billions. What they did was inexcusable and uncalled for.

"Taxpayer dollars should not be spent on private or parochial schools, but on improving neighborhood public schools," said Janet Bass of the American Federation of Teachers yesterday.

Been there, done that. Doesn't work. Now, it's our turn. Get lost. Better yet, get a real job. And, by the way, it's not "neighborhood public schools," it's GOVERNMENT schools.

She also said that all parents in the Excelsior class had the option to pull their children out if they felt uncomfortable with the material.

Gosh, where's the outrage that these children should have to leave the classroom and thus, be singled out for embarassment? Remember the argument concerning the child who shouldn't have to leave the room when the Pledge is being said because it's too tramatic?

In our school system, if you don't like the class and you opt your child out, they sit in the hallway. Of course, that's okay if it's a child of a conservative parent.

Answer to this problem: Build more wetlands in the U.S.

Washington didn't want to see the rats because they helped make a great economy and wonderful climate in which to be re-elected.

You gotta love the above line. It goes a long way in explaining the "It's The Economy, Stupid" mentality that saved Clinton's butt.

They don't. I live in Michigan, and I used to listen to 2 or 3 different black stations around here. None of them would play his music. They resented the fact that he was trying to become white, and the DJs were very vocal about this.

Plus, they may have missed this part: "... including contact information for some of the sources of this story."

Look, you're missing my point. If overdevelopment is your concern, then you should work toward better zoning laws and elect local politicians who will support your ideas. I have a problem with using the federal government to prevent "urban sprawl" by protecting, preserving or restoring anything. Go to www.propertyrightsresearch.org and read about how this has affected property rights in other states.

Also, most people think urban sprawl is the excessive property development. In fact, smart growth sites describe sprawl as three or fewer houses to a mile of property. Their cure is to create exactly what you see happening in FL.

With all due respect, the article to which you refer is full of the same blather these people are using all over the country, but especially in the west. "A major threat to the ecology ... the last refuge for endangered species ... unbridled sprawl ... chewing up 1,000 acres of wetlands ..."

We have more wetlands now than ever before, and we're creating more and more. (And btw, let's call a spade a spade, shall we? Wetlands are swamplands.) How do we accomplish this? By using The Wetlands Protection Act, The Endangered Species Act, The Clear Air and Water Act, etc. to force private property owners off their land. This has been a successful venture out west. As a result, the government now owns 40 percent of the land.

Here in Michigan, for instance, beach owners on Lake Huron can't do what they've been doing for years: groom their beaches to prevent them from becoming swamplands. Why? Well, because the Army Corps of Engineers says that the beaches are "emerging wetlands ... which are globally important ... to our biodiversity." How much is your house worth when it has swampland as a front yard? What happens when the government decides to protect this wetland? Well, along comes The Nature Conservacy, who'll buy the land and resell it to the government. If you don't want to sell, tough. You'd better be richer than Bill Gates and have a darn good attorney.

Conservation should be a local decision, not a federal government decision. Also, readers should note that once an area is "saved," the enviros push to have it declared a "Wilderness Area." This, in turn, invokes the Roadless Initiative, which then makes the area off limits to all. This is what happened out west with their forests. As they say, "Fire trucks can't fly ..." so they we unable to effectively fight the fires.

The point here is that all this concern for saving and protecting and restoring is nothing more than an attempt to circumvent private property rights. Henry Lamb knows this, and many of us out here do, too.

Sorry, I no longer trust the almighty government to fix anything. This is the same government that spent the S.S. money, the same government that supports one of the worst public education systems in the world, the same government that can't trace millions of dollars of government tax dollars that "disappear" (read ripped-off) every year, and they want to fix corporate problems?

Dear John: As the old joke goes, a democracy is when the wolves outnumber the sheep in deciding what to have for dinner.:)

Here's another one: www.propertyrightsresearch.org. Click on articles and then "national" and start reading. It's the best site I've found so far for getting the whole picture as to what is going on. BTW, the site used to be named "No Darby Refuge." These people are Amish farmers who've been fighting for five years now to hang on to their property.

Also, I subscribe to this: prc-digest-request@freedom.org. (Send email with the word "subscribe" in the subject line.) It's a daily report on enviros, property rights erosion, Smart Growth, the U.N., etc.