Scorched-Earth Policies

The wildfires that blackened more than 1,200 square miles of Southern California this past week were not simply "acts of nature." For most of the 20th century, the Forest Service has failed to properly manage our national forests while treating fire as a virtual moral evil (the California fires are burning in or near four national forests). Unless these policies are reversed, fires that consume millions of acres and inflict billions of dollars in damage will become more and more common.

The Forest Service was created in the progressive era with a mission to provide "scientific management" on the forests of the nation. By a scientific standard, the track record turned out to be poor. Politics usually dominated science.

This the best time for a rethink and possible reshuffling at the Forest Service, but Congress must do its share even after the last embers burn out. Logging by those who would have a vested interest in protecting woodland assets should not be off the table, as Senator Boxer has demanded (above). Extreme environmentalists have embraced policies that have cost lives, homes, timber, taxpayer money, and animal and plant wildlife, including endangered species.

"The result was to drown the agency in red tape."

The results of "environmentalism" is to drown people, industry, the concept of private property, and liberty itself in red tape and to subject all of this to the caprices of tyrranical burocratic bullies.

Every regulation designed to "protect the environment" in fact results in the loss of liberty. Every "environmental regulation" is an assault on freedom.

Some are necessary, but most are not, and many are draconian. This is the most important part of the problem. People in general consider "environmentalists" to be, at worst, harmless do-gooders and environmental protection to be a good thing. This is a serious misperception.

"Environmentalists" are not harmless.

A concern for protection of the environment is healthy and to be encouraged.

My family and I have been concerned about this for many years and have put our concerns into meaningful action.

In the past, I have contributed money, services, and action to "environment protection" organizations. I no longer do!

Any regulations--"environmental" or otherwise--must be instituted only with the greatest reluctance. For this we must depend upon our elected officials, and, of course, they tend to cater to special interest groups, including extremely wealthy "environmentalist" organizations who tend to employ self-serving radical "environmentalists" and lawyers with nothing to do but think up more and more regulations and mad, self-serving laws and regulations with an ever increasing reach and tyrrany.

At the very least, Americans must withhold money and support from radical "environmental" organizations and "charities".

We must also withhold our support from political leaders who support such organization and their demands.

Today, this tyrrany and these draconian laws affect only a small part of the population. If they are not stopped, their effects will be felt by all of us.

A concern for protection of the environment is healthy and to be encouraged.

Environmental protection is a worthy goal, but must be achieved rationally. Unfortunately, today it has become the new religion for many, pursued with ritualistic fervor by those who condemn anyone who has the temerity to question the green doctrine.

Democracies all too often wait for tragedies to occur before making course corrections. Let us not lose this opportunity.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.