[at-l] Politics & the List

[Linda Benschop]

Jim,

Very well written article. 

Hummingbird





Jim Bullard wrote:
> 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 <mailto: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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