[at-l] Politics & the List

[Jim Bullard]

I think that stating your political ideology in a provocative way without
stating the case for why you believe that your political view is the best
option (it's all just options, there is no "correct" one) only adds to the
division in society. AT-L doesn't need divisiveness. Noting where policies
fail to serve us, the hiking community, and suggesting ways to avoid/correct
such failures is (IMO) on topic. Stating that one political party is bad and
the other is good is not on-topic or in any way helpful to solving trail
related issues.

FWIW there have been some great conservationists in both the Republican and
the Democratic parties. Teddy Roosevelt was responsible for starting our
National Park system. Governor Pataki of NY was very conservation minded and
did more to further the preservation of the Adirondack wild lands than other
governors in recent years. On the Democratic side, it was Lyndon Johnson who
signed the National Trails Act.  Those are the obvious examples. I'm sure
one could easily find others in both parties.

If you want to argue the merits of government involvement in establishing
and/or protecting trails on the merits of your philosophy, that's fine IMO.
However if all you are doing is taking a shot at one political party because
you have chosen to belong to the other party, that doesn't show much thought
or philosophy.

It has been my experience that there have been good and bad leaders on both
sides of the fence, in fact I think being a loyal member of a party tends to
make people lazy about what they really think. They tend to let the party
think for them. I am a life long independent and intend to stay that way. My
one regret is that the party system tends to shut out independents much of
the time. OTOH I believe in the people of this country and I believe that we
the people will see to it that the country survives even an occasional
dunderhead in the White House. We've done it before and we can do it again
but hopefully if we approach our participation in the process from a
thoughtful examination of the issues before us rather than 'my party is
right and yours is wrong' we can avoid the dunderheads in both parties. And
I agree with Frank that if one of the rules of AT-l is that we avoid
discussions of politics, we should honor Ryan's rule. That's what I think.

On Sat, Feb 23, 2008 at 7:11 PM, Frank Looper <nightwalker.at at gmail.com>
wrote:

> > Is politics "Trail Related?"  Of course it is.  The philosohpy of
> government
> > determines how we will live out our lives.
> >
> > What do you think?
> >
> > Jack Skylander
> >
> I think that the owner of this FREE mailing list doesn't want politics
> here. I think that only jerks ignore nice-guy list owners.
>
> There are plenty of politics sites; There's only one AT-L.
>

-- 
Jim Bullard
http://jims-ramblings.blogspot.com/
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