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News & ArtsFriday, February 3, 2012
2012 Romney Doesn't Understand Why the Government Owns Land
Posted by Paul Constant on Fri, Feb 3, 2012 at 12:27 PM
ThinkProgress reports that Mitt Romney, in an interview with the Reno Gazette-Journal, said he doesn't know why the government holds so much land in the west. He waffled before saying he wanted to sell the land to the state outright, but he sounds very anti-conservationist here:
...I haven’t studied it, what the purpose is of the land, so I don’t want to say, “Oh, I’m about to hand it over.” But where government ownership of land is designed to satisfy, let’s say, the most extreme environmentalists, from keeping a population from developing their coal, their gold, their other resources for the benefit of the state, I would find that to be unacceptable.
ThinkProgress points out that Nevada's public lands add about a billion dollars to the state's economy annually.
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Not to mention the millions of acres of rangeland that are leased back to ranch owners that they would otherwise be unable to use if some private party bought them. The fact is, the government-land areas of the West are socialist by design, and the system works, even if the beneficiaries are peculiarly right-wing in response.
Romney also might read up on the history of land use in the West. Where does he think those lands came from? Leaving aside the obvious and uncomfortable question of the Indians we stole them from, I wonder if he's heard of the Louisiana Purchase? Or the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, whereby we stole them again from Mexico?
Romney also might read up on the history of land use in the West. Where does he think those lands came from? Leaving aside the obvious and uncomfortable question of the Indians we stole them from, I wonder if he's heard of the Louisiana Purchase? Or the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, whereby we stole them again from Mexico?
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for christ's sake! that billion dollars could be going into the hands of private equity firms instead! we. must. sell. off. all. public. resources.
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Romney is just another east coast dope who doesn't know a damn thing about anything in the west. And by west, I mean anything west of Springfield, MA.
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Good fucking god, no. We don't need states deciding what they can and can't do with public land. Let's just fucking strip mine the whole thing.
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And here we have one of the central idiocies of the Ayn Rand school of Free Market capitalism: The historical mining magnates and railroad tycoons these people hold up as examples of the entrepreneurship that will save us all invariably were the beneficiaries of huge government handouts: They purchased their land for for next to nothing from a government that had just freshly seized it from its original inhabitants on their behalf, or they purchased leases that allowed them to strip the land's mineral resources and leave the mess they made for the public to clean up.
The fact that the hero of Atlas Shrugged is a goddamn rail baron is possibly the best example of the mind-boggling cluelessness of this worldview; These self-made titans of industry built their empires on slave labor, stolen land, and a military only too willing to aid them in taking what they wanted. Without the hated intervening hand of government, their empires wouldn't have existed at all.
The fact that the hero of Atlas Shrugged is a goddamn rail baron is possibly the best example of the mind-boggling cluelessness of this worldview; These self-made titans of industry built their empires on slave labor, stolen land, and a military only too willing to aid them in taking what they wanted. Without the hated intervening hand of government, their empires wouldn't have existed at all.
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If republicans had their way, Yellowstone Nat'l Park would be Disneyworld Part 2, and the Grand Canyon would be half uranium mine, half garbage dump.
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My experience in using both Washington Department of Natural Resources land and National Forest Land leads me to believe that transferring control to the state would be a bad idea. At least from the standpoint of people who practice non-destructive recreation in public lands. Not that the NF have serious problems, either.
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One idiot remark after another. It's like he doesn't even care because he feels he is entitled to be president. Where did that come from? Is it because as a little boy he was good-looking, smart, white, rich? everyone patted him on the head and said, he's going to be president? Mitt projects the arrogance of a medieval prince. He is just too annoyed that he has to wade through all us common folks to get to his rightful place in the White House. You can just see the bubble over his head "What I have to put up with!" He thinks if he keeps throwing money eventually The Stupid People will come around. I keep waiting for him to explode one day, stamp his foot and say "But I have to be President! It's mine I tell you! Mine!"
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I apologize for the large number of idiotic typos in my posts. I recently got an iPhone and am finding typing, etc., to be more challenging than I thought it would be. Must try harder.
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@12: More likely, he believes it's divinely ordained. Joseph Smith prophesied that a Mormon would become president and bring a new age upon the world many years ago.
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I don't know, Mitt. Maybe it's because you're running for President, not Dictator, and Presidents are still answerable to the people - nominally - and the majority of people still like things like National Forests more than they like clear-cutting and strip-mining every inch of the land, so maybe that decision's not up to you, or your predecessors.
Ugh. Fuck Mitt Romney with a pole. He has all the charm, empathy, and earnestness of John "Escapee from Madame Toussaud's" Kerry, coupled with the ethical bankruptcy of Richard Nixon.
Ugh. Fuck Mitt Romney with a pole. He has all the charm, empathy, and earnestness of John "Escapee from Madame Toussaud's" Kerry, coupled with the ethical bankruptcy of Richard Nixon.
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Yep. Republicans want to privatize everything. Even every square foot of air. Then they own that little cube and can fucking pollute whatever they want into it.
Privatization, it's a whole thing.
Privatization, it's a whole thing.
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If you want to see what a privatized national park would be like, go to the Wisconsin Dells. It's far more horrifying than Disneyland.
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@19 - I just checked out the Wisconsin Dells on Wikipedia. Blech!
You know it's bad when there's a heading in the history section of the article labeled "Waterpark era."
You know it's bad when there's a heading in the history section of the article labeled "Waterpark era."
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@20: much of the horror stems from the prospect of seeing the average Wisconsinite in a swimsuit.
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Exploit it, lest it be wasted. What a narrow, piss-poor, anti-human ethic, if you could even call it that.
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My state, Wyoming, has over a billion dollar surplus while most other states are sinking fast. Lots of that comes from oil and gas revenues that also earn the federal government money when the wells and mines are on federal lands. Say what you will about the oil and gas industry, but it's generating revenue on multiple levels.
I hope the Republicans with oil interests add this latest Romney gaffe to their list of grievances. Alas, he'll probably win the primary here because we're still in the Mormon corridor.
I hope the Republicans with oil interests add this latest Romney gaffe to their list of grievances. Alas, he'll probably win the primary here because we're still in the Mormon corridor.
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