From: ufo777@webtv.net (ufo777)
Subject: [Illusions] Fwd: Dec. 6 column - "Ghost Roads"
Date: 26 Nov 1998 02:49:51 -0500
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Vin again.

Sincerely, Patricia  http://www.serve.com/ufo7
"If you suppress The Truth it becomes your enemy...if you expose the
truth it becomes your weapon.Col Corso"

Sincerely, Patricia  http://www.serve.com/ufo7
"If you suppress The Truth it becomes your enemy...if you expose the
truth it becomes your weapon.Col Corso"                   


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From: Vin_Suprynowicz@lvrj.com (Vin Suprynowicz)
Subject: Dec. 6 column - "Ghost Roads"
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    FROM MOUNTAIN MEDIA
    FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE DATED DEC. 6, 1998
    THE LIBERTARIAN, By Vin Suprynowicz
    Forest Service maneuvers to further limit access to the land


    What makes a road?

  Someone needs to get somewhere. He or she may start out following a
cowpath or game trail. When the travelers encounter an obstacle, they
backtrack and try again.

  Gradually, over time, the most successful routes are traveled over and
over, while the dead ends and more difficult or roundabout routes fall into
disuse, and are gradually reclaimed by wind, rain, and vegetation.
Energetic souls may decide to cut an easier grade, but the route of the old
trail can usually be found, not far away.

 For decades, those heading west had few maps. They followed the wagon ruts
of those who had gone before. It worked fine.

  But the U.S. Forest Service doesn't like things that way. Much too
undisciplined, you see. Did any bureaucrat (start ital)approve(end ital)
all those roads?

  The Forest Service seems particularly agitated these days over "ghost
roads" -- small trails usually left by all-terrain vehicles moving across
the empty lands. Such man-made scars upon "their" land disturb and threaten
wildlife, trample plants and grasses, and even pose a threat of flood and
fires, the Spruce Troopers insist. (Never mind that such lightly-used roads
can actually show fire crews the best way to (start ital)get(end ital) to a
fire.)

  So, the Forest Service is now undertaking to "erase" thousands of miles
of "ghost roads" (along with old logging roads and historic sheep-herding
trails) in the Tonto National Forest in Arizona ... at an estimated cost of
$1,500 to $2,500 per mile "erased," or more than $1 billion for the Tonto
alone.

  Do the Geese Police set forth with brooms to sweep the trails away? It's
weirder than that, actually. In order to cut off members of the public --
in whose behalf and at whose expense all this is undertaken -- from their
habitual and established uses of these lands (camping, shooting, rock
collecting, whatever), the greenies propose to dig hugs tank traps, pile
immovable boulders and logs, or plant trees and cacti so as to block access
to these pathways, from the trailhead.

  So much for "leaving things the way we found them."

  And K.M. Larney of the Nevada Policy Research Institute reports Nevada's
Toiyabe-Humboldt National Forest may well next ... at a cost to taxpayers
of another cool billion, in all likelihood.

  Are they mad?

  Well, there certainly is a question whether the de facto religion of
environmentalism -- which holds that the sanctity and quiet repose of
sundry bugs and weeds takes precedence over the pursuits of mankind -- is
here being "established" in violation of the First Amendment.

  But if there's madness here, there's also method in it.

  In order to declare vast new tracts of land to be official "wilderness"
-- and thus effectively shut them off from any human use forever -- the law
requires that these simpering "stewards" demonstrate that areas to be
walled off from the taxpayers contain no roads or human habitations.

 Thus, when old miner and Indian cabins are quietly disassembled and
removed, and the ghost roads themselves made to "disappear" -- what shall
we conclude the Forest Service has in mind?


Vin Suprynowicz is the assistant editorial page editor of the Las Vegas
Review-Journal. Readers may contact him via e-mail at vin@lvrj.com. The web
sites for the Suprynowicz column are at
http://www.infomagic.com/liberty/vinyard.htm, and
http://www.nguworld.com/vindex. The column is syndicated in the United
States and Canada via Mountain Media Syndications, P.O. Box 4422, Las Vegas
Nev. 89127.

***


Vin Suprynowicz,   vin@lvrj.com

The evils of tyranny are rarely seen but by him who resists it. -- John
Hay, 1872

The most difficult struggle of all is the one within ourselves. Let us not
get accustomed and adjusted to these conditions. The one who adjusts ceases
to discriminate between good and evil.  He becomes a slave in body and
soul. Whatever may happen to you, remember always: Don't adjust! Revolt
against the reality! -- Mordechai Anielewicz, Warsaw, 1943

* * *



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