Objectivism and the National Parks
Posted by empedocles 9 years, 8 months ago to Philosophy
Having learned about Atlas Shrugged through the movies and subsequently through a reading of the book, I'm struggling to reconcile the National Parks along with her pro-business views. For example, what are your thoughts on Hetch Hetchy? I struggle with it as a backpacker and a businessman.
SOURCE URL: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hetch_Hetchy
Rand did, to be sure, propose continued development. But a parkland might support itself on fees that certain groups might pay to it for opportunities for organized group tent camping, hiking, riding, and other activities involving "outdoor survival" skills. So long as enough people know those skills have value, they will want a place to practice them. And they will pay for it. Directly, not buried in some budget along with a lot of "pork." And I imagine that artists will pay for it, too, to have vistas where they can go for inspiration.
I've got no issue with the fed gov carving up a chunk of land for a military base - it's a necessary function. Ditto for something like Washington DC office space. However, I think you're getting into frivolity when you're declaring tens of thousands of acres off limits because "it looks pretty".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_lan...
Excerpt: "As of March 2012, out of the 2.27 billion acres in the country, about 28% of the total was owned by the Federal government..."
I don't think the founders would approve.
Greater good is merely a euphemism for "what I want, and to hell with you."
WHAT?! "eminent domain is necessary"??!" defend that statement, if you can. I don't think it can be done without twisting yourself into a collectivist pretzel.
I don't know how it works in state-to-federal government transactions. I don't know if anybody knows.
Just keep in mind, [A] no government gets money to buy things from anywhere except taxes and fees. [B] Do they decide that they get what they say they need? Remember 20th Century Motor Co!
Governments are omnivorous monsters, devouring anything in their paths, and most of what they leave behind is deep footprints and poop.
This is illustrated by the travesty imposed by the National Park Service in the Cuyahoga Valley in Ohio, which was the subject of an older Jessica Savitch PBS Frontlines documentary "For the Good of All" that you can watch at the American Land Rights website http://www.landrights.org/VideoGoodOfAll... The travesty at Cuyahoga is unique only in that it was caught on film by documentarians. It illustrates the mentality of the bureaucrats very well.
As you've seen, most OBJ's abhor eminent domain - but what about seizure of land for military purposes.
Assuming the need is objectively genuine, I think we'd probably have to weigh on the side of defense then.
Anybody...?
The issue is very simple, the history of how it has all been usurped is long and complex. But in short Article I, Section 8, Clause 17 outlines under what terms the federal government can own land within a State. Post Office lots, arsenals, forts, dockyards to serve the federal government's limited duties. Embedded in the Constitution in the Property, Supremacy, and General Welfare Clauses - those much abused excuses for rampant, unlimited federal expansion - is the Equal Footing Doctrine. This Doctrine is simple. Any new State admitted to the Union does so on an Equal Footing with the original 13.
Did the federal government own land within the original 13? No, the colonies preceded the federal government, so all that was owned within the early States was sites for those exact enumerated purposes - forts, dockyards, arsenals, post office lots, etc. And requiring cession from the State wherein the property may lay.
So, we come to the Territories acquired by purchase under Treaty. Louisiana Purchase, Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, etc. The language in the treaties specifically state that the lands will be held in trust, as was held in the original Northwest and Southwest Ordinances, until such time that these territories be admitted to the Union as States on an Equal Footing as the original 13. The feds have no such power to retain "ownership" of public lands within a State.
Now, what if the federal government should create a National Park before such region be admitted as a State? One might be tempted to argue, as in the case of Yellowstone created before Wyoming was admitted as a State, that the Park could stand as a Park. However, there is no enumeration in Article I, Section 8, Clause 17 empowering the federal government to create National Parks.
That is the purview of the States, for which the Tenth Amendment reserves all other matters not specifically delegated to the feds. While we may enjoy the Parks and Monuments and may wish to maintain them as such (or not), this is a State matter alone. So, the 87% of Nevada that has been purloined by the federal government is actually State public lands for the benefit of Nevada citizens and others. And this through privatization of various rights and titles - or State Parks. Anything less renders the citizens of the State of Nevada as second class citizens to those of other non-public land States.
The 'equal footing' of the newer states in the west was subverted by agreements, as a condition of statehood, to turn over all the unowned territorial land to the Federal government. At that time it was still expected that the policy of settlement and claiming of unowned land would continue, but with the process administered by the Federal government instead of the territories as they became states. That changed dramatically with the onset of the early progressive movement in the last part of the 19th century when the Federal government reversed the policy of settlement to entrench permanent Federal control over the unowned land.
As for the National Parks, they were initially carved out of 'public' lands in the west, then taken from private land, often by eminent domain. The state legislatures have routinely consented to the ceding of land in the states to Federal control under Article 1, section 8, paragraph 17 (even though there is no Constitutional authority for National Parks there or anywhere else). The National Park Service was created by Congress as an Executive agency in 1916 under the progressives. By the 1920s and 30s thousands of people in entire communities were being displaced, along with seizing the timber lands, in the east at the Smoky Mountains and Shenandoah National Parks. They have continued that policy ever since, which has only been politically slowed by public resistance.
The problem of Federal land in western states like Nevada is only a part of the more general problem of losing private property rights everywhere, including the threat of Federal eminent domain and regulatory takings of private property driven by the viro movement.
The reason that Territorial Acts are not binding on the subsequent State is just that: The Equal Footing Doctrine. Nevada passed its NRS Statutes 321 series acknowledging this power and jurisdiction and laying claim to the public lands. You are correct that politics, primarily sell out politics of those favoring federal hegemony and largesse undermined the 321 statutes by leaving it to the discretion of the Attorney General. In Nevada, the Attorney General is an elected position and the battle has been on to ensure the statists have always controlled that seat. But ownership is there for the taking, if the State showed enough backbone.
As for a State constitution empowering a State to create parks, no need, that is one of the many powers left to the State, hence the many numerous State Parks in many States. The wisdom of such collectivism is another matter of debate, but at least when at the State level, it is closer to the People affected.
There is also another Constitutional Doctrine regarding the abdication of Constitutionally separated delegated powers. The separation of powers both horizontal and vertical cannot be abrogated between branches of government and between the States and the federal government. i.e., the consent of State legislatures to the ceding of land to the federal government within their borders is unconstitutional and null and void from the get go.
The solution of course is in the wisdom of our Constitution - if it were to be followed. When not followed, in every arena and endeavor it creates a mess, a milieu of corruption, influence, coercion, bribery, and all to the general degradation of the life, liberty, and happiness of We the People.
As a natural preserve - while the Hetch-Hetchy valley is, indeed, flooded it is still a beautiful and striking area. It truly serves a dual purpose of a recreational area and a lifeline for a few million people.
What makes me laugh is the starry-eyed people who clamor "Destroy the dam and restore the valley". That piece of dirt has been underwater for some century or so... even the most determined restoration effort (at how many billions of OUR tax dollars) it will never look or be as when John Muir hiked through it. It can *never* be "restored" - just drained, planted, reseeded, maybe move dome rocks around, add some concrete to bolster the bottom of the many falls, and make it a Disneyland.
Yeah, had it never been dammed - then it would be different. But it was. And people now need it for their lives and businesses. Considering it is a link in a system designed to water a desert peninsula (and state), when the state has so many ongoing water problems, killing it - would be akin to a death sentence for a large chunk of California.
When government began creeping into land ownership it began the violation of individual property rights.
As for the Hetch Hetchy Valley dam and subsequent flooding thereof, 1934 was before the invention of desalinization plants.
I've often quipped that our government can spend money frivolously in California for a railroad across the desert and LA will drain Owen's Valley for its water resources but won't spend money on desalinization plants for Southern California.
http://news.yahoo.com/rand-paul-tells-au...
Clinton did that at the end of his administration -- along with pardoning terrorists, etc. --at the almost 2 million acre Grand Staircase-Escalante in Utah, cutting off massive deposits of coal in a controversy still being fought in the courts. There is a real danger that Obama will repeat this pattern before his term of office is over -- including collaborations with wealthy "private" viros and their pressure groups buying land as a "gift" to the government in order to impose Federal control. Once a National Monument is established, it is politically easier to turn it into a National Park.
A new National Park requires Congressional approval, but once they have it, the President, his Interior Secretary, and the National Park Service bureaucracy have enormous arbitrary powers including eminent domain.
Jan
You can't 'steal' something from someone who has no concept of ownership, only tribalist control, and there is no 'right' to maintain collectivist control anywhere. Anyone had a right to settle the unowned land and establish a more individualist form of government. Unowned land in the wilderness was properly claimed by individuals settling and using the land.
In the early history of the settlers, much of the problems in claiming land were obstructions from "grants" of land from royalty in England giving their cronies the privilege to control vast areas they had no moral right to, and who then tried to impose a form of feudalism and quitrents to be paid by settlers. It lasted for a very long time in some places, but was eventually broken up, even though the system of taxes on land continued. There was a lot of government corruption and statism (including theocracy in the earliest period), causing controversy and resistance from the people in the evolution of the American colonies which isn't normally taught in school history.
Remember that the earliest centuries of settling the American continent were pre-Enlightenment, but it was still a more advanced stage of civilization and personal individualism than the primitive tribalism of the Indians.
Jan
The Homestead Act of 1862 gave 160 acres to people (many qualifiers) who applied for a land grant.
Much like all aboriginal peoples they thought of themselves as being part of the land. The idea of land ownership was a foreign thought.
http://www.galtsgulchonline.com/posts/f3...
So, Yes on the public parks idea but No on the Federal parks idea. (I have learned more about federal parks and land use on this list than in any other venue.) On the State parks...I am not so decided. I think it depends on 'how the State got the land'. Could a private party give the state a park under the condition that it would administer it? That might be a fair deal.
I do not hold that the Indians are the actual owners of the land. The current Indians are not the original inhabitants - they took the land from predecessors, just as our European ancestors migrated into Europe and conquered land there.
Jan
(But if you ever donate to the Nature Conservatory, they will hound you longer than an alumni association.)
We could talk about even these questions for days [and probably will] but how about starting with a smaller, more specific question?
point for asking for our "thoughts" rather than our "feelings" or "beliefs". [If you don't know, that's the little number to the left of your name. You get them for saying something interesting, bringing up an interesting topic, and sometimes for a brilliant turn of phrase. It's not a "like", it's a "may I have some more, please?".
The Hetch Hetchy question requires the reader to inform themselves about it and come up with an opinion.
Some simple questions to think about. Should it have been dammed? Should we have National Parks? Then, how do you reconcile your answers with your thoughts on objectivism?
I read the article you posted, and was curious about which subject, of the many in the article, you were interested in discussing. The question "what do you think?" remains too broad. Your revised questions are better.
Should it have been dammed? I have no idea - there's no way to wrap my mind around every single element of that decision. In general, if done correctly, I am in favor of hydroelectricity.
National Parks? My very first philosophy teacher - a escapee from Soviet Russia - said that the very first thing that should be done in discussion is to define the terms, so we know what we are talking about. So....
National Parks. Who originally owned the land? How was it acquired? How are its various facilities maintained? Who has access? Who makes the rules, who can influence those rules, and how? in shorter words, what is a National Park?
When I know what you'd like to talk about, I'll see about breaking the time free to talk about how that relates to Objectivism. There's lots to talk about here.