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  • Posted by ewv 7 years, 7 months ago
    Obama has been exploiting the Antiquities Act of 1906 to decree National Monuments, grotesquely distorting its original purpose to protect objects of historical or scientific significance, like Indian artifacts, on Federal land and affecting the minimum amount of land required.

    Obama is using that minimal authority to lock up tens of thousands and even millions of acres of land and water, all with no statutory or constitutional authority. Progressives began this in relatively smaller amounts a hundred years ago, ultimately with the acquiescence of the Supreme Court interpreting an "object" to be any arbitrary size of anything while ignoring the lack of Constitutional authority. Obama is setting records in the size and number of these "Monuments".

    Much of it is a ruthless, cynical strategy to bypass the refusal of Congress to approve new National Park takeovers demanded by radical preservationists but rejected by local people and elected officials. Some of it is private property bought by viro activists to Federalize the land, deliberately eliminating private property rights on it forever in the name of a "gift" to forcibly impose their collectivist-statist eco-ideology. Normal people know that, at least in principle, such "gifts" to government agencies are the corruption of buying government policy. The targets are being selected and approved by the radical viro activists Obama appointed to key positions in government.

    People all over the country are up in arms over these ruthless decrees and staggering dictatorial corruption, but if that is mentioned at all in the "news" it is dismissed as "objections from some local people" and "economic interests", as if that doesn't matter. The New York Times represents the statist-collectivists advocacy http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/27/opi...

    ""[T]here is invariably complaining whenever Washington asserts a public interest in land that states and private interests think should be theirs."

    "It is our hope that Mr. Obama will continue to seek out good candidates for monument designation, regardless of the political opposition."

    This is very serious and of enormous scope, with terrible consequences, and there is a lot to it that most people know nothing about. Obama's record-setting abuse has even led to serious attempts in Congress to rein in the unilateral authority, which lost by one vote in the Senate last February.
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  • Posted by ObjectiveAnalyst 7 years, 7 months ago
    Hello AJAshinoff,
    Yes... Just more statist nationalism.

    Article 1, Section 8, Clause 17
    To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of Particular States, and the Acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States, and to exercise like Authority over all Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be, for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards, and other needful Buildings;--

    "The natural progress of things is for liberty to yeild, and government to gain ground." Thomas Jefferson. Note:The spelling of yield as yeild is an accurate quote as Jefferson frequently used it.
    In this case the meaning "to gain ground." is quite literal and double entendre.

    Regards,
    O.A.
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    • Posted by ewv 7 years, 7 months ago
      Some state legislatures, the most recent being Maine, have explicitly passed laws denying permission for the transfer of land to the Federal government. Maine's law prohibits such transfers for the purpose of National Monuments. It is commonly dismissed as "symbolic" because everyone knows that the Federal government is ignoring it. Obama did just that in an act of staggering corruption with a wealthy political activist funding plans by the National Park Service to expand its own empire in defiance of Congress, the governor, the state legislature, and the local people who overwhelmingly oppose it.

      One fallacy seen frequently is that state denial of permission to cede territory violates the "supremacy clause of the Constitution", misrepresented to mean that the Federal government can do whatever it likes regardless of the states. That is of course false: the supremacy clause says that state law must be in accordance with the US Constitution and in accordance with Federal law that is itself in accordance with the Constitution. State law in accordance with Article 1 Section 8 Clause 17 of course is directly in accordance with the Constitution and Federal statism ignoring that itself violates the supremacy clause.

      There is also no provision in the Constitution granting the Federal government the authority to buy and preserve land and water with National Parks or any equivalent.

      This post-constitutional era of rampant statism ignoring the Constitution except for some matters of procedure out of nothing but political momentum is frightening.
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    • Posted by wiggys 7 years, 7 months ago
      AJ,
      All this brainless puppet is doing is what someone is paying him to do regardless of any consequences incurred by the nation. Who ever it is that is paying him wants to destroy the nation for some purpose that I cannot fathom hard as I try. It is obvious that the nation is dying due to actions taken by the civil servants (that is a contradiction) who have NEVER contributed anything to the nation, nor do they intend too. The constitution of the USA is nothing more than an old piece of paper that has no meaning for these civil servants. If the elected representatives serving in the congress had a backbone they would have started impeachment proceedings against the man several years ago, but they are all in league with him because they are all birds of a feather. why they think that the largest of companies will continue to exist in the not to distant future when they do not have employees is beyond me.
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      • Posted by $ 7 years, 7 months ago
        Agree. O has been nothing but a puppet from day 1. His master(s) are hostile to the US, its Constitution, and way of life.

        Foreign powers? Islam? Soros? A combination of one or more of them I'm sure.
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        • Posted by wiggys 7 years, 7 months ago
          0 may very well be the next head of the UN and force upon the USA so many nasty things it will be unbelievable. When planes hit the twin towers they hit the wrong buildings, They should have hit the UN buildings. They would not have been replace but new apartment buildings would have taken their place with a good view of the east river. I just read he is going to sign the paris climate change deal without the okay of 2/3rds of the congress approval.
          Daily our world (USA) gets more and more sickening!
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  • Posted by Flootus5 7 years, 7 months ago
    There is another in the works off the New England Coast. Fisheries will be locked up. But how much of these are actually extending into Territorial Waters?

    The land in question in Maine is private land being donated by the wife of the Burt's Bees guy. But if the State of Maine passed a law forbidding National Monuments within the State, that is something to consider. Governor LePage would have signed it if it was recent. Acadia National Park was private land before the Feds getting there hands on it. And now there are National Forests actually within some of the original 13, completely in defiance of Article 1, Section 8, Clause 17. There is a constitutional doctrine called the Equal Footing Doctrine that maintains that any new state entered into the union does so upon an equal footing with the original 13. A1 S8 C17 applies also to the public lands States like my own State Nevada. We know how that has turned out.

    With that then, the 1906 Antiquities Act was passed in the context of protecting the major cliff dwellings on public lands in the west. With the understanding that just enough acreage needed to protect the archaeological resource would be set aside. Within two years "Little Teedy" Roosevelt completely abused this intention by designating the entire Grand Canyon as a National Monument in 1908.
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    • Posted by ewv 7 years, 7 months ago
      There are two massive National Monuments being pushed for the coastal fisheries off New England. Both have been very controversial.

      The Maine legislature passed the law prohibiting the transfer of land in the state to the Federal government for a National Monument only a few months ago. https://www.galtsgulchonline.com/post...

      It was in direct response to Roxanne Quimby's threat to transfer the land Obama just decreed as a National Monument, thumbing his nose at the state. But Quimby is not the "wife of the Burt's Bees guy" and it was not a "donation". The history is much more sordid.

      Quimby is a 1960s counter culture political radical who bought the land specifically to impose Federal control. Calling this a "gift" is euphemistic cover for the corruption of buying government policy, and the outrageous rationalization claiming that she can "do what she wants with her own land" is a grotesque conceptual inversion by an anti-private property rights zealot exploiting her land ownership and government corruption to permanently destroy private property rights as a matter of principle.

      The contradictions are deliberate political strategy and inherent in her ideology. Progressives think they have a "right" to use government power as a tool to impose anything they want, and in their infinite wisdom expect us to think it is a "gift". They certainly do not believe that property owners have a "right to do what they want with their own property" even in the normal, common sense usage of that phrase. But we are expected to believe that Quimby's property ownership gave her a "right" to impose Federal control.

      The National Park Service and its lobby first promoted taking over about 10 millions of acres of private property in Maine for several massive new National Parks almost 30 years ago, intending to eliminate the timber industry, private property and the private economy for the sake of government forced mass wilderness restoration and preservation of primitive pre-settlement conditions.

      The massive media and lobbying campaign was thoroughly beaten back, but tore up the state and disrupted peoples' lives fighting for years against entrenched pressure groups and government officials. Quimby started buying land in 2001 to get around the rejection by planning a direct unilateral transfer on behalf of a radical Wilderness Society offshoot organization called "RESTORE: The North Woods". It's leaders had collaborated with NPS and its private lobby arm the National Parks and Conservation Association (NPCA) in the original political planning. It has stressed pushing for a smaller, "only" 3.2 million acre National Park Service takeover in northern Maine.

      Quimby was on the board of directors of Restore and has continued to give it millions of dollars in tax free 'donations' for their common political ends. Knowing she could not buy millions of acres herself from owners who refuse to sell to her, her stated intention is that her land is to be a "seed", a "downpayment", and "to give the movement momentum" so that the National Park Service can take over the rest.

      She found that that under Federal law (reformed in the 1990s to stop NPS from planning and politically stampeding people for new land takeovers) it is illegal to establish a National Park without 1) Congressional approval, 2) a Congressionally approved New Area Study preceding that, and 3) demonstrable local support prior to approving a "study". Quimby's "non-profit" organization over years spent millions of dollars on Washington political consultants, deceptive media campaigns, organizing and threats, push polls, and phony "studies" with preconceived outcomes, all trying to get the Maine Congressional delegation to submit legislation, which it would not do without local support.

      Quimby wanted the transfer to be regarded as a "gift" to the National Park Service for its centennial celebration this month (August 25), and that is why she arranged with her crony insiders in Washington for the presidential decree, grotesquely distorting a law that was never intended to be a means to establish National Parks by bypassing Congress. The Interior Dept had promised Sen. Collins of Maine that it would not pursue a "study" on its own.

      What led Quimby to this? She attended a radical San Francisco arts college and as a full-fledged counter culture New Leftist in the early 1970s traveled across the country to Maine in a battered VW bus with her boyfriend to become a "back to the lander" living in primitive conditions. She found her later cohort Burt Shavitz living in a converted turkey coup and selling bees wax to eek out a living. She once said that her business break-through contribution was to re-package the wax in tiny containers, selling it at a high markup, exploiting the natural-is-good fad. She raked in the money, bought out Burt for a pittance, and eventually sold out the company "Burt's Bees" to Clorox for over $320 million. Her sister, who is in finance, guided her.

      Out of her "generosity" she bought Burt a house, but he said he didn't like it and later moved back into his turkey coop.

      Up to the point of selling the company, that was all legal, if not ethical, but it more resembles the old time scam artists selling elixers out of the back of a wagon than an admirable American industrialist or entrepreneur.

      Many people don't understand why she would spend the money on land for the government, puzzling over what kind of tax write-offs she is arranging to make money off it. But no tax breaks can outdo a few hundred million squandered to destroy private property rights with a government takeover of land. The truth is much simpler, though difficult for normal people to understand. Like Obama, she lives like royalty, but their actions are the direct destructive result of a corrupt, nihilistic philosophy put into practice by someone with the means and the evil to do it.

      Here are some samples:

      Bangor Daily News July 10, 2011: "Now that she is wealthy, she sees a responsibility to give back to the land that sustained her during her early days in Maine spent in a tent without electricity or running water.

      “'I can think of no better thing to do with Burt’s Bees profits than to return them to the earth,' Quimby said."

      "In addition, she said, Maine’s strong property rights ethic – which is sometimes raised as an objection to the park – actually works to her favor because people accept the notion that she can do whatever she wants with a piece of land after she has bought it. Waging her battle with money, she said, means she doesn’t have to argue with people about her philosophy of protecting the land." [Remember the contradiction in that.]

      Forbes Oct 3, 2011: "... it’s the symbol of what one person can do to make a difference…to make the changes that we need to make so as to live on this earth in the future. I think it goes right back to unity… I don’t mean to be apocalyptic about it – but I have always been a student of metaphysics and tried to sensitize myself to another dimension and get in touch with it and see if there’s something to learn…one of the things I believe is that unless we unify our spirits on a completely global scale, we are just another failed experiment." [By "metaphysics" she means New Age, not Aristotle.]

      "The time that I spent living without electricity in the woods of Maine was really formative for me. It was so clear that I was not in charge, not for one minute… the humility factor – Mother Earth…. I think we need to have more opportunities to have humans interacting in Nature and feeling safe doing it. And I think national parks make it safe."

      Yankee Magazine 2008: "Roxanne needed more money than what she was making. One day, she stopped to buy honey from a pickup truck parked by the side of the road. She became friendly with the man selling the honey, a gruff, bearded beekeeper named Burt Shavitz. He was older than she by 15 years and was having back trouble. She offered to help him, and he gladly accepted, as he could use a woman with a good strong back. That summer, she learned how to keep bees and how to render honey. 'I was inspired by the bees, the way they all worked together,' she says. 'I thought, 'Oh, what good little communists they are. Well, except for that queen in there...'"

      "In concert with RESTORE, what she has in mind is a national park. 'I feel like my reason for being put on this earth will have been fulfilled because this will live on after me. A park is a demonstration that there is something in America that I can love,' she says, her counterculture philosophy re-emerging..." [Like Michelle Obama, all she can 'love' about America is her own power to impose her ideology.]

      "When Roxanne was growing up, she often played Monopoly. 'I loved that game,' she says. 'I had two sisters and a brother, all younger, and they were always available to play. I hated to lose, so I always made sure, one way or the other, that I won...'"

      "Roxanne’s plan is somewhat counterintuitive. She returns to the bees of her past: 'To me, ownership and private property were the beginning of the end in this country. Once the Europeans came in, drawing lines and dividing things up, things started getting exploited and overconsumed. But a park takes away the whole issue of ownership. It’s off the table; we all own it and we all share it. It’s so democratic.'”

      Maine Public Radio 9/16/11: "'I still believe that a 3.2 million-acre park is a fabulous idea. I'd like to see a ten million-acre national park!', Quimby said. 'I love national parks and the bigger the better! But in terms of what I can accomplish as an individual I think that there are limitations. And because private property rights and my rights as a landowner figure so importantly into this discussion, I feel best about limiting the conversation to land that I own so that's why I'm talking about 70,000 acres and not 3.2 million but theoretically the sky's the limit!'" [10 million acres is 2/3 of Maine, almost all of it privately owned.]

      Quimby (and her political supporters) have been pushing for a "limited" 150,000 acre National Park "seed" comprised of land she has for years dishonestly claimed to own as her "gift": In fact she has trapped inholders owning 40% of the land and who are targeted for removal. That is why the National Monument decree is a patchwork of about 88,000 acres and she continues to pressure for Congressional legislation for government acquisition authority.

      Needless to say, the publicly promoted euphoria over Quimby's "centennial gift" does not allow for any of this to be reported.
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      • Posted by Flootus5 7 years, 7 months ago
        Apparently, they were married at one point:

        http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/artic...
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        • Posted by ewv 7 years, 7 months ago
          Qimby's reported one previous husband is George St. Claire. Whatever her personal relationship with Burt, legal or not, he was along for the ride and they are both personal losers as human beings.

          More important than Burt is Quimby's ruthlessly ideological drive for power and willingness to impose it on anyone, with no conscience. She is a personal crony of the last two Secretaries of the Interior, the Director of the National Park Service, and many other top officials in NPS and Interior. Who has that kind of power and influence?

          Her attitude and shear corruption in brazenly thumbing her nose at Maine to impose what she wants is staggering. The local towns impacted voted against her in 2 to 1 landslide defeats. The overwhelming opposition is why the Congressional delegation would not give her the legislation she demanded. She couldn't get the support she needed, and still dishonestly claims to have, despite years of high pressure campaigning.

          She personally brought NPS Director Jarvis and the Secretary of the Interior to Maine to try to generate a clamor for her agenda. She bombarded the media with propaganda for months before the elections, then commissioned a push poll, claiming 2 to 1 support for her, by a political consultant that openly advertises getting the results its clients want. She sold emotional images of scenery and promises of riches, with nothing said about the reality of National Park Service control and arrogant abuse of people across the country for a century.

          The victims didn't have the means to contend with her millions spent on PR across the state. And still, Quimby lost in landslide votes, only to ruthlessly impose what she wanted with a presidential decree.

          When normal people find out even the bare rudiments of NPS behavior and history they are appalled. Yet the utopian, emotional imagery swooning over NPS nationwide continues, as you see in the current blitz of centennial propaganda. People just don't know and a lot of money and power is devoted to making sure they don't find out. This is the Orwellian face of dictatorship, driven and enforced by romanticized state worship and irrational emotionalism fueled by orgasms over scenery obliterating concern for anything else. Reason and rights of the individual are allowed no role.
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          • Posted by Flootus5 7 years, 7 months ago
            Good discussion. I have been reading how she and her RESTORE affiliations have been expanding their activities out West here as well.
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            • Posted by ewv 7 years, 7 months ago
              Quimby has been funding the NPS to drive out inholders everywhere. One of her proclaimed "gifts" was land at Acadia National Park in Maine where she bought out inholders under the threat of eminent domain if they tried to use their own property. She has openly boasted that she is funding buying out inholders in the west, too. She was appointed by Obama to the National Park Foundation, which is run by the Secretary of Interior and NPS Director with mostly private funding to promote and fund NPS everywhere.

              Restore has always been politically and ideologically dedicated to "restoring" the north woods in the northeast. Their propaganda describes the "north woods" as extending from New Jersey to the Great Lakes to the north well into Canada. Their specific organized actions have been to promote an NPS takeover of 3.2 million acres in Maine, but I have seen them in posts promoting 10 or 11 million acres in Maine in comments on articles.

              I haven't heard of Restore being active elsewhere in the country. But Kellet was previously a Director in the Wilderness Society and has connections in Washington, and Restore is supported by several other National viro lobby organizations including Audubon and Sierra Club. He isn't operating in isolation. There are many equally radical viro activist pressure groups concentrating in the west. Have you seen the name 'Restore' used by activists in the west?
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              • Posted by Flootus5 7 years, 7 months ago
                I have been learning about this network of characters because of this post. Doesn't mean that others have not heard of them. But, I am rather well politically connected with the issues. Particularly in Nevada.

                The usual clubs are well known in the west - Sierra Club, Natural Resources Defense Council, WWF, Wilderness Society, and then of course all the federal agencies with which they are in revolving door relations with are all too well known in the west. There are many lesser known ones like Western Watersheds, Great Old Broads for Wilderness, Wild Earth Guardians, Great Basin Mine Watch etc. And then of course there is Earth First! and all the connections and tendrils of Agenda 21 types. The whole public lands issue puts us at Ground Zero.

                But these guys are new to me. Good information.
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                • Posted by ewv 7 years, 7 months ago
                  The big national ones like Sierra Club etc. are active everywhere. A plethora of regional radical pressure group activists vary from one region of the country to the another. They are the same movement and don't operate in isolation. They are all dangerous and are all driving government policy.

                  An excellent summary and analysis of the viro movement and its organizations is Ron Arnold's Trashing the Economy: How Runaway Environmentalism is Wrecking America, 2nd revised edition, 2010. This isn't just about the government. Government is how the power is imposed, but what it is used for and how is driven by these pressure groups.
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                  • Posted by Flootus5 7 years, 7 months ago
                    Agreed. Absolutely. I remember when Ron Arnold's first edition came out. Actually, I didn't know there was a 2010 second edition.
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                    • Posted by ewv 7 years, 7 months ago
                      I don't how much different the 2010 revision is. The 2nd edition with typos corrected came out not long after the first. I have known Ron for years and contributed a lot of documentation for certain parts of the book.
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      • Posted by Flootus5 7 years, 7 months ago
        Interesting, interesting. Thanks for the in-depth info/background on this. My source of info, my sister, who lives in Maine is a major 60's progressive type. I have to take everything from her with a filter and know when to back off before a classic progressive type rant and argument gets going. I want to find out more about the trapped inholders.

        Did Quimby ever marry Burt?
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        • Posted by ewv 7 years, 7 months ago
          Your sister is no source. She is piece of crap in a very loud echo chamber of increasingly strident progressive radicals who dominate the state politics and media. It takes more than a "filter" to cut that off. She has nothing credible to say.

          There are about 60 inholders, including the state of Maine, owning about 40% of the land and relying on roads across the NPS Monument. The land is actively used for logging, homes and businesses, and those people are now very frightened.

          Maps have circulated for years showing the entire 150,000 acres targeted as a National Park (in addition to other maps showing millions of acres targeted). Quimby loudly announced for years that she owned all of it as her "gift". She didn't own it and NPS now owns a patchwork of disconnected large areas comprising about 88,000 acres.

          Just looking at a map of it is enough to show that something is very suspicious in politically decreeing that jumble to be a single National Monument encompassing the minimum land required to protect "objects" of scientific and historic significance in imminent danger. The jumble conveniently happens to be the entire amount that Quimby could get. There is nothing scientific about it.

          National Monuments are preservationist in purpose and enforcement, and controls over roads are historically used to strangle private activity. NPS does not, however, have outright acquisition authority without Congressional authorization, which is why NPS and its lobby have been pushing for National Park legislation. A National Monument designation doesn't give them that, but with the trend in Washington towards progressively increasing presumed Federal authority who knows what they could do. The question of what is legal for the government to do has become what is politically feasible for it to get away with, leaving the victims with trying to stop it if they can.
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          • Posted by Flootus5 7 years, 7 months ago
            While I agree about the loud echo chamber of increasingly strident progressive radicals, it adds no value to the discussion to call my sister a piece of crap. Progressive liberalism is rightly viewed as a disorder and an affliction. Using a filter to separate the wheat from the chaff is used daily in all matters of human interaction.

            Getting back to the substance of the discussion, this inholder information is most interesting. Is there a source of info out there that you have? That would be valuable.

            And back to the central point, there is no Constitutional basis for the federal government to own land within a State other than for those few purposes enumerated in Article 1, Section 8, Clause 17. There is no need for the Maine State legislature to pass a law denying the federal government the ability to create a National Monument. That is already hard coded in the Constitution. The solution is for the State of Maine to nullify any semblance of a Monument/Park, take action to protect the rights of the inholders, and continue to send Roxanne Quimby the notice for property taxes on her land.
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            • Posted by ewv 7 years, 7 months ago
              The state law was required for several reasons.

              It was legally required to partially repeal a state law from the 1920s granting blanket permission for transfers of any land to the Federal government.

              It was politically required to emphasize to Obama and Congress that the state opposes the actions of NPS and Quimby and was not just letting it pass. The legislature has previously voted to oppose Quimby's initiatives with the National Park Service and it was necessary to keep it very clear that this one was no different, especially with all the propaganda claiming Quimby and NPS had a "right" to do it.

              It was morally required because it is not proper to stand by and say nothing in the face of abuse and injustice. Everyone must speak out in whatever form possible.

              In general it is not enough to stand back and point to the Constitutional theory as a blanket answer to whatever the current abuse is. The Constitution does not enforce itself and rhetorical appeals to it fall on largely deaf ears. Here in reality the abusers must be fought in every way possible. Even for those who oppose or who do not understand the Constitutional limits on government, real people speaking out and acting with specific knowledge against the abuse are harder to ignore.
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              • Posted by Flootus5 7 years, 7 months ago
                Actually Constitutional principles are well out of the realm of theory and were implemented into concrete reality upon ratification. Similarly, rhetorical appeals must be able to translate into concrete action based upon those Constitutional principles.

                Playing politics by sending messages and resolutions to emphasize displeasure is actually what will be ignored. What Maine and the other States needs to do is actually pass legislation nullifying federal ownership of any lands outside of the enumerated uses in A1 S8 C17 Enclave Clause. That position is then firmly grounded in Constitutional reality. And they can go after any federal official committing fraud outside of his jurisdiction. This way the gauntlet is thrown. If we let things go on based upon the wrong premises, the corrective actions will be that much more drastic.

                Repealing a 1920's law that was null and void from the get go accomplishes nothing other than clearing out some legal lint. It is also Constitutional principle held by Supreme Court decisions that a branch of government either vertically or horizontally cannot acquiesce their separate powers to another branch. The State of Maine does not have the power to transfer land to the federal government for any reason but those uses enumerated in A1 S8 C17. Note that the Enclave Clause also says that lands for these very purposes cannot be assumed by the federal government without permission of the State.

                When in such a dispute, it is always imperative to ask the right question. Otherwise the loss is a debacle setting a precedent for further abuse. For example. In Kleppe vs U.S , the challenge to the constitutionality of the Wild Horse and Burro Act failed miserably because the question was: Is the Act unconstitutional? The ruling answered the literal and strict question with a resounding yes. The question that should have been asked is: Where is the Wild Horse and Burro Act constitutional? That would have then framed the challenge around the question of jurisdiction. Yes, the Act would be enforceable in Guam, Puerto Rico, Wash D.C. etc., but NOT within any of the States.
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                • Posted by ewv 7 years, 7 months ago
                  No Federal park was ever stopped by citing the Constitution.

                  Rejecting the abusive behavior of the NPS is in fact a good reason to denounce it and oppose giving it more areas to take over and abuse more people. That rejection is based on facts, not arbitrary "displeasure".
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            • Posted by ewv 7 years, 7 months ago
              From your own description your sister is in fact contemptible. Progressivism is not an affliction like some kind of disease, it is chosen. Today's self-identified progressives, especially as in their ascendency in Maine, are an extreme beyond anything experienced previously from "liberals". Their overt personal and political attacks and impositions in the most outrageous forms are despicable and frightening. This isn't an academic issue, and isn't just an inference based on their wrong premises. It's their actions here in reality. Of course it is "personal". They have made it very personal themselves. It isn't about your sister in particular, it's all of them for what they are. Blood lines do not mitigate it however you yourself choose to relate to your sister.
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              • Posted by Flootus5 7 years, 7 months ago
                So, because a person embraces 60's style progressive liberal values, that translates into a condemnation of the entire person as contemptible? Such a blanket statement does not reflect reality. My sister has many admirable sides to her. Are not people complex and multi faceted with attributes and characteristics both good and bad? Constructive and self destructive? These observations apply to most people, bloodline or not. One must identify these attributes in a spectrum of evaluation. And with the disagreeable aspects, a filter must be applied.

                And because of - yes - the affliction of progressivism through the relentless aforementioned echo chamber of media, publications, activism, schools, and propaganda, many people are not even aware that there is a choice. People's thinking can be changed when they are exposed to the greater variety of thought and information out there.
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                • Posted by ewv 7 years, 7 months ago
                  I go by your own description of her. The Maine progressives are destructive. They are wrecking people's lives and smearing their victims. There is no excuse for it. It is in fact contemptible. I don't care about your sister's personality or lifestyle.
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                  • Posted by Flootus5 7 years, 7 months ago
                    Well, I think you are inflating my description to an overly wide blanket condemnation. But, whatever, I can let it go.

                    Of greater interest really, is that you hold the opinion that the progressive liberal mindset is particularly rabid in Maine. More so than elsewhere in the country?

                    I take it you are a Mainer? I am just curious as to why you think it may be worse in Maine than elsewhere.

                    I grew up in Massachusetts in the 60's (in fact right next to Roxanne's Lexington), went to college in New Hampshire and was pretty cognizant of politics back then, but then left in 1977. I know that in general things have gotten worse all over back there, particularly for what New Hampshire used to be, but am curious on the level of all of this for Maine. It might explain a lot for me.
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                    • Posted by ewv 7 years, 7 months ago
                      We have owned property in Maine for 30 years. We originally intended to move there permanently but have been afraid to. The economy and the politics are awful. The independent rural people are a minority dominated by the urban population and an influx of radical leftists.

                      The open aggressiveness of the progressives and the viros in both their rhetoric and actions in Maine is much worse than in Massachusetts and other "liberal" states we're familiar with. Perhaps because Maine is a small state in terms of population there is no way to get away from them. Both the pressure group activists and the state agencies are much more personal in their active conniving and belligerent, bullying exercise of power against individual property owners. It is much worse than the 'normal' effects of bureaucracy you would expect. It's open, arrogant aggression.

                      The area around Lexington, MA in the Boston suburbs has its political elitists and high taxes, but is relatively civilized compared with Maine, even though significantly more left than it was in 1977 when you left. The shift to the left in NH is in part the general ideological shift of the country as a whole and in part directly from the influx of population from MA.
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                      • Posted by Flootus5 7 years, 7 months ago
                        Wow. This is illuminating in regards to Maine. I had always hoped that Maine was still yet "far away enough" and resource oriented that a form of sanity could prevail.

                        Unfortunately, it appears to parallel what is happening to Nevada. What used to be one of the most hands-off libertarian, resource and freedom oriented States when I first moved here, has inexorably been dragged down into the horrible demographics of what you describe Maine has become. Off in the extreme rural areas, we are now subject to the will of Las Vegas and Reno, now bloated with the spillover from California.

                        There are those working the grocery lines in Vegas that are so new to the State, they have no idea and have no clue as to where Elko, Nevada is. And yet Elko pre-dates Vegas in formative national history by a hundred years. Look at the emigrant trail, the transcontinental railroad, the Victory highway, the first transcontinental air mail route - all came through Elko. Elko County is an area huge in resource production, now being closed off by all of these federal land grabs.
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                        • Posted by ewv 7 years, 7 months ago
                          Urban dominance of minority rural populations has been imposed for decades across the country: from Maine to New Jersey (such as the Highlands) to the Florida panhandle and Everglades, to California, Washington and Oregon. Most people in urban areas have no idea what is being done by government to oppress the rights of people in rural areas. The votes are urban, but the ideology of anti-private property rights preservationism and statism is leading them. The difference in degree of impact, and the progressively increasing intensity, is a function of the intellectual and political dominance of progressive statist-collectivist ideologues pushing viro preservationism, which varies from state to state. Maine is one of the worst in their intensity and flagrant abuse.
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    • Posted by $ MichaelAarethun 7 years, 7 months ago
      US claims out to 150 miles for resource management 147 miles beyond it's territorial limit.

      I wonder if Tysons is busy stealing fishing boats on the Atlantic side too?
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      • Posted by Flootus5 7 years, 7 months ago
        Yeah, and then I wonder if this is all shoehorning in with a LOST Treaty.......

        Obubblehead and his pen can do a lot of damage in the next few months.
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        • Posted by $ MichaelAarethun 7 years, 7 months ago
          If Hillary can use racism to cover up her activities why can't Kerry? Well he is attacking the media instead. and why can't Obobble use one ocean to divert attention to another. The key is the Treaty if it offers it to the Chinese signed is just paper and surely they aren't that stupid. And it may be at the G20 near the Atlantic but the Chinese also live on the Pacific's other side. Something wierd about this whole setup TTP and TTTP
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  • Posted by teri-amborn 7 years, 7 months ago
    I guarantee that something else is going on here.
    These folks either create issues that don't exist in order to gain control ...
    OR:
    They create a ruse to cover up what's really happening.
    This sounds like the latter.
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  • Posted by $ allosaur 7 years, 7 months ago
    The Job-Killer-In-Chief just wants to ban fishing and mineral extraction over a large area.
    I recall libtards touting the value of keeping Mama Nature pristine before the handy dandy scam called manmade global warming/climate change came sleazing along.
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    • Posted by $ MichaelAarethun 7 years, 7 months ago
      Let them eat fish cakes? Tysons of course will be excluded with their foreign owned but exclusive to our waters catch and deliver to the Tyson dock in Puget sound. First Pork Bellies for a hundred grand how much will these geedy grubber looter make off of this one. They are soooo transparent in ways they haven't imagines. You know of course about the Tyson pork belly deal but did iyou know about the takeover of the Pac NW fishing fleet in the nineties? What aload of crap this guys going for the big money deals before he's out of office and hillary starts feeding at the trough. I bet that pig makes a 100 million a year in the oval trough. If she gets in. No donations my ass they just change the name and keep it out of the country.
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  • Posted by $ blarman 7 years, 7 months ago
    What we need are the individual States to step up and insist on their participation in the creation - or expansion - of monuments. AND the States should run them not the Feds.

    I don't have a problem with parks per se. I do have problems with people who want to create parks using my money who then deny me the right to have a say in how that land is used!
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    • Posted by ewv 7 years, 7 months ago
      It isn't about parks, it's about government parks and preserves. For those who think that this is the least of the problems with government -- how much can go wrong managing wilderness and picnic tables? -- the answer is more than you can imagine.

      People are bullied and pushed around in the name of land declared to be "Nationally Significant" as an excuse, fueled by orgies of emotional manipulation worshiping poetic scenic imagery. Not mentioned in the flurry of PR over the National Park Service centennial (how often do we get to celebrate a government agency -- will IRS get this, too?) is that NPS has senselessly forcibly removed over a hundred thousand people across the country. An arrogant Federal agency hiding its abuse behind scenery and emotional fervor is more dangerous, as the minority hit by it while even critics of government ignore it know all too well.
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