[at-l] It is immoral (even MORE boring)

[RoksnRoots@aol.com (RoksnRoots@aol.com)]

In a message dated 9/10/01 8:25:24 AM, kahley7@ptd.net writes:

   *** I can't understand having to apologize because your thoughts need a 
little more space to express. 


<< No one can possible make a blanket statement that no one had their lives 
ruined.
And to blow off people's attachment to their homes or farms is callous to 
say the
least.

Since it seems that morality is a personal issue now, I stand on the ground 
that says
'taking' is immoral. Especially at fair market value.  If a person owns 
something, it
would seem that he should have the right to determine if, to who, and at 
what price
that something should be sold.  For the government to force sale, to take 
away that
basic right, is immoral.  ED isn't the only immoral thing that governments 
do.....just
another immoral thing.  The very least we can do is to be grateful for the 
sacrifices
forced from the unwilling sellers and maybe even mournful for the 
necessity.  Not
cavalier and unfeeling or cheap about the process.

    *** I, totally agree. If you think about the government monies which go 
to already rich manipulators of the system and from government programs 
designed to assist the most needy, the additional compensation monies for 
these people would be readily available. 

     I don't mean to be insensitive, but I'm sure many examples of successful 
relocations can be found where the ED subject did not fair that badly. 
Uprooting people from their forefather's land is never an easy process 
without emotional feelings. I feel I also suffer a similar type of depression 
when I see lands that were part of my sense of our local landscape clearcut 
and plowed simply for the potential to offer another strip mall, warehouse, 
or population growth endorsing condo.  I can't begin to total up the end cost 
in emotional or psychological damage for this juggernaut of rapacious 
deforestation for the sake of rote economic expediency.

<Given my history, when i looked to buy land to make into a home I looked 
for someplace
that was as unlikely to be wanted by the state as possible.  

    ***  The taking of property by the state for wild land preservation is 
relative to the direct threat of its undoing existing towards it. Wild lands 
need to exist somewhere. The people whose properties were seized lived in the 
area where the nation decided wild lands should remain. It is the Appalachian 
Trail. 

<The right to private ownership of property should be a contract between the 
government and people.   *snip*    What would be
sooooo awful in hikers "seeing" a home or a farm as they hike by for a 
generation or two
if the property was protected from development forever?

   
     *** It could be a mind bender - but so should the relationship of 
mankind to earth also be such a sacred contract. The constitutional right to 
private property is one of the cornerstone foundations of our government. Yet 
at no time and in no place did I see it expressed in the constitution that 
this should be paramount to all things concerning the people of the nation. 
When the concept of private property is used as a screen to prevent greater 
causes from being fulfilled, then this particular view of PP is secondary to 
the greater good. Any such process will ALWAYS be controversial with 
objectors and dissidents. This greater cause is the AT. The government is not 
maliciously victimizing random citizens for spite, it is trying to create a 
wild corridor. Sorry, but I couldn't be more for it! I would love to see a 
broadening of this to include open spaces everywhere.

     On your second comment: The reason so many trailside structures are 
being removed now a days is because the Trail is becoming more relative to 
local surrounding encroachment. Where a farming community or rural roadwalk 
was quaint in the past, today we are seeing simply being able to access 
unbroken stretches of woods a rarer encounter. Making available long 
stretches of wooded corridor is a greater accomplishment than it used to be. 
With this comes a sense of wilderness.



"an intangible family connection to land that cannot be replaced, but .."
Damn....when I grew up, my bedroom was the same room where two
of my great grandmothers died. 

    ***I think you misunderstand my meaning in "intangible". I meant 
intangible to the bureaucratic process of land taking. We are saying the same 
thing. 

    I wanted to go on and add that it is important that AT people stand 
against injustices done in the name of the Trail - but I also wanted to add, 
it is equally important to consider that some people will use it against the 
Trail if they see AT insiders taking a stand against furthering the corridor. 
Try to see the bigger picture. 
I feel it is wholly "constitutional" for this social contract to evolve as 
the circumstance dictate with the progress of man's evolution. The 
constitution was never meant to be a stumbling block for positive change.