[at-l] (OT) AT-L And The AT

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

In a message dated 9/17/01 12:37:48 PM, mfuller@somtel.com writes:

<< That people stop considering the lives and property of

others as theirs to dispose of, and instead respect 

individual rights. >>


     *** I have some questions to ask that I wish MF would answer. 

      Having read an article today, here in Florida, of homestead types 
pushed off their land by the federal government back in the 30's and 40's for 
the formation of national forests and military bases, I can't help but ask if 
this usurpation of individual rights was actually beneficial in the long run? 
I wanted you to jibe your particular doctrinaire and blindsided view of pure 
individual rights with the rest of Florida, which has become a serving table 
for unrestricted sprawl. 

    I wanted to chime in and remind you that the population surge and 
accompanying extinction of the Florida panther are equally as contradictory 
as fighting for pure rights is to the Appalachian Trail. I see a direct 
conflict with those who speak sympathy for the extinction, yet then go on and 
directly participate in activities causing it. Pure nature vs pure land 
rights. If anything, the predetermined indifference of the courts to those 
who fought the national forest acquisitions was proven correct with time. 
Yes, I see the conflict there, but do you see the conflict yourself of 
espousing intellectual positions without solutions for wilderness decline? If 
you omit this you are in fact saying you are for total deforestation of wild 
lands as will inevitably result from the consequences of private land 
ownership (as has happened elsewhere in Florida).  

    I understand that land seizure does not clear the hurdle of 
constitutional guarantee. However, the issue of natural preservation happens 
at a level of earth-dirt reality, not on the paper backing of social writs. 
Where the bulldozer's blade meets the roots of is the frontline of the 
problem just as much as where the cold government agents meet with humble 
grandfathered farmers.  It was my understanding of constitutional theme that 
where the better wisdom and greater good met entrenched government or 
intransigent belief, that that understanding must yield to higher 
understanding or principle.  In this case, the preserved forests have proven 
themselves against damage created elsewhere from people operating under a 
comfortable understanding of their "rights'.  It isn't so much a violation 
committed by government that is to blame here, but rather a failure of the 
general populace to adjust their behavior to the end results vs the 
environment. From this, another conflict arises where the best benefactors of 
the private property dynamic then turn out to be persons who represent the 
hardest resisters to wilderness preservation (Saddleback).     

    All said and done, I agree some cases should have been better compensated 
and this is an identifiable problem within the process.