[at-l] New Reservation System at Katahdin

[jbullar1 at twcny.rr.com (Jim Bullard)]

At 03:17 PM 12/26/2004 -0800, william fitzpatrick wrote:
>Somebody said:
>"       Galehead is a perfect example of (excuse me for this) head up the ass
>federalism..."
>
>Nope.  Galehead is a perfect example of the lengths some people will go to
>avoid doing the right thing.
>If you make a law that will cost some people money, they will try to get 
>around
>it.  If you write exceptions into that law, you'll end up spending a LOT of
>time in court trying to prove that this or that idiot really doesn't qualify
>for his interpretation of the exception that would save him a few bucks.
>
>The way around it is to write the law with NO exceptions.  It's a matter of
>practicality and enforcement rather than one of common sense--cheap jerks 
>don't
>care about common sense, they just want to save their money, no matter who it
>hurts, or how much it hurts anyone else.

NO EXCEPTIONS would mean that every hiking trail in the land, including the 
AT from end-to-end, would have to be graded and paved to wheelchair 
standards and all the shelters and privies would be wheelchair accessible. 
They'd probably have to install wheelchair lifts on Katahdin and several 
other places where sufficient grading would be impossible. Every stream 
would have to be bridged and fords that couldn't be bridged would have to 
have ferry service that could handle wheelchairs. That's what "no 
exceptions" would mean.

The handicap access installed at Galehead is an example of the silliness 
that "no exceptions" would result in. It's there because some people who 
wanted to make a point *carried* a handicapped individual and his 
wheelchair up the mountain *one time* solely to demonstrate that it was 
*possible* for a handicapped person to get there therefore handicapped 
access to the hut was necessary. I don't know for sure but I'd be willing 
to wager that no other wheelchair bound individual has ever presented 
him/herself for entrance to Galehead Hut. The extra money spent making the 
hut handicap accessible would have been better spent on other projects.

A few individuals have misconstrued the intent of the law to imply that 
handicapped individuals should be enabled to go anywhere and do anything 
that anyone else can. What was actually intended was that handicapped 
should be able to access the halls of government and the places that an 
*ordinary* individual does in the process of *ordinary* living, things like 
schools, libraries, supermarkets, theaters, etc. It was not intended to 
enable quadriplegics to become mountain climbers.

Laws should rectify the inequities they were *intended* to. That's what is 
meant by the "spirit of the law". A law which applies absolutely to every 
situation can create new problems where none existed.