Re: [at-l] Libertarian/capitalist view of the C-word thingy

["Bucky" <mfuller@somtel.com>]

> This sentiment is why I feel that the future of our American Way Of
> Life depends on a healthy supply of wilderness, or at least
> wildness, readily available to peoples of all incomes and
> geographic locales. Not to be trite, but if we do not have the
> ability to "live deliberately," we will lose the "Spirit of '76"
> which makes this country what it is.

This country was made on the existence of a frontier from
which a person could carve out a living with his own hands
and resourcefulness. It was made on the ability, whenever
the urge struck, to pack your belongings into a Conestoga
wagon and make a new life for yourself away from the twin
vampires of liberty -- urbanization and government. It was
the consumption of fertile, accessible wilderness that
moulded the American character, not the mere appreciation
of it, regardless of what the hippie at Walden et als may
have thought.

Sadly, the frontier closed around the turn of the century.
Since then, we've merely been arguing over how many museums
to it should be maintained. Look, but don't touch. Appreciate,
reflect and enjoy, then go home. Escape is only temporary.

Parks and nature preserves do about as much to keep alive
what made America great as reservations preserve the Indian
way of life. Visiting either inspires almost as much lament
in me as it does wonder or spiritual rejuvination.

>                                       And what it is, to be clear,
> is a union of nonconformists. Not an oxymoron, but a democracy. If
> we want to keep this country striving, PIONEERING for improvement,
> we need to provide space for them to "live deliberately."
>
> God HAS Blessed America!


And to think that the following was taught to kids only
twenty years ago:

http://www.apocalypse.org/pub/u/gilly/Schoolhouse_Rock/HTML/history/elbow.ht
ml

BTW - Change a few words, and you have:

http://x5.dejanews.com/getdoc.xp?AN=285737388

--
mfuller@somtel.com; Northern Franklin County, Maine
The Constitution is the white man's ghost shirt.  }>:-/> --->


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