Reblogged: Feds Intentionally Inflict Pain in Park Shutdowns; Solution

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An October 6 email from the Property and Environment Research Center (PERC) points out, “This week more than 1,000 privately operated parks were required to close during the government shutdown—even though they receive no federal funding.”

A PERC report gives an example:

[T]he U.S. Forest Service owns Crescent Moon Ranch [in Arizona]. . . . The fee revenue at this park . . . not only keeps the park fully maintained, it adds more than $60,000 to the local Forest Service recreation budget—all without requiring tax money to operate.

Meanwhile, the federal government has kicked an elderly couple out of their home because it sits on federal land, and one Park Service ranger said, “We’ve been told to make life as difficult for people as we can. It’s disgusting.”

Such problems point to an obvious solution: privatize the federal lands in question. Then the lands would be unaffected by shutdowns and other political shenanigans—and federal bureaucrats would be, at least in this context, unable to order rangers to “make life as difficult for people” as they can.

This would be relatively easy to do for federal lands already maintained by private parties—the government need only grant deeds of title. Then the government could move to transfer the remaining park lands to private parties—which, according to constitutional scholar Rob Natelson, the federal government is legally required to do, anyway.

The government should cease and desist from making “life as difficult for people” as it can; it should turn over ownership of parks to the private sector, where it morally belongs; and, more broadly, it should focus exclusively on doing its proper job of protecting individual rights and otherwise leaving citizens and property alone.

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Related:

• The American Right, the Purpose of Government, and the Future of Liberty
• Toward a Shutdown to Celebrate
• Oil Shale Politics Points to Problems of Federal Land Ownership

Image: Coconino National Forest

Link to Original

[CrowEpistemologist]

So now the OS takes its talking points from Fox News? Fascinating.

 

"The Lake Mead properties are considered vacation homes; one of the lease requirements to own a plot is people must have an alternative residence."

 

A private company could easily do the same thing the Federal government is doing now were they to have budget issues.

[Nicky]

Y

So now the OS takes its talking points from Fox News? Fascinating.

 

"The Lake Mead properties are considered vacation homes; one of the lease requirements to own a plot is people must have an alternative residence."

 

A private company could easily do the same thing the Federal government is doing now were they to have budget issues.

Oh, it's just a vacation home. They have some place else to live. Now it makes perfect sense that the owners would be kicked out because their house is on land maintained exclusively from fees that were in no way affected by the budget holdup.

Good point, buddy. Right up there with your prediction that gold will hit $600. Way to correct those FoxNews talking points with sound, level headed, logical arguments.

Edited October 8, 2013 by Nicky

[CrowEpistemologist]

Charming as ever, Nicky.

 

Could it be that the government is prioritizing limited funds based on the shutdown, and, for instance, de-prioritized funding associated with protecting homes that were contractually stipulated to be sporadically attended vacation homes?

 

But who needs facts when you have Abstractions^TM. Abstractions are great tools for politicians and you know what's great about them? They don't need to be connected to reality! I know because I just read an article in The Objective Standard that gleefully divorces facts from Abstractions by ignoring all facts that don't fit into their pre-agreed upon narrative. Ayn Rand was an advocate of reason, so this new way of thinking has got to be a very fine example of reason, right?

 

...The movement is finished...