[at-l] Re: at-l Digest, Vol 2, Issue 36

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

In a message dated 6/28/2003 9:55:33 AM Eastern Daylight Time, 
spiriteagle99@hotmail.com writes:


> In your own words -
> >[at-l] Kennebec Bridge   (Thu Jun 12 00:22:05 CDT 2003)
> >      The real question here is what would have precluded the better bid 
> >from doing the job. 6 grand would have really boosted the Maine 
> >Conservation Fund...
> 
> That's the same question that I repeatedly asked  - and to which I got only 
> evasions, opinion and speculation - until "I" called to get the answers.


             ***    I don't think it's fair to jump on Weary (or tie his AT 
credibility in to it) - who probably wasn't directly involved. What went 
unanswered here was how these new events change the AT and its concept... 


> 
> 
> >These persons were standing up for the owners land rights.
> 
> Yep.  And I'll do that ever time - it's one of the basic concepts on which 
> this country was founded.  Your failure to understand that is a major 
> barrier to your desire to be taken seriously.   Breen had the right to ask 
> ten times what he got for the land if he wanted.  ATC and NPS had the right 
> to pay it or not - or to negotiate.  And if they negotiated badly, that 
> wasn't Breen's problem - nor his fault.  It was  theirs.
> 

      
           ***  I don't think you realize you are outlining the problem in 
your reasoning, instead of justifying it. The real question here is what value 
does the general public -especially nearby land holders - put on the AT besides 
crass negotiations? Breen, by the way, bought into and underneath the AT when 
he bought that land. He KNEW it was there and what it meant. He gave it zero 
consideration besides being a good means to work political back room deals 
against the AT as a means of self-enrichment. I mean when your "land rights" 
scenario gets looked at closer it becomes more and more dubious as to the 'sterile 
cleanliness' of that particular method. It's easy to stand aside and make 
generalized land rights comments. It's somewhat more difficult to try to create a 
conservation corridor.

      If the question were merely one of land rights, or NPS failures, your 
argument would be more tolerable. Unfortunately, there's more involved than 
that -err, like maybe the AT and its purpose? As far as your private property 
ethic, I'd love to see how you figure it's going to answer the serious, building 
world-scale environmental problems it has directly caused? The idea of 
American individual private property ownership and rule dates back to the 
justification of separating from the English crown and benefiting from the expansion into 
the vast virgin US territory yet to be exploited. Fine for all intents and 
purposes, up until the land runs out (sprawl), the sky deteriorates (ozone 
hole), the water runs out, and 'rights' change. Of course the knee-jerk reaction 
would be to call this "communist" etc, but I think you know how it is meant (or 
do you?) 

         No Jim, the question you are avoiding here by resorting to personal 
remarks is how the real enemy here isn't Weary or his 'dishonesty', as you 
claimed, but changing perspectives over the AT. I think you fail to realize that 
I can agree that the 6 thousand extra was against the purpose of the AT while 
at the same time saying that the extra 2 MILLION was also. I can do so without 
engaging in the slander tactics used as a safe out in case the truth gets too 
close and somebody needs to be shut down by means of list violations and 
personal vilification (Roxy). It's obvious to me that your property rights-slanted 
AT understanding comes at the expense of any practical, organized basic 
understanding of the AT itself. The main object here isn't the satisfaction of 
vague, undetermined land rights concepts, but that of the AT and its purpose and 
fighting for what achieves that. I don't think your original comments, nor this 
response, reflect that. Just think about how you pile on Weary while you free 
Breen from his empty promises to the locals used only to jack up the price 
against the AT (what about your lack of response on that one?). 

      All in all, I don't think it should be left unsaid that if the 
government courts obscene land rights values and ideologies along the AT the end 
result will be a serious deterrence of land acquisitions due to cost and 
difficultly. On a political basis, I hope you don't miss the potentially deliberate 
outcome of such actions. If the public's only input to the AT is to jack up 
Trail-side values on the hopes of profiteering, I suspect the long term outcome will 
inevitably be quite poetic...

 




            
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