At 03:24 PM 3/5/2003 -0700, you wrote:
>Right now they are just doing their volunteer job and keeping people from
>going near their sites...
>
>THEIR job to keep people from THEIR sites that people have a right to go to
>anyway???
I couldn't agree more. The excuse that they are just doing their jobs has
been used way too many times in history. It is almost as dangerous as the
excuse of "I was just following my orders."
So many of these volunteers, and non-volunteers for that matter believe
that the land they watch and manage belong to them, and without them the
land will somehow disappear from the face of the planet. At some point one
of two things are going to have to happen, either enough people will get
fed up enough and just won't take this crap any longer, or they will
tighten the clamp even further that what little is left of OUR public lands
that we now enjoy will also be made off limits, and we will have nothing.
Many people think that there is some happy middle ground for this, but
there isn't. The enviro-nuts honestly believe that if even one of us is
allowed to walk on the soil, it will be ruined forever. We know better,
but we will never change their minds.
I grew up with the national forests as my backyard, literally, and have
seen the changes with the Forest Service. I have also visited many of the
areas managed by the NPS and have also seen the changes there. The sad
fact is that they simply don't want us there. The fact also remains that
the quote on the posters we made to protest the entry fee to the Mt. Lemmon
area is a real quote from the guy who was the #1 guy at the Forest Service
at the time, "The only thing wrong with public land is that the public
wants to use it."
In liberty,
Scott
wood@myblueheaven.com
www.myblueheaven.com