« Newtastrophe | Main | Mark Your Calendars »
January 21, 2012
"Environmentalism has spent three decades trying to hide this simple truth."
The main danger to the affluent is not that they will be denied from improving their estatebut that too many other people will achieve what they already have. As the Forest Service used to say, the person who built his mountain cabin last year is an environmentalist. The person who wants to build one this year is a developer. --The American Spectator : Environmentalism and the Leisure Class
Posted by gerardvanderleun at January 21, 2012 9:54 AM. This is an entry on the sideblog of American Digest: Check it out.
Your Say
Perfectly true. It's a matter of degree. Cutting down the odd tree here and there for your own use is no problem; clear-felling entire hillsides is. Building a cabin in the woods is no problem; building an entire suburb of similar cabins is. One could use more examples.
Posted by: Fletcher Christian at January 21, 2012 12:12 PM
I knew once a former co-worker of my husband (an old-time mariner) who is originally from Maine. He had a second house there, in an area where there were a few houses and lots and lots of woods. (Think L.L. Bean)
One day, while at a summer gathering at the home of another of my husband's co-workers and all the others' wives, he told us about how he had recently found out that a developer was aiming to buy all the woods around his second-home neighborhood. He conspired with the other few homeowners to buy the entire acreage of land to be developed by putting enough money on the table for it. They neighbors bought the land - and the developer didn't know what hit him.
And since he and the neighbors knew they were going to be hit through the roof in taxes (Federal and ME's), they all donated the land to the Nature Conservancy. Their tax break, needless to say, was enormous. Their environmentalist angel wings were earned, and little bells rang on their Holiday trees, just as Zuzu would say...
Oh yeah, they got what they wanted - but they will block anyone else from reaching the same level. My husband and I have not reached his level of wealth yet, and probably never will.
That's our American Aristocracy for ya.
And that's why we live in Texas, and not in Maine.
Posted by: newton at January 21, 2012 1:58 PM
Fletcher,
You haven't explained what you believe your husband's former co-worker did that was wrong. If he and neighbors bought the property, then it is theirs, and they can do what they want with it. It is, and was private property.
That they gave it to the Nature Conservancy to keep it undeveloped, is one of the things they can do with their property. Would you be less upset if they bought it and developed it themselves, or clear cut it for lumber?
Posted by: Ron H.. at January 23, 2012 7:47 PM
Sorry, I guess my comment is directed to Newton. I'm not used to this format.
Posted by: Ron H.. at January 23, 2012 7:54 PM