Govt. owns too much land.
Posted on 09/27/2009 6:57:22 PM PDT by AUH2O Repub
I just got done watching the Ken Burns National Parks special. This is a show by, for and about tree huggers. They must have said five or six times how much better the parks are in Government hands than being run by private enterprise. They made everyone that tried to keep the parks in private hands to be nothing but evil. This even extended to keeping the parks away from the states and in the hands of the feds. Nothing but socialist drivel.
I started watching that drivel. Got bored and turned on the game. I normally don’t watch football when it has that moronic buffoon, Olbermann, on the show.
What a shock!
Olbermann was preferable to this?
Does he still have that Beatle haircut? It’s hard for me to take such a dude seriously
Whoever was playing the guitar has to have
bleeding fingers now
The Government Does It Best message was pervasive
Yeah, looks like a 60’s wannabe hippie.
I agree. I go out of my way not to watch football on NBC because of that fool Olberman. As much as I like football I am resigned to watching a movie with my wife. Sometimes it’s even a chick flick. This is so sad!
Unfortunately, National Park hirees closely resemble public school teachers: never got beyond “academia”....totally unable to compete in the private sector.....I could go on and on with this.
Last summer when I went to the UP, I found Tahquamenon state park to be far more enjoyable than Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore.
Pictured Rocks was nice as far as scenery is concerned but the facilities were well below what they were at Tahquamenon.
Remember the NPS is the one that spent 8 million for a rest room facility in PA.
Govt. owns too much land.
LOL! No. And neither was the game. I’m somewhere else now. Gary Sinese. CSI.
Private business would have run the places properly. Still would. Think they would have killed the goose laying the golden egg?
I had the sound off and just looked at the beautiful scenes of what The Lord created....I knew without ever hearing it what kind of crapola would be in this...he and PBS are a disgrace to all Americans. This creep proved himself in his WWII series and I wouldn’t ever be taken in again by this absolute insane radical leftist fool.
Yeah, and that great big whale spaceship from Star Trek IV MIGHT come and take them all away, but I'm not holding my breath.
Ken Burns, the Donald Trump of PBS, strikes again.
What about all of the people that lose their land via eminent domain?
I tend to agree. Granted most land in the US should be in private hands but the states and Feds did a service by preserving some really great places. I’d really hate to see our state and national parks turned into tourist traps with flashy signs and all the trappings.
That said, the feds these days seem to be interested in making access ever more restricted. I suspect there are many like Al Gore who would happily restrict all access to wilderness to authorized biologists and VIPs like themselves.
We lost a big chunk of our ranch first for a new highway and then more for a county airport, it happens.
Rooted in Teddy “The Progressive Bull Moose” Roosevelt.
I’m pretty much surrounded by state game area here and I couldn’t be happier. Keeps the riff raff at a distance.
I'm with you on this one, Ditter, and we may be in the minority here. I am glad we have the national parks, especially the big scenic ones like Yosemite, Yellowstone, and Grand Canyon. These places truly are national treasures and they need to be preserved in some state of wildness.
Tonight's program showed pictures of how, already in the 1800s, these places were being turned into tacky, commercialized tourist traps. The comparison even back then was that they ought not be turned into "another Niagara Falls." Having been to Niagara Falls a couple of years ago and having seen the encroachment of kitsch, I know what they mean.
I have gone backpacking by myself on a couple of trips into the high backcountry of the Sierra Mountains, away from anyone else and anywhere you could get to by car. It is the most beautiful place I have ever seen on earth. I know how John Muir felt.
Where I differ from some of the folks on tonight's program is, I do not worship nature. Rather, I praise the Lord God who created all this, and I enjoy his handiwork.
I don’t think you’re in all that small of a minority. I’m really glad we have the big beautiful national forrests and state parks.
Go to the Smoky Mountains National Park. Great place.
Throughout the park are empty houses from the people who used to live there but were forced off by our Federal Govt.
In many cases it was done with very little compensation.
Been there. When did this become about eminent domain? This was about existing national parks.
I agree. I was there for the first time a couple of years ago. Unfortunately, right outside the park is tacky Gatlinburg and not far from there the even more deplorable Pigeon Forge. Yeccchhh! I hate to think of that kind of crap working its way up the mountain.
Not only is all leftist propaganda, but a hefty chunk of it was most likely subsidized with our tax dollars...
“Been there. When did this become about eminent domain? This was about existing national parks.”
Just pointing out that eminent domain was how many of these parks were created.
So as you enjoy that beautiful vista, just remember it was stolen from a US Citizen through force.
What do you expect from the government’s propaganda arm, PBS? It should have been kicked off the taxpayer gravy train long ago.
Yeah but the cabins are inexpensive in Gatlinburg and you are 20 mins away from some great places.
Stay on the other side of the park where they consider Gatlinburg a big town.
Burns...typical meteroyuppie leftist revisionist......some here revere his WBTS work...yech.
Ken Burns was a one-hit wonder (baseball). He’s perfect for PBS, the graveyard of forgotten has-beens and never-weres like Burns and that old drunk-driving guy, Bill Moyers.
I know Ken Burns didn’t intend for me to think it, but John Muir came off as a nutburger.
Let’s hope Burns doesn’t set up a tent for Khadaffi in his back yard.
“Just like Niagara Falls”
Yes, how DARE folks create a series of ways for the rest of us to view and enjoy these natural wonders, and even make them useful for folks who may never otherwise see them. (the historical comment was about the hydrodam projects, BTW).
If you want to preserve something, let PRIVATE ENTERPRISE control it. You will end up with a surplus of whatever it was, whereas if the government looks after it, it WILL be destroyed eventually (see “the Tragedy of the Commons”)
The “Mustang Ranch” was a legal brothel and bar that was seized by the IRS for non-payment of taxes. As is required by law, the Fedgov tried to run it in order to keep it a salable asset for disposal.
It went bankrupt within two years of the tax default.
Do you honestly think that the very same government that couldn’t keep a whorehouse that sold whiskey running for any length of time is capable of running ANYTHING that matters? How about your HEALTH CARE, let alone a couple of pretty spots.
THINK, not “feeeeeeel”
Nice post...no arguments from me.
Some beautiful photography, movie and old stills.
Count me in the minority too. It was history and the parks would not have survived in private hands. I am glad they are here, they are our wonders.
John Muir was different, call him what you may, he beat to a different drummer, but good came from his work. I am glad.
I will never ever forget my first visit to Yosemite. We were unprepared. Had heard about it, drove out with just us and 3 kids. So beautiful we could not go back, spent night all of us in one room and no change of clothes, tooth brushes, etc.
Our next trip to the west coast, we were prepared and also went to Muir Woods. What beauty.
I’m in the same club with you.
“John Muir came off as a nutburger.”
________________
I read a biography on him, and some of his writings. Yes, he was eccentric, no doubt about it. But nosing around the wilderness was a good thing for an eccentric guy like him to do. He was the right guy to drum up excitement for our country’s natural beauty and interest in preserving it. Our country is lucky in that sometimes our highly eccentric and ambitious people manage to accomplish good things the rest of us would not.
The guy playing the guitar was probably Bobby Horton. http://www.ask.com/music/artist/Bobby-Horton/42669
He’s the man who spoke briefly right before the show. (glancing at his picture he looks a little like Levon Helm who’s the drummer for “The Band”)
Horton is from Alabama and plays civil war songs and such at a local festival here (dressed in period clothes). There was a write up of him in today’s Birmingham News. He actually plays guitar, banjo, trumpet and cello for this.
I don’t know what to think about this series. I think there has to be a balance. I’m no environmentalist and think most are over the top nutty. But at the same time I wouldn’t have wanted to see it ruined either - like I said- I would like a balance.
I definitely thought it ironic that they wanted to turn it into a national park to preserve it and have no issues corralling native Americans on reservations after seizing their land. And that’s what they call safeguarding it - the whole thing is just screwy.
Anyway the scenery was breathtaking. I thought about turning down the yaking narrators and just enjoying the beautiful scenery lol
Having just come from Yellowstone! I am glad the parks are preserved as is.
Been to Niagara falls and I would be sad to see that happen to Yellowstone.
Craters of the Moon is what you probably meant, it’s in Utah.
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