From: dc_ags@ac.nsac.ns.ca (Don Christie)
Subject: Re: Off Thoughts. Sheep!?
Reply-To: dc_ags@ac.nsac.ns.ca
Organization: Nova Scotia Agricultural College, Nova Scotia, CANADA
Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1993 14:50:17 GMT

>>Well maybe get the land the same way my fthers and their father got the land by
>>homesteading and then going and risking life to win it. Probably the same way
>>most of your family once did. Maybe by some conquest. Main question is why must
>>the FED own land? A governemtn that has financial independence from its people
>
>Why should the FED own land?
>Because if there's one thing our recent environmental history has shown its
>that the only thing worse than government ownership of land is private
>ownership!

I think there's another aspect to this... we discuss the basic rights and
freedoms, and we talk about founding principles... but we don't seem to
recognize the `driving force' behind those rights and principles. 

What I'm getting at is that our society is essentially driven by financial
profit... most of the determination of whether a business or government
(or the enterpries of individuals, for that matter) is worthwhile is based
on the question of profitability. i.e. As long as it makes money, then there is
nothing wrong with it.. (assuming it doesn't violate some ordnance or another
which was put into place to protect the profitability of some other interest).

So, from my point of view, the question of _who_ owns a given resource is
immaterial... because the difference between right and wrong for that resource
is ultimately going to be determined by the almighty buck! 

The men and women whose ideas became our rights and freedoms had no way to
foresee how they would be interpreted in the late 20th century. If they could
see the range of useless products, needless waste, the pollution and mayhem
we have produced, they'd roll over in their graves! 

If Joe Herbie can make a buck producing and selling widgets, then Joe Herbie
is allowed to make and sell widgets... regardless of whether or not the product
is needed (or wanted). 

Our free democratic society has no mechanisms for determining exactly what
_is_ needed, and for allocating resources to those endeavours which meet that
criteria. We trust in the free market (driven by supply and demand) to make
these determinations for us. The result is an industrial machine which 
consumes vast resources and creates untold damage to our environment... and
which will cease and desist only when economics dictates. The spinoff
effects of this allow consumers of these products to waste and pollute in
their turn. 

In each case, as long as the individuals in question are spending their own
money on goods and services of their choice, they feel quite justified in
their assertions that they are doing nothing wrong. When others disagree,
some clown will draw an arbitrary line in the sand and tell his/her 
neighbours to stay on their own side of the fence and mind their own business.

I think we should re-think what we consider to be rights and freedoms... I
think we should re-think the mechanisms we use to govern ourselves. None
of the political systems we have devised to date actually work... absolutely
NONE! We have come to the collective realization that no country or group
of countries is really independent from the others... we all live on this
little globe, and we're a whole lot closer to each other than we think.

We delude ourselves into thinking that we are civilized... yet we are still
spending over a trillion dollars a year on weapons to kill each other. We
allow people to starve to death by the hundreds of thousands, and yet there
is enough food being produced in the world to feed everyone. We have
people in our society whose wealth defies expression, and yet within sight of
their dwellings other people live in squalor. 

In my opinion, what we do not need is _more_ government involvement in our
lives, and what we _do_ need is a system of government that actually does
work... on a global scale.




>
>Some pieces of land are worth too much to break up and hand out to
>homesteaders.  The whole can be much more than the sum of parts.
>

//Don
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