I am a very conservative Oregonian, who has seen the scourge of poverty, drug addiction and crime caused by the spotted owl hysteria all too closely. Returning the land to private ownership is the best thing we could do.
With more income from forestry, we could be a wonderful place, instead of a hellhole of rural poverty for too many families.
The only even remotely "socialist" idea I have is the land must be sold in such a way that the people of the state retain the right to hunt on it. I do not want the owners of some timber company, or conglomerate, with headquarters in New England telling us we can't hunt deer and elk in their tree garden that they have never seen.
Of course, it would never work even if they did. No local sheriff, who has to stand for re-election every few years, would ever enforce a notice closing the forest to hunting.
Dave-
Are you in Klamath? (I am)
We do have an interesting challenge to our Republican Congressman in the form of a tea-party candidate, Dennis Linthicum. Dennis has done a good job stirring up the Klamath County Board of Supervisors with his cut-spending voting.
I am also a very conservative Oregonian, and live in a very poverty stricken rural county. I agree with you. One thing I would like to add is that private timberland owners can use very toxic chemicals that the fedgov is not allowed to use (from what I’ve read, I don’t pretend to know everything) and this is a topic many here are very disturbed about. The fed land may also use some very toxic stuff, I do not know. It’s not just a leftist/envirowacko issue. The crap gets into streams, rivers, and probably groundwater. And when it’s sprayed by helicopter, gets on other peopeles’ property.
All I was saying is, alas, you are a minority forever there.