Recent comments

Glen,

You're not really suggesting what I think you're suggesting with this comment about the Vice President, are you? "In fact, impeachment isn't enough for a man who has committed treason during war time. There was a time when that called for more dire punishment."

And you're insinuating my post was "vitriolic"? That's rich.

Dennis Patrick

Ok, heres why your pass doesnt cover the 8 dollar fee. When attendance to Mount Rushmore started to become more than the tiny lot could handle, obviously, something had to be done. A 17 million dollar parking structure was proposed, but federal funding wasnt approved for it. Instead congress granted a loan for it. Yes, loans have to be paid off. Hence, the 8 dollar fee.

but anyways.... its 8 dollars....and you can come back anytime you want to with however many people you can fit in your car. If you cant afford 8 dollars, maybe you shouldnt be on vacation.

Yes, but that's not the same as value neutral or postmodern or relativistic. Yes, I don't believe there is any case for speciesism at all. Yet, from the particular case that I don't think that there is a reason to value one species over another (though certainly, as a living and breathing person, I do assert myself) does not entail that one is value neutral on all questions. In fact, I have framed this issue in terms of what I take to be the highest value of all, which is reason. There is no reason to presume that a human being is worth more than any other being; there is no reason to presume less. That is quite far from what the postmodernist says; reason is more of a fad of convenient expression for the postmodernist, not value par excellence. I further claim that speciesism is dogmatism, that is a claim made without reason, an arbitrary assertion (essentially the kind of assertion that relativists and postmodernists make all the time; the reduction of value from reason to the human being was the modern revolution; the reduction of reason altogether was just the postmodernist extrapolation - a pox on both houses for usurping reason.)

Secondly, in a world where I as a human denounce anthropocentrism, denounce speciesism, does not mean that I therefore denounce humans or the value of human beings. That, I argue, is also speciesist. In fact, I hold humans to the highest value possible, one among many in a community of inter-related beings, a community where worth is determined not based on what something is but rather why something is done. I eat and breathe not because I am more just, not because I am more rightful on the basis of being human but rather because that is who I am and what I am inclined to do in relating with the environment we all inhabit. The value, then, exists in the actual senses, in the actual acts of beings, not because we are members of a class of beings, but because we are. What more profound thing does reason point to but Being itself (to God, if you will), and to the great dynamism and diversity of being.

You have spoken fallaciously because you took a particular instance where I denied a value and derived a universal about my stance about values. Your quote only confirms your fallacy.

My original intent on replying to what you wrote was not to disagree with you but to suggest that you raised an important point about misanthropy, to suggest that whatever one's beliefs about the value of people, that we gain little if we don't recognize the human role in the environment. It just so happens that I take misanthropy to be an extension of speciesism, not a valid consequences of my view, though many who have called themselves anti-speciesist have ended up being anti-human (that is an internal inconsistency in their view). I wanted to suggest that whatever side of that value continuum we are on, that the point you raised was important.

In any event, I don't think either of us really believe that the government should be pronouncing grand visions of what the Park Service's centennial is, though perhaps for quite different reasons. I don't believe that reason provides anyone with that kind of foresight and that the dogmatism that these kind of visions often lend themselves to is quite dangerous. In your case, you would not leave a vision to a group of people you've judged to be misanthropic, unaccountable, and incompetent. In effect, it's not terribly different. In truth, you are right, that there is a big difference, though you haven't said anything which makes me confident that I have communicated my actual view to you (do postmodernists talk about anything actual or real? I suppose like dogmatists they assert anything that fits into their arbitrary template from which they've pre-ordained the world)

Cheers,
Jim Macdonald
The Magic of Yellowstone
Yellowstone Newspaper
Jim's Eclectic World

You said "I don't believe that humans have any more intrinsic value than anything else, not as far as I have ever been able to prove to myself." In essence that means, in your estimation, a human has no more intrinsic value than, say a cockroach or a field mouse. There is no other way to interpret your statement. You can frame it any way you want to philosophically but that is the core message of what you said.

It's written there for all to read. Again, the sad part is that many others feel that way as well. There is no argument. You have stated your case.

Hang in there Frank. I think you're being more than civil.

My "insistence to personally attack other commentators": I apologize if anyone has felt personally attacked by me. Often, I feel that I am mostly under fire (if you look at the record, you'll see others personally attacking me and telling me they'll pay for my move to Canada). Under attack, I feel the urge to defend myself. I apologize for falling for the bait. However, I think some confuse attacking an individual's logic and experience (or lack thereof) and challenging an individual's bias with attacking the individual. Look through the last few weeks of comments and you won't find me calling other people names or otherwise attacking the individual.

I look forward to more constructive debate on the issues and hope we can all thicken our skins a little because debate sometimes get a bit heated.

Disgust with government and the corrupt politicians of every political leaning is understandable. As for the VP's trip, if we don't want the executive branch using the parks for political gain (photo op), we must separate government/politics and park management.

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Reform the National Park Service!
http://NPS-reform.blogspot.com

There does seem to be a double standard here.

A previous comment ("or the protection/management of national parks should somehow be pried from the talons of vultures who circle Capitol Hill, and the reigns transfered to a non-governmental organization.") got the response: ("This serves my point exactly, though. By putting the commentary outside civility, by making the argument about the arguer and by using tones that beg for irrational, emotional response, you cease the flow of creative ideas altogether.")

Does saying "shame on you" to the veep and telling him "stay in your cave" encourage the flow of creative ideas?

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Reform the National Park Service!
http://NPS-reform.blogspot.com

Snowbird06
Very well put Glenn, very well put...you couldn't of express it better!

Snowbird06
Dennis, in all due respect, why should we respect Mr. Cheney and his administration when they make back room deals with the oil, gas and utility companies without public oversight.
It's quite obvious that Mr. Cheney could careless how majestic the Grand Tetons look...it's about rape and pillage that concerns many Americans about the Bush & Cheney public land grab. In regards to Sen. Craig Thomas, perhaps one of the better republicans who had some sympathy for the NPS.

The truth is I am not a digruntled employee, but was a highly regarded mid-level supervisor with awards and performance bonuses dotting my employment record. I enjoyed my work but left the agency because I could see that at its core it was a politically driven government agency full of careerists and self-promoting image mongers whose priority was not the lands under their purview but power and greedy self-advancement. Once in the system it was impossible to fire anyone, so highly incompetent people were shuffled around and generally promoted into higher paying positions where they could do the least harm.

I guess one of the biggest reasons I left, which shocked many of my careerist co-workers, was the overall misanthropy of the rank and file NPS employee. It was in general a real humanity hating bunch. I was constantly hearing how the earth needed a "good cleansing" catastrophe to wipe out a vast quantity of the resource consuming, environment raping species I just happened to be a member of.

Park service couples have very few children because more humans are a definite burden and detriment to their false god of rocks and trees: Mother Earth. To a wide swath of NPS employees humanity was a scourge and a threat to all that was sacred and dear to them: their home planet. I remember that some were even looking forward to the time when the Yellowstone volcano would blow again so the earth could catch its breath after so much human caused degradation by a massive die-off. I needed to escape such cynical sentiments about my own humanity and become a part of something that worshiped God and the human spirit and not the so-called "wilderness" where the defilement of everything good and sacred that is profaned by our existence can be escaped from and avoided.

That was no place for a happy boy who loves his own species to hang his flat hat. Disgruntled I am not. Glad to have my own parks oriented business has been nothing but a blessing from God and I am grateful. That I think the parks should be released from federal bondage is a view that I share with many others and is something I will advocate until it eventually happens. It is easy to dismiss this as sour grapes but I'm sorry to say I am inspired by optimism and a belief in my own species to do what is right for themselves and their planet.

I'd like to quote you from a previous post, Glenn...."There's certainly nothing wrong with passion (see my original post). But when passion and outspokenness becomes personal, it can change the debate from something constructive and problem-solving to something merely mean." I looked really hard at this post, and couldn't find the constructive part, or the problem-solving part.

Obviously you don't respect Dick Cheney..I'm always disgusted by people that can't respect the office, however.

The irony of Tricky Dick Cheney, lackey to any business interest who can even slightly smell cash in the air, taking a photo op at the Grand Tetons - as if he gives a moose's butt about land if you can't drill, mine or blast a road through it... well, the bitter irony is not lost on most of us.

That the memory of this august Senator (one who advocated for public lands in a state that often fights against such a stand) will be shamelessly used for such a cynical posture makes my skin crawl.

Shame on you, Dick Cheney. Stay in your cave and leave the parks alone.