Posted on 10/10/2013 2:26:49 PM PDT by xzins
I am a simple man. Words and declarative sentences have a meaning.
This “taking back” of federal park land might be a worthwhile discussion to have. What entity has authority to “take back” The Great Smokies? That national park was created with donations from the federal Gov’t and a larger gift from Rockefeller and many small donations, including Appalachian school kids’ Depression era pennies, nickels and dimes.
Agreed that was originally the case but since that time laws and acts have been passed creating many other Federal entities. Do I agree with all of them ??? No but they are law and until they have been judged unConstitutional we will live with them whether you or I like them or not.
Can the Federal government return back to performing only it’s explicit duties and obligations as delineated in the Constitution?? Yes but it will take at leaast a hundred years to undo the past 200 years of growth. That isn’t defeatism...that is reality.
As for owning half of Alaska, I agree with you but remember, it was the Federal government that bought all that land originally in the first place. Alaska is pretty much a creation of the Federal government (thank you Seward)
That’s what I meant. However, what I posted could have been phrased a lot better and I won’t object to any moderators editing it or removing it.
The families of the people who lost their homes, land, businesses, and livelyhoods to an eminent domain process that paid $20 for every $500 acre of land?
The Federal Government should not own vast tracts of land, not even the Smokies.
And, to be honest with you, my mom is from Swain Country, NC, and they tell an entirely different story about the Fed swallowing up farms, homes, and entire villages. She knew the people who were cheated out of everything.
Gore was even trying a few years back to swallow up my grandfather’s farm that sits on the edge of the park.
See below the story of County Bureaucrats selling out their people to Federal Bureaucrats. And it truly was based on MONEY.
In the 1930s and 1940s, Swain County gave up the majority of its private land to the Federal Government for the creation of Fontana Lake and the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Hundreds of people were forced to leave the small Smoky Mountain communities that had been their homes for generations. With the creation of the Park, their homes were gone, and so was the road to those communities. Old Highway 288 was buried beneath the deep waters of Fontana Lake.
The Federal government promised to replace Highway 288 with a new road. Lakeview Drive was to have stretched along the north shore of Fontana Lake, from Bryson City to Fontana, 30 miles to the west. And, of special importance to those displaced residents, it was to have provided access to the old family cemeteries where generations of ancestors remained behind.
But Lakeview Drive fell victim to an environmental issue and construction was stopped, with the road ending at a tunnel, about six miles into the park. The environmental issue was eventually resolved, but the roadwork was never resumed. And Swain County’s citizens gave the unfinished Lakeview Drive its popular, albeit unofficial name “The Road To Nowhere.”
On weekends throughout the summer, the Park Service still ferries groups of Swain County residents across Fontana Lake to visit their old family cemeteries for Decoration Days and family reunions.
The legal issue of whether to build the road was finally resolved in February, 2010 when the US Department of Interior signed a settlement agreement paying Swain County $52 million in lieu of building the road. Congressman Heath Shuler, a Bryson City naitve, was the driving force in bringing the settlement to fruition.
You’re right. Yosemite, Yellowstone, and the Grand Canyon subsidize scores of other parks across the country.
Jefferson bought the Louisiana Purchase and opened it up for Americans. He understood that the Federal government is the people and not a corporate business interest.
“Jefferson bought the Louisiana Purchase and opened it up for Americans.”
Yes and at the time many considered that purchase (as with the later purchase of Alaska) as unConstitutional overreaches of the Federal government.
Arguably a Constitutional purist could argue that all territories purchased from Spain and Russia west of the Mississippi should be returned to them for a refund.
Constitutional or not, I would think that’s a really bad idea.
Thanks for the thoughtful, friendly reply.
I was comparing the opening up of territory to regular people versus the Fed locking up control of Alaska to itself.
Had we done the same with the Louisiana purchase, we would have people living from the Mississippi west. It would all be Federal range.
They are not to have control of other than postal facilities, military forts & training areas, and the like.
They shouldn’t be owning half of Alaska. Would Alaska be different if they didn’t own it? I suspect it would be a lot different. Can’t prove it, of course, but I strongly suspect it.
With a dictator every MOLECULE within his grasp must be brought into alignment with his agenda or die.
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