Dear HCN,
Jon Margolis has my
hackles up again. In his article about weirdness in Washington,
D.C. (HCN,
1/29/01: Weirdness abounds in Washington), I expected
comments on Clinton paying off like a broken slot machine for
“rich” patrons, or the Clintons registering for gifts (before her
confirmation) so the payola would beat the ethics deadline in the
Senate. Or how about three major “press events” by the
self-absorbed Bill Clinton saying goodbye. Or perhaps the Animal
House types trashing the White House and Air Force One … Jon’s
kind of folks, I guess.
Unlike Jon (I’ll bet),
I’ve read and admired much of what Gale Norton found good about Ayn
Rand’s writings, Atlas Shrugged especially. I’m more for states’
rights than Gale Norton. I left California mostly because of the
disgust I felt for the socialist bent the government had there.
Socialistic people always want someone else to pay
up.
The people I admire in the environmental
movement are not the extremist D.C.-based types like the Sierra
Club, but the people who actually live on the land who try to find
ways to conserve what’s best. Education is a lot of the
process.
Forty years ago, when I was a
construction engineer in Arizona on a railroad project, a rancher
pointed out to me how my tire tracks from my Jeep were causing
damage that would leave damage for years … or
more.
Even though I was in my early 20s, I’d been
prospecting and freely roaming the West for years without a thought
about such things.
But, that rancher’s kind
admonition started my thought process turning toward taking care of
the land.
Anyway, back to Jon Margolis. If Jon
would take the time to read the arguments leading to the
Constitution, he would come to understand the distrust the framers
had for central government. Then perhaps further historical study
would reveal to him just how much centralization took place in the
Civil War. Pay attention to the issue of “carpetbaggers.” Those are
people who were sent from that central authority (D.C.) to
micromanage an area they knew nothing about. Deja
vu?
With more power given to individual states,
then we can choose to live in California under its tax schemes, or
Vermont, where gay marriages are legal, or …
not.
T.C.
Johnson
Evanston, Wyoming
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Margolis blasts the wrong people.
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