Save the Earth - Screw Over a Mountain Biker!
There is so much going wrong in this that I'm not even going to lecture you about it. The bottom line is a lot of people want to accrue a whole lot of power, and that any old excuse will do. If saving the children isn't the excuse, then saving the smelt will work well enough. Too often we think about right/left divides but the real divide is between those who think about the state as a genteel big brother, and those of us who think about the state - any strong central power - as Orwell's Big Brother.
The term you're grasping for, is "statism." It's a mild-to-moderate form of that derangement of the sense known as authoritarianism. I joke about hippies sometimes but there's a lot to be said for holding as a virtue the notion that everybody should do their own thing and get off each other's backs.
7 comments:
It's true that singletrack can cause erosion if not properly designed but banning access is contrary to the whole friggin' concept of the National Park System. Hopefully IMBA and the Montana folks will be able to make some headway in reversing this insane trend.
I'm OK with this, and I'm a mountain biker. The restrictions are just in the wilderness study areas not over the whole forest. It's perfectly appropriate to segregate areas of the forest for multi-use and for single-use. The mountain bike community appears to be approaching this as an entitlement issue, which is surely is not. They'd do better to use their energy to protect the forests they can still ride in from logging, etc.
I sold a spare bike on Craig's list the other day to a researcher from the U of Mn. He studying the effects of global warming on forests. This crew set up giant heat lamps in the forests near Cloquet and Ely Mn. WTF is all I could think. Giant heat lamps.....
Wheeldancer - I'm close to your opinions. A while back I was standing at the lunch counter behind a couple guys wearing branded clothing identifying them with a really well known environmental advocacy group. They went on at great length about how their current lobbying effort to close off much of the west to human use was a good start, but they thought they could get a lot more done, get land closed to all uses. The chairman just wanted some language from them - i.e. legislative language - that would help make it possible.
They didn't give a shit about erosion. It's not about the watershed. It's about excluding everybody. Mountain bikers are a handy scapegoat because the hikers hate us, and the motor vehicle industry won't get up in arms about it (even though that much larger industry will be an "incidental" casualty of the ban). The stupid hikers who advocate against mountain bikers are next, they just aren't smart enough to recognize a divide and conquer strategy when they see it. You start by banning discrete uses, and in the end, you aren't fighting an entire community (loggers + off roaders + equestrians + ranchers + mining companies + hunters + hikers) but fighting one interest at a time and getting the others, perhaps, to gang up on them (e.g. equestrians, hikers, hunters and MTB'ers against ranchers). Once it's down to hikers, they'll drive a wedge between backwoods hikers and day hikers, and it will be all over; you won't be able to hike anywhere if you aren't out by 7:00 PM. Or maybe they'll let you compete to win one of a handful of permits to camp on land that you the taxpayer pay for with each paycheck.
Anon - I'm reasonably certain that the plan doesn't stop with closing off a few tens of millions of acres to mountain bikes. I would be willing to bet my house and retirement fund that this is the tip of the iceberg, and the ultimate goal (that we will take a few steps toward with the current move in Montana) is total closure of federal lands to MTB'ers. Other than multi-use, paved paths in the limited areas open to a limited number of tourists, of course.
I used to think the NRA was batshit for opposing every single encroachment on anything remotely related to the 2nd Amendment. Now I think I now am starting to understand their approach and why they take it. There are a lot of people who say a lot of sweet things but whom, in the end, are not your friends.
Yeah - this is no, "just a few select plots of land, you won't even notice," thing. This is about banning humans from gigantic areas.
Many times, it's all about the personality of the land manager. Get a Forest Service employee who's somewhere between The Monkey Wrench Gang and Earth First! politically, and you have real trouble. The Federal rule-making process makes it pretty easy for a loose cannon to railroad big changes through, if nobody gets in the way.
I have been to a couple of meetings about proposed closings in the GW Forest (Dolly Sods in WV already being a lost cause), and your observation that it's all about incrementalism and "divide and conquer" is right on the money.
I can't say I've worked hard on these issues - I'm much better at getting pissed off than I am at building consensus, but I have shown up to be counted. I leave the coalition-building to folks like Chris Scott, IMBA, etc. Bless 'em.
I did see some good things, though. Equestrians and mountain bikers are usually blood enemies, but in this area, we've recognized that once one group is excluded, the dominoes start falling. I was shocked to see hikers, hunters, equestrians, and mountain bikers working together. I was also a little surprised at how reasonably people articulated their arguments.
On the other hand, the land closures in the GW Forest felt like a juggernaut, so I'm still worried about it. Folks in Montana cannot be complacent about this.
I agree with the anonymous poster. Nobody is entitled to use the national forests for whatecer purpose they want. The national forests are for multiple use. We'll just have to accept that some areas will be off limits to bikes, just as some areas will be logged, some areas will be heavily grazed, some will be mined, and some will be off limits to those uses.
To start shouting that this is a left-wing conspiracy to ban bikes from national forests is crazy. Because if you spend any time in the rural west, they'll tell you all about the left-wing conspiracy to get cattle and timber and mining off the public lands. So which is it, guys?
Anon 2:42 - did you see me shouting about left wing conspiracies? No, I don't think you did.
In fact I seem to recall expressly rejecting that. I seem to recall stating something about how it's the tendency of both parties to accrue power in a central government. Implicit in that is that different oxen are gored by different administrations, but in the end everybody's oxen go to the glue factory.
Similarly, you missed my point. It isn't about kicking timber companies or mountain bikes or hikers off the land. It is about eventually kicking everybody off it entirely.
30% of the land in this country is owned by taxpayers. It is increasingly off limits to normal users (MTB'ers, hikers, equestrians, various forms of motorized off-road vehicles) with monied corporate interests occasionally able to use the courts to force access. You are completely wrong when you say nobody is entitled to use that land. The owners are, and last time I checked, We, The People, are the owners. I know this makes me a fascistic sort of right wing crank, but I view government's proper role as a servant, rather than a master of the people. Consider the possibility that maybe we owners ought to be renegotiating the terms of the contract with the caretaker we hired to shepherd our land.
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