[at-l] Re: Who cares about MacKaye?

[dfaddleton@mindspring.com (David)]

>> The examination of MacKaye's ideologies in a vacuum is pointless.  To
>> understand his writing - and thereby his thoughts - you have to examine the
>> movements of his time; the context, if you will, of his time period.

>That's a profound claim.  I disagree, but I'd >like to hear your reasoning.

The reasoning seemed pretty clear to me ... of course the edited version here cuts the reasoning out. Notwithstanding the editing, I saw little profundity in the reasoning or the conclusion. I saw a fair, objective, reasoning mind, but nothing there seemed profound ... 

>> Let's take a different example:  Arguing what George Washington envisioned
>> for his young nation is certainly interesting, but Mr. Washington's outlook
>> did not come to pass - and is not relevant to modern society except as a
>> footnote. 

>So why is it that 2nd Amendment zealots are so >quick to point out 
>the correspondence of the founding fathers, the >constitutional 
>debates, and the assorted musings of rich white >men who've been 
>dead for 200 years now?

Improperly mixing categories/metaphors/fruit here ... trails and canals and the rationales therefor are not the at all the same animal as constitutional principles, so why move the thread from land-use to 2nd amendment issues?

>Who's to decide what's relevant?

Depends entirely on the situation ... the US Supreme Court decides what's relevant vis a vis constitutional issues; the "public" [special interest groups, legislative reps, gov't agencies, lower courts] decides what's relevant vis a vis how to change the landscape for inter-state transportation; on TP, wingnut decided; here it's the participants themselves ...