selling off federal lands: new House rules make it easier

[retired jerry]

where's that like button?

I don't think we know what Trump believes, just that saying climate change is a Chinese plot is a campaign slogan that will influence some people to vote for him. Since the election is over, he's softened a bit. This will be a really interesting 4 years to see what actually happens

[BurnsideBob]

All of this simplistic fascination with cut/dig/despoil/privatize is completely at odds with the substantial economics (and jobs) associated with outdoor recreation – from hiking to hunting to all outdoorsy pursuits in between – a sustainable industry that each year generates $646 billion in consumer spending and supports 6.1 million direct jobs. And these bozos are intent on throwing all of this away for a handful to transient extraction jobs and the ideology of plutocracy?

What confused me for awhile is how a huge outdoor industry ($646 billion is equal to the annual defense budget) could keep losing out to the much smaller cut/dig/despoil/privatize crowd. My take is that while the outdoor industry is huge, it's still composed of a multitude of fiefdoms that don't necessarily get along with one another: hikers versus mountain bikers, hikers versus hunters, OHV riders versus equestrians, etc., etc. Put these squabbling factions up against a smaller, but ferociously more focused thing like Koch Industries (to name just one), and you're toast. Divide and conquer except we're doing it to ourselves.

My personal experience with this self-defeating attitude was when we backpacked through Yosemite a few years ago. I was wearing a brightly colored orange pullover - essential if you're hiking during hunting season in southwest Washington or Southern Oregon - and another backpacker we encountered *sniffed* and then asked why I was wearing those "bright" colors. When I mentioned the hunting connection, I got a deeper *sniff* and a mini-lecture on the evils of hunting, of hunters, of meat, of bright colors, etc., etc. I don't hunt but I respect those who do so responsibly so I really didn't appreciate being lectured like this. But it did get me thinking about why the outdoors keeps losing.

Gabriel Howe makes some good points about inclusion here, as does Land Tawney here.

I'm not a group hug kind of person but if we don't stop this squabbling and find some path to common cause about the outdoors we all love, then we'll be paying $500 for a permit to hike in one of the Koch's clear-cuts!

VanMarmot, what an awesome post!! Thank you.

I don't think we know what Trump believes, just that saying climate change is a Chinese plot is a campaign slogan that will influence some people to vote for him. Since the election is over, he's softened a bit. This will be a really interesting 4 years to see what actually happens

Both Trump and his Interior Secretary designee Ryan Zinke have made statements indicating they are opposed to selling federal lands wholesale, but do want them open for exploitation/extraction. Trump seemingly has no personal interest in the natural world for its own sake, so my opinion is that he could pivot to public land divestiture. As retired Jerry points out, we will just have to wait and see "what comes down the pike".

I think it is important we all make our voices heard to our federal representatives. We do not need to reach consensus among ourselves about the "highest and best" use of our federal lands. It is the job of our representatives to parse the constituent feedback they receive. If they hear many voices advocating for public lands, be it from hikers, bikers, equestrians, climbers, backpackers, fishermen, hunters, birders, cavers, etc., they will deliver an appropriate message to our government. If we do not speak out, if we wait for consensus, they don't correctly gauge the sentiment of their constituency, so can't be expected to deliver an appropriate message to the halls of government.

So write your representatives about this issue, and, for that matter, all your concerns. The voice not heard will never be acknowledged, much less heeded.

[Charley]

What confused me for awhile is how a huge outdoor industry ($646 billion is equal to the annual defense budget) could keep losing out to the much smaller cut/dig/despoil/privatize crowd. My take is that while the outdoor industry is huge, it's still composed of a multitude of fiefdoms that don't necessarily get along with one another: hikers versus mountain bikers, hikers versus hunters, OHV riders versus equestrians, etc., etc. Put these squabbling factions up against a smaller, but ferociously more focused thing like Koch Industries (to name just one), and you're toast. Divide and conquer except we're doing it to ourselves.

My personal experience with this self-defeating attitude was when we backpacked through Yosemite a few years ago. I was wearing a brightly colored orange pullover - essential if you're hiking during hunting season in southwest Washington or Southern Oregon - and another backpacker we encountered *sniffed* and then asked why I was wearing those "bright" colors. When I mentioned the hunting connection, I got a deeper *sniff* and a mini-lecture on the evils of hunting, of hunters, of meat, of bright colors, etc., etc. I don't hunt but I respect those who do so responsibly so I really didn't appreciate being lectured like this. But it did get me thinking about why the outdoors keeps losing.

Gabriel Howe makes some good points about inclusion here, as does Land Tawney here.

I'm not a group hug kind of person but if we don't stop this squabbling and find some path to common cause about the outdoors we all love, then we'll be paying $500 for a permit to hike in one of the Koch's clear-cuts!

Best post of the year. Let's work together!

[drm]

I think that the degree of polarization this country faces is structural in that it is caused by the design of our elections and government. No democracy is free from polarization to some degree but we have it worse. Our democracy was state of the art 240 years ago, but not so any more. If Madison was alive today, I think he would have designed some things differently. We've long had bad partisanship in our country, but recent developments have made it worse.

A key factor is that the Founders planned for a non-partisan government without parties and so did not put checks in for political parties. Gerrymandering of districts gets a lot of attention, but how our state and Federal legislatures run is also important. It is sometimes said that the most important vote a Congressman ever makes is when they vote for their own party's control by choosing the Speaker of that body. The out-sized power of the
Speaker in determining what that body does means that if you're a liberal, even a lousy liberal is better than a smart conservative as your representative, and the same if you are conservative. There are other factors that I won't get into now, especially how our elections are run.

I would claim that the existing systems rewards partisanship among politicians, the more partisan, the more the reward. People ask why don't they just do what is good for the country instead of what is good for them politically. But any system that incentivizes less than ideal behavior is going to get a lot of less than ideal behavior. How often do you hear a commont to the effect that if a politician does the right thing, they can't get reelected? If the system as it now stands does not reward behavior that is best for the country by most often re-electing people who do that, why should we expect that behavior?

The Founders gave us a foundation but expected us to think for ourselves and far too often I hear people say that if the Founders made it that way, well it must be the best possible. I think that Washington, Madison, Jefferson, Franklin, et al, would be appalled at that kind of thinking.

That's the end of my rant!

[Guy]

A key factor is that the Founders planned for a non-partisan government without parties and so did not put checks in for political parties. Gerrymandering of districts gets a lot of attention, but how our state and Federal legislatures run is also important. It is sometimes said that the most important vote a Congressman ever makes is when they vote for their own party's control by choosing the Speaker of that body. The out-sized power of the Speaker in determining what that body does means that if you're a liberal, even a lousy liberal is better than a smart conservative as your representative, and the same if you are conservative. There are other factors that I won't get into now, especially how our elections are run.

Yes I agree 100% there are plenty of examples on both sides of Party Speakers / House leaders putting their own party needs & politics before good governance.

[retired jerry]

another group we can ally with is government employees

yeah, there are a lot with bad attitudes, and bureaucracies work in weird ways, but on the whole, they want to preserve natural areas too, have people recreate, etc.

[Aimless]

Before there was a "civil service", all federal employees' jobs were viewed as political patronage, so each new administration could fire almost everyone in the government and replace them with party loyalists and the friends of party loyalists. The fact that federal employees are now difficult to fire is the source of massive complaining by politicians, but it also should be said that the civil service replaced the massive abuse of political power and bureaucracies that functioned far worse than they do today. If you listen carefully, the politicians who complain the most about the civil service are mostly upset because they cannot replace federal employees with lackeys who'll speedily do whatever they're told or be thrown out on the street.

Along those lines, this is appropriate to mention:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/vi ... story.html

House Republicans this week reinstated an arcane procedural rule that enables lawmakers to reach deep into the budget and slash the pay of an individual federal worker — down to $1 — a move that threatens to upend the 130-year-old civil service.

The Holman Rule, named after an Indiana congressman who devised it in 1876, empowers any member of Congress to propose amending an appropriations bill to single out a government employee or cut a specific program.

The use of the rule would not be simple; a majority of the House and the Senate would still have to approve any such amendment. At the same time, opponents and supporters agree that the work of 2.1 million civil servants, designed to be insulated from politics, is now vulnerable to the whims of elected officials....

Democrats and federal employee unions say the provision, which one called the “Armageddon Rule,” could prove alarming to the federal workforce because it comes in combination with President-elect Donald Trump’s criticism of the Washington bureaucracy, his call for a freeze on government hiring and his nomination of Cabinet secretaries who in some cases seem to be at odds with the mission of the agencies they would lead.

“This is part of a very chilling theme that federal workers are seeing right now,” said Maureen Gilman, legislative director for the National Treasury Employees Union, which represents 150,000 federal employees.

[Webfoot]

I think that the degree of polarization this country faces is structural in that it is caused by the design of our elections and government. No democracy is free from polarization to some degree but we have it worse. Our democracy was state of the art 240 years ago, but not so any more. If Madison was alive today, I think he would have designed some things differently. We've long had bad partisanship in our country, but recent developments have made it worse.

No matter your political persuasion a strong case can be made that representation in this country needs to be improved. If there is to be a silver lining to this presidential election between two candidates that almost no one I have talked to liked, let it be that so many people are disgruntled with the system that brought us those choices that we seek to improve it. This does not mean abolish the electoral college and have simple majority elections which would only makes things worse. There are much more substantial and beneficial changes that could and, I would argue, should be made. These popular videos from YouTube's C. G. P. Grey are a good place to start and should help you get the discussion rolling with others if you are inclined to agree:

http://www.cgpgrey.com/politics-in-the-animal-kingdom/

[retired jerry]

I usually hate it when someone posts 30 minutes of video, but that was pretty good

What I like about that video is it doesn't "blame the victim" - our mess isn't the fault of the voters, it's the fault of the system which could be fixed

Aren't there a few states that have the two highest people in the primary be in the general election, even if those two are in the same party? That's a little better maybe, but I like the alternate voting schemes in that video better

I think "rank order voting" has been implemented a few places, the first one in that video but they call it something else

The video points out the problem with gerrymandering is when some districts are packed with 100% of one party, and other districts have a small majority of the other party. That's the same as when urban areas have huge Democrat majorities and rural areas have smaller Republican majorities - even though the Democrats won the "popular vote" nationally, Republicans have a significant majority in the House of Representatives.

[Webfoot]

I usually hate it when someone posts 30 minutes of video, but that was pretty good

I am glad you approve.

What I like about that video is it doesn't "blame the victim" - our mess isn't the fault of the voters, it's the fault of the system which could be fixed

A system that polarizes people brings out the worst human characteristics. It is de rigueur to vilify anyone outside your own party; with rare exception political debate has been replaced with dogmatic rants in echo chambers, wherein if someone disagrees one does not civilly critique the merits and logic of his argument but instead flings excrement. IMO that must change if things are to improve.

Aren't there a few states that have the two highest people in the primary be in the general election, even if those two are in the same party? That's a little better maybe, but I like the alternate voting schemes in that video better

I believe so, but as the saying goes "the devil is in the details" and if its not done right it is not necessarily an improvement. This site has good description of a mathematically valid approach: http://www.equal.vote/

The video points out the problem with gerrymandering is when some districts are packed with 100% of one party, and other districts have a small majority of the other party.

The solution to that and many other problems is not to have each district select a single representative. Since each Representative is chosen by the demonstrably flawed "first past the post" system now in place Congress is composed nearly entirely of representatives of the two ruling parties. And many are indeed representatives for the parties, not the people, voting monolitically by party lines. Not only does this result in a dynamic like a brawl where the one currently hold the bludgeon (House majority) wins, but it completely neglects the substantial portion of the populace who favors neither of the ruling political parties.

One implementation of such as system was already presented in one of the videos referenced; I'll embed it here for anyone interested. If we had such a system and no one party had majority rule they (our representatives) would have to form a coalition government. Imagine how that might improve the political tenor.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QT0I-sdoSXU