The approach I am suggesting is the hard way. It requires an agonizing effort to understand needs and opinions one has no natural inclination to accept or respect. Ranchers who have taken the position that most environmentalists are city raised fools who have been spoiled by unproductive, make work jobs in an indulgent society will have to learn to respect the views of these people, in spite of the great differences in values. People who regard Westerners who earn their living from basic industries as provincial exploiters will have to learn to respect rights and opinions that run against the current of everything they have been taught. There are no easy chores in this scenario but it is damn sure challenging.
Life becomes very miserable.
I am heartened to read these words of a rancher who is so perceptive and so eloquent. There is a very large and significant movement going on throughout the west. I believe Ed Marston and the High Country News has been following and preaching the message that Mr. Quinlan picked up on. The situation in the West is a unique experiment in society and government. We who live here are in fact tenants in an awkwardly designed government owned scenario.