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Show Castle Dale, Utah Tuesday September 17, 2002 10A Emery County Progress Commentary PrefeOeirira os wo Tift By SHELDON RICHMAN I'll lift Michael Newdow doesn't privule schools have kids say "under ( Jod." Newdow is the father can1 vs if ho sued the government school district near Sacramento, Calif., because his daughters school begins the day v ith the Hedge of Allegiance, w inch contains those words. An atheist, New (low objects to the schools espousinga religious idea lie doesn't share. Hut notice that he sued no private schools. Of course not, you'll say. His daughter doesn't go to a private school. That's my point. With a private school, Newdow can avoid entanglement w ith beliefs he does not share simply by abstaining from patronizing it. I Ic can't do that with a government school. The law says he must educate his child. Ic docs not have to send her to the government school to which the bureaucrats assign her. He can send her to private school, or he can home-schoher. Hut if he does either of those, he is penalized: he continues to be taxed to support schools that he docs not use and that offend him. If Newdow could have fully disengaged from the gov eminent's schools he never would have filed his lawsuit. Hut he cannot disengage. I 'ufortunalely, lie filed the wrong suit. He would have made a real contribution to liberty and freedom of conscience had he challenged the svslem that taxes him for schools w hellier his children use them or not. This case, in which the U.S. Ninth ( 'ircuit Court of Appeals said the school's use of the Hedge of Alle- 1 ol giance is unconstitutional because of the reference to God, yet again demonstrates the poisonous consequences of government control of education. When government runs schools, disagreements that which would otherwise be easily handled without acrimony become bitter conflicts. There is but one source of the conflict and it is not religion or atheism. Its the use of coercion, taxation, to finance schools. End that, and this conflict evaporates like water on a hot sidewalk. The same would be true of all the conflicts that huve plagued the schools in recent years, such as sex education, controversial literature, the dumbing down of the curriculum, and politically correct history. So much time has been wasted trying to resolve those issues. Committees have been created. Studies have been undertaken. Compromises have been proposed. In the end, some people have been left resentful that something they dont like has been imposed on them and their children. The acrimony was unnecessary because the solution was plainly in view. End the coercion. How ironic. Good parents everywhere teach their children not to hit others and not to take their belongings without permission. We tell our children those things well before they are old enough to understand, because we know intuitively that early exposure to morality will set them on a good course in life. We teach those simple ethical precepts over and over. And then we make hypocrites of ourselves by violating them. We finance schools by taking peoples money without I Sev eral years ago w hile conducting un interv iew with a prominent activist in the I 'tali environmental community I stated that I considered m self un env ironmentaJist." This comment elicited not much more tly than a scornful he did not share my personal assessment. The problem? Well, it was obvious that 1 wasn't a big fan of the "Citizen's" Wilderness proposal. But I believed in saving the environment! 1 loved "environmentalist" activities sueli as a solitary hike or kayukinga remote and unspoiled river. 1 felt that OH Vs were a growing problem on public land and something needed to be done about it. And above all I w un ted to presen e" large tracts of public land in just the rugged state I often found them. I did not want to see more roads, large mines, or other noticeable human encroachments in these arcus. Hut he still didn't consider me an "env ironmentaJist" because 1 failed the Litmus test of unquestioning support of a hallowed environmentalist proposal. And question it 1 did. 1 questioned the manner in which it was put together and promoted. 1 questioned the premise that formal Wilderness" designation w as the only w ay to achieve preservation-- a v ision of which I shared with environmentalists, and for that matter numerous people living in Emery County So why is it that if 1 don't show unwavering support for Wilderness designation I can't be considered an ardent supporter of preservation? Why does Wilderness equal public land preservation and non Wilderness equal Do I have to agree that formal Wilderness designation is the only w ay to preserve" these areas I enjoy? M uch of the answ er to how we got to where we are can be found in the historical development of Wilderness as a preservation tool, in 1924 the conserv ation icon Aldo Leopold succeeded in his efforts to designate 540,000 acres surrounding the headw aters of the Gila river in New Mexico as a primitive" area-- a smirk-apparen- -- L-2- lasting-somethi- ng tive" designation. And so the quest began for such a tool, an effort that culminated in the passage of the Wilderness Act in 19G4 . Under this Act Wilderness would be a Congressional designation signed into law, and therefore strict enforcement could be demanded despite occasional changes in administrative priorities. The result is that we are now left with one tool with teeth," and everything else is "administrative" and cannot be considered as a worthwhile effort to preserve public land-- or so the argument goes. And so now we have the choice of either supporting Wilderness as the only way to preserve public land, or else you are That leaves us with the current situation where people like me are not considered serious preservationists (and certainly cant call themselves an environmentalist), and Emery County is forced into schemes such as National Conservation Areas Look res r, ' I vsf I c r i 0BV10USU To APPEASE US THIS ANNIVERSARY WITH CAKE. !r N f ' ! I permission. Should they refuse to submit to that taxation, we take their homes and even imprison them. If a and National Monuments in order to compete, or in order to promote a vision of preservation other than formal Wilderness designation. Emery County is finding out that even when you pull out all the stops and propose a National Monument, the debate keeps returning to the dichotomy of preservation versus access, where one is exclusive of the other. County leaders are having to fight this inclination yet again, this time in the creation of a public opinion survey--a survey which they ironically commissioned and helped pay for. Instead of exploring the pros and cons of a possible monument based on an entirely new approach to public land conservation, the substance of the survey looks most likely to simply become yet another effort that buys into the notion of either preservation or or Emery Countys vision based on a different approach or conception of land use designation and management may be pushed aside again. So like it or not we are where we are and the well established conception of public land preservation tightens its grip. The perception of preservation as synonymous with Wilderness and access synonymous with destruction of the environment remains-despi- te numerous meetings and substantial efforts to public land access-Wildern- ess child should be precocious enough to ask why, most of us would say, Thats different." Thats a rotten answer. Lets leave aside whether chUdren should be pressured or forced to pledge allegiance to a flag and a nation-stat(Frankly, it exploits children.) Ignore for this discussion that the Pledge was written by a Christian socialist with the avowed intent of fostering collectivism in children. (You could look it up.) The real issue here is not religion or atheism or patriotism. Its liberty versus coercion, persuasion versus force. In the 19th, state school systems were set up partly to incul- e. found offensive. That system continues to this day. Only the prevailing belief system has changed, from Protestantism to whatever the current secular m$sh Is called. It still employs force. How can tbaj Ije right or just? (Sheldon R ichman is sen ior fellow at The Future of Freedom Foundation in Fairfax, Va.J Dealing with Disagreement By PAULA WELLNTTZ How do you deal with anger or disagreement? Are you able to express your feelings of anger directly to the person involved about the issue that really causes it? Do you then work at resolving the conflict? It is through watching and listening to you that your children will learn much about how to relate and express themselves. They can learn from you that it is okay to express anger, even towards those they love. They wifi still love and be loved. They wiU learn to say directly, I feel angry when... to the person who occasions it. If chUdren learn to appropriately let others know their anger, they wall have no need to express the emotion preservation. Apparently the Wildemess-is-the-only-ay crowd has a monopoly on preservation, and if I want the title of environmentalist" ID have to support the Citizens proposal and agree that WUderness is the only way and efforts such as Emery Countys are just another disguise for developing an official OHV playground and another sneak-attac- k on the sacred notion of WUderness. (Jeffrey O. Durrani, PhD, is a professor with w the Department of Geography at Brigham Young University, he can be at or by enuiil at jod2(8 etmil.byu.edu. Mr Durrani 's comments are exclusively h is own and lee does not represent the viewpoints ofBYUJ recu-he- cate Protestantism in children whether their parents approved or not. This offended Catholics, Jews, and others, who often started their own schools in response. But the government still demanded that the dissenters help finance what they HOMEMADE 6, r: " THOSE HoW THET ARE TRUNO j j! fujbrT'00'"''' KNEW Americans were weak. The Wilderness Monopoly on Preserving Public Land unique designation and essentially the nations first official Wilderness area. Several years later the forest service developed an administrative regulation called 0 that allowed the forest service to designate additional areas as primitive." These regulations allowed logging inside the primitive area and were generally regarded as a bit too flimsy for serious preservation efforts. They were replaced by stricter U regulations, developed by Wilderness Society Bob Marshall, that defined three categories of wilderness. But the problem was that even these stricter U regulations were administrative" and could be changed relatively easily by the forest service. During World War II some of these designated areas were logged and road networks developed as if no special status existed. Wilderness advocates wanted something stronger, more that did not depend on the shifting whims of land managers. They wanted a legislative designation that would last and had real teeth," not a relatively weak administra- By Tim Huber POLITICALLY CORRECT PUBLIC LAND FOCUS By JEFFREY O. DURRANT, PhD ftk . . V indirectly to others in pent up outbursts, in poor school work, etc. j Nor is it so likely to be done in put- I down terms or by fighting. Parents do need to sped out certain ! i ways of acting. Parents can make themselves available for listening and talkingwith their children. A firm statement of expectation made at times of quiet discussion serve children weU. At the height of a fight j is no time to remind children of ! expectations, but when all have become cooler is time for a reminder. ! These expectations are best ex- ! in terms of the parents pressed ' need the for, rather an feeling than, authoritarian directive. For an ! example, one might say As we talked about the other day, it hurts me when . , others are hit. So I want to remind you not to hit your sister when you are angry. This can be another opening to talk ! about w ays to deal with angry feelings. Feelings can also be looked ! at separately from the action that has triggered them. At this time, alterna-- 1 tive solutions can be opened up. J J |