This get's really long and floppy and piper will term it emotional drivel and Utardish but who gives a sh!t what piper thinks? Not I.
Secondly, I'm not going to re-read and edit my dyslexic grammar and sentence structure errors, if they bother or confuse you, skip it, you won't have missed much, that counts for much anyway.
Tri, I may understand you, the message you've been predicting and why you believe it will come about. Maybe more than some, maybe not. Hell, I may not understand you at all but I'm thinking I've got a pretty good idea of your philosophy and your rational behind it.
I understand free enterprise. I understand free market. I understand market value and how it's supposed to be determined. I understand liberty. I understand private ownership. I understand work or starve. I understand government waste. I understand the difference between the remnants of the European Monarchy System form of government, the American Constitution and the opportunity to rise above your families traditional status in a classless society, as designed and intended by the founders of the Bill of Rights. I understand all that, what's more I believe it, support it and believe we will, as a people, do much better as humans, living under the founders concepts. (Recognizing that we can argue endlessly what those concepts and visions actually where, by interpreting their words to suite out personal bias, we do it all the time.) But lets assume for a minute that we have a "common" basic agreement to their intentions.
Let's see if we can bring you part way, at least, to a common concept, so we can work together, rather than gut each other with a dull knife.
You live in Texas, a State that prides itself in it's independence and individualism. I like that. I wish everyone felt the same way about our country and our States as Texans do about theirs. Most of your State is privately owned. That's a good thing, your geography works to that end. But lets look a little deeper, if we can. There are places in Texas that aren't private, that are owned by "the people" in common. Under proper management and with proper "public collaborative funding" ie: taxes or use fees, these public properties generate a tremendous benefit and produce a fantastic experience for all "the people" of Texas. Millions of people, in fact.
Just what are these collectively owned (or public, as it were) properties. To list a few, they would be swimming pools, recreation centers, golf courses, city parks, and we could identify others if we looked deeper. Now, we can't say these are forced on the public because they are, by-enlarge, proposed by a group of interested citizens and presented to the public, where the public choses to contribute to the construction, maintenance and use, through the local election process. That is; "the people" choose to "pool" their money (tax themselves) for these properties, held collectively by "the people" for "their use".
Millions use them. Millions enjoy them. Millions would have a melt down and go after anyone attempting to remove them, with emotion, passion, logic, and even irrationally, if needs be.
Why?
Because, individually we can't each own a swimming pool. Individually we can't own a library. Individually we can't own a golf course. However, collectively we can have an amazing city park, etc, if we share the cost. Now, I personally don't use the library, but I want to make sure every child or interested parent can, because I believe libraries lift us all up. I don't golf very often, but I believe it adds value to my community and generates a desirable environment, which intern, brings great economic opportunity and wealth to my community. I believe I can share the cost of a school bus and haul my kids to school safer and cheaper than I could car pool with my buddies.
I understand that some folks believe the founding fathers did not believe in this "collaborative" sharing of benefits and the willing sharing of the costs. One could argue that individual groups of private families could partnership or incorporate and build a swimming pool, or a golf course, or a library. It's true they could, and they do. And most of us are great with their doing just that, country clubs are okay, private housing subdivision build fantastic parks "for there families", and we're okay with that, it's all good and we live in an amazing country that provides the economic ability for people to build these private facilities.
And yet, there are millions of us don't have the skills, the knowledge, the intelligence, the drive, the ambition, the "whatever" to create these corporations, partnerships, businesses, that can build these golf courses, libraries, swimming pools, etc. Millions in Texas, as well as in other States, don't. And.....still yet, there are many wealthy who could build a swimming pool, or a golf course, or a park, but not all three. So.................some of the wealthy and the less wealthy (poor and middle class, if you will) put together local municipalities and vote to tax ourselves a pool, or two, a golf course or two, a park or two, recognizing that all us don't even need or use every single one of these "publicly" funded properties but we are a better community if we have them, because they lift us all up and make us all better. And, we can have some of the same things those that incorporate can have.
It's actually a pretty good system, Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston, Austin, Corpus Christi, San Antonio, and hundreds of smaller cities in Texas have many many publicly held, community funded, public properties, enjoyed and cherished by million of Texans, such as yourself.
Yes, golf on a "publicly" owned golf course is cheaper than a country club, so is swimming in one of the public pools, and the city park is generally free. This is the point after all, if it was cheaper to each buy one of these, we would not have created these properties, that is the only reason, yes the only reason, we build and voted to share in the cost of them. We couldn't afford to build them individually or in smaller partnerships.
The public land in the west is no different in concept, than the public golf courses in Texas. They are simply a "national" golf course if you will. The "national public" has voted, for many many years, to own and operate these public lands, for multiple use. No different than a municipality has voted to operate a piece of public land for a driving range, a par three 9 hole, an eighteen hole, a practice green, etc.
Let's consider this scenario for a minute: Let's say the city of Fort Worth had a citizens group put up the idea of a new golf course on the outside of Fort Worth and it's citizens voted and agreed to fund the course. Twenty years later, after the golf course was built, a group of nice new homes was built along it's fairways, by private home owners, then more homes next to those homes and then a few gas stations, a grocery store or two and finally a shopping mall, five new car dealerships, a mega theater, 9 new Banks, etc. After all that a wise developer comes along and say's, "that golf course is worth way too much to this city to tie up that many acres when the city could sell it to me, I'll sell it so Shell Oil, Exxon, BP, and Phillips can each build a new 40 story high rise. Those four buildings will bring in more property taxes and provide a huge increase in economic opportunity to this community. We simply can't afford to allow people to be playing golf our there for $35 dollars a day, it's costing us billions of desperately needed tax revenue." Isn't that pretty much what you've seen happen?
My answer to this observant developer would be (maybe no yours, but maybe, if you give it some thought), "Sir, that golf course is why this community is here. It created the initial incentive for all that is here now, to be here now. The folks that invested those "shared dollars, via their municipal taxes" built, operated, and created the footings this city is setting on". If the city is in desperate need of tax revenue, as you say it is, as I believe it is, raise everyone one's collective contribution to the pay for the services they are demanding." The golf course has bought and paid for, just like every thing else in this city, by the people who built that golf course, they own it, as surely as you own the house your living in and the office building you operate your business out of." That , I believe, is what the founding fathers intended, they did not intend, for you, to take what our "collective people" have built and invested blood sweat and tear into, for your personal gain."
See Tri, there was a time, in the Western Rocky Mountain States, that the States, due to their limited abilities, asked the Federal government to manage these public lands. The Feds may or may not have wanted to. I can't actually imagine the citizens east of the Mississippi River, back a 100 years ago, being delighted in sharing in the cost of managing the vast "relatively unprofitable" mountains and deserts of the far west. But............like it or not, they had to. Their hard earned dollars were taxed, for or against their will, and those moneys were used to manages these State's lands. Lands the States could not or did not want to manage because the lands were not generating enough revenue to support themselves and the citizens of the far west could not and did not have the resources to management them. And they were going to sh!t because they were being abused by anyone and everyone that had a half baked idea about what to do on them, but the idea wasn't worth a nickel because they couldn't afford to pay the property taxes, let alone generate a profit, on these previously considered "waste lands".
So the Nation built a "golf course" if we can use that metaphor. As the golf course got older, more people moved in next to it, we discovered riches buried under it and water that accumulated on top of it. We grow large prosperous cities around and next to it. We populated it will wildlife, of all kinds, and created recreational hunting and fishing activities, cheaper than we could if we went back east or over to Europe to hunt and fish. We built reservoirs to hold back spring run off, so we could irrigate during the summer and stock fish in for public fishing, cheaper than we could lease lakes in the midwest and south. We re-grew over grazed ranges and restored abused forests and rivers. Why, because it lifted us all up. Some people in the East never came west, but they paid the bill just the same. No different than a man in Dallas does that's never swam a stroke in his life and never will, he hates the water but he support the local swimming pool.
Now that our States populations have grown (over doubled in 30 years alone), the States need more serves, they need more revenue. The same kind of businessman, like the one that wanted to build the high-rises on the golf course in Fort Worth, knows and sees the growth, sees the need for revenue and see the business opportunity. Him, and dozens of other investors and businessmen just like him. Oil men, lumber men, livestock men, home builders, etc. etc. All good, all patriotic Americans, that I understand, respect and admire. But, they didn't want these public lands until "we" the public, that made these lands valuable, by our growth here, made valuable by our previous "collective investments (our taxes)" in these public lands, until our investments have made them worth adding to the private sector.
Sorry, but, the business men don't get our investment, to increase your personal wealth. That's not the way it works, just because it's a larger golf course, it not different. If they need more revenue, they need to raise the taxes on the managers of these lands. Who are the managers. The managers of these lands are "all American", the nation, the Feds. That's how we wanted it, that how we built it and that's how it needs to stay, because it was cheaper for the States then and now that it's more profitable, sorry, you don't get to take the nations investment and have it, at their expense.
However, the nation, by it's desire and willingness to take over the operation of these lands, to "hold there hand up and say", "We'll do its. We'll take over the expense and the management of these far western lands, can't not now, after the cost increases, and the management becomes more complex, turn these collective public lands into political tools, they can't abuse, lock out some of the public, regulate against some kinds of multiple use, and change the game, now that we've all paid for it for 100 years, either." NO! That doesn't work either. As we didn't collectively build the value of these land so they could be to given or sold to the private sector, to generated needed revenue, we did not spend our time, money and investment in these lands to have part of our public investors decide that others of us no long have a right to multiple use access to these lands. Both attempts a behaviors, of both groups a understandable but there both equal corrupt and wrong and thief, from those that paid the price initially.
To your point Tri. These are not private lands. We build them back, as we were asked by the States to do, we restored the habitat and restored the big game species so we would not have to pay the Eastern U.S.A. private property and European prices to access, hunt and fish and recreate on them. Just because public land are now worth more, (in part because of our initial investment/taxes, just because we need revenue, just because the golf course was the incentive to build and grow human populations in close proximate, does not mean, nor justify, under the American concept of private ownership, that these lands now be sold to the private sector. In every sense, they've be bought and paid for by private American's, we've simply used the government system to pay for their improvements and their production.
Do we need to raise the price for the use of these "public land" absolutely. Why, the States need more revenue from the State land's. The lands are worth more now that there is a large population close to it. Inflation raises the price of everything, public and private. The cost of golf goes up too. You can't play golf on a public or a private golf course today for what you paid in 1952. All user, and non user need to pay more for these public lands, we own them, we want to own them, we want to keep them public, therefore as the value and the cost to own and operate them increases, so too must our contribution to pay for them.
Poor Federal government elected official management (not government agencies) allowed the need for improvements on these lands to exceed 100 million dollars. Is there waste in government agencies, yes. Should we care, hell yes. Should be fix it, hell yes, the same as a Board of Directors (of any responsible to it's share holders) has a responsible to limit waste in any American corporation.
Therefore, the system has worked for many many year. The system has been neglected. The States have been neglected. The multiple use concept has been bastardized by many "alternate objective groups", of all kinds. The far west Governor's have been, for 30 years sounding the alarm, nothing has improved, it's got worse. There going to take another run at this, not in my opinion to "take back these public lands or sale or other wise" but the need an increase in revenue of the golf course. These negotiations are being used to attempt to bring a much needed solution to a badly neglected system, that has failed to work and is costing everyone millions without fixing the problem.
We don't want to pay $2500, and elk $3500, antelope $2000, Bears and lions $1500, and sheep were $20,000, we don't want to pay that on private and or public land, that's the reason we hunters support public lands, that why we'll fight to keep them "ours", so that we don't have to pay as much as we would on a private ranch in Texas, Utah, Iowa or else where. We've, the collective American citizens, took on the costs to restore these lands, to populate them with big game and other products, and we need to willing to pay the necessary costs of maintaining them so that we can, but we are not interested, now that they have added value, given them to the private sector, any more than the folks in Texas would give us their golf courses, libraries, city parks, etc., to earn money for our private investment portfolios.
Any by the day, thanks to our DWR allowing a small percentage of our wildlife to sold the highest bidder, to grow more and larger herds of big game, for hunting, Utah's DWR is far from hurting for adequate funding. What has not always been the case but it has been for the last number of years, thanks to very generous businessmen and their profits.
I hope your believe that the far western lands will be privatized. I hope your still able to come here and hunt and enjoy these public lands, that you've help pay to grow and improve. I hope I don't have to pay $2500, and elk $3500, antelope $2000, Bears and lions $1500, and sheep were $20,000. I hope the multiple use concept is renewed and rebuilt like we've repopulated our habitat and big game. I hope all citizen of our great country will collectively paid for golf course to enjoy along with their good friends to play the country club.
Could be, our environments have shaped out thinking and our expectations Tri. Our view of the world is based on our environment combined with our experiences, yours may be different than ours, based on your environment and experiences. You learned your way in a State primarily privately own, and it worked for you, as you responded to it. So to have we in the public lands States, and we've learned our way in that system. You like yours and do well within it. So have we, in ours. Imagine, if you will, if the State of Texas was filing suit to remove the land owned by the private ranchers in Texas, taking over the management of these lands, for public multiple use. The very idea seems absurd. Taking private land from those that have owned and managed it for 100s of years? No way, you's say. To us in the far west, it's the same process. We and the rest of the country have been paying for and managing these lands out of our pockets, and it's just as absurd to us to suggest that we should loose our land, to someone that thinks we don't deserve it, or that we haven't paid enough for it, or are paying enough to continue to use it, as we have traditionally done. We are reacting in much the same why Texas ranchers and Texans in general would react, I dare say, we're actually acting much more civilly than I imagine Texans would, if the rolls were reversed.
So..........why are non-residents in these State charged extra and given limited hunting tags for the lands that they have been collectively paying for, for a 100 years. Because.........while the nation manages the land, it does not pay for, nor manage it's big game species. Each State determines it's populations, if there will be any, how many and where they will be located, etc. etc. State citizens pay the lions share of the costs to keep and grow the big game species on these public lands, not the citizens of the nation, not the Federal government. That was the original agreement and that's how the system has operated for the 100 years or so that it has existed. There is and always has been a separation of the public lands management and big game animals management, who pays for it and who is responsible for maintaining those animals.
I warned you it was going to be floppy, and rambling but you get the idea, as least, I hope you understand my logic, for better or worse.
Please don't wish us to fail. It's an investment you've participated in, just like us. Enjoy it, don't destroy it. Help us fix it. Public lands are a national treasure, but the are not long worth much if they are undervalued, neglected, and lock away. If we need more money to run our States, and we, as a nation want to maintain these public lands for multiple use, we need to anti-up a larger portion of our personal income to keep them and the States in which they reside viable. That does not mean we want to pay $2500, and elk $3500, antelope $2000, Bears and lions $1500, and sheep were $20,000, actually it is precisely the very reason why we need to solve the State's genuine need for increased revenue, without loosing your and my public lands to get it done.
Sometimes it's okey-dokee, if we predict a future that doesn't play out. We've all had plenty of experience with that, you'll be okay if your vision proves to be a little blurry, it happens to the best of us. ;-)
All the best my friend.
DC
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