I thought it was three wolves and a sheep voting on what's for dinner?

Um, no. You missed my point entirely. Perhaps I stated it poorly. I will try again.

Tree huggers can have whatever opinion they want. They cannot, however, dictate what someone else does with land that they have bought and paid for. If tree huggers want people to not build houses in forests they should try to enact legislation to turn those areas into protected lands. Then no one can build houses on it.

A tree hugger DOES NOT have the right to sit in their house 50 miles from the forest and tell their fellow citizen what they can or cannot do with their land.

But government does. You cannot, for example, dam a river that runs through your property if doing so will flood your neighbor's property.

Just one example.

Thom actually is becoming a conservative by wanting to maintain the status quo!

Rick,
Some people don't see the irony of development opponents and you can't help them. In Cali it's more the slow growth initiatives than saving forests. "We want to save the picturesque hills that remain" (after we've gotten to build our houses first of course). Oh, with the added benefit that this will artificially increase the prices in the growth limited areas.

And how does this example equate to the situation we are talking about?

The analagous thing would be setting fire to your property which spreads to someone else's property I guess. That's illegal too.

What you are suggesting is that people should be restricted from building their houses in areas that are prone to natural disaster (i.e. forest fire). Extending that, no one should be able to live along rivers or lakes due to flood risk. No one should be allowed to live in California at all due to earthquake risk. No one should be allowed to live on the coasts due to hurricane/typhoon/tsunami risk. No one should be able to live in the midwest due to tornado risk.

So basically we all should just vacate the US entirely.

OK - you're right. I do not understand your point or this position. I don't see what someone's "label" ( in this case you've id'd them as "tree huggers") has to do with their right to state opinions, support or enact legislation in line with their opinion, and express a desire for or legislate for specific development in their area.

It seems to me fundamentally anti-democratic to hold such a position as this - kind of saying "you don't have the right to speak out on this"

For as long as we've been a country - citizens opinions and votes have been sought for all kinds of issues about which they have no direct experience or concern. They still get to vote on them. Your position limits citizenship rights only to those who are somehow directly involved in any one issue - unhealthy in a participatory democracy.

There is a spectrum of possible solutions on "property rights" all the way from "I can build meth labs on my land if I want" and "I can let my property forest growth endanger the town I chose to live in" to "You can't do anything to this land" and "too bad - it is now a national park".

I guess people who live in ex-forested houses shouldn't throw zones (fire or regulation) ?

Yeesh man, are you really this dense? How many different ways can I say that anyone has the right to have any opinion they want?? That DOES NOT mean they can tell someone else what to do with their property. If they want to lobby their local legislature or Congress then great, go for it. If they want to hold a protest at the Capitol, by all means.

Until they get legislation passed, however, that is where their rights end. They cannot dictate to another private citizen what they can or cannot do with their land. I think that's a pretty simple concept.

If someone wants to tell me what to do with mu property, they better buy it from me, other wise they can go **** themselves. I would have cut the tree down with Daryl Hanna in it. Tree huggers have hurt this country in many ways, and cost the American public lots of money. Cutting the under brush and trimming trees does help keep the Forrest fresh and when the timber companies cut trees, they replant them.

Right - we have no disagreement with the idea of private citizens telling each other what to do - those are personal matters. We all have the right to express an opinion about what we can do and we all have the right to try and legislate such opinions. No problemo.

But the original position - as outlined in the quote above - limits expression to those who "make an example of themselves first." This kind of idea just rubs me the wrong way. It is undemocratic.

Of course it isn't undemocratic for cripe's sake. No where in that statement do I say someone has no right to voice their opinion. They have all the right in the world.

If, on the other hand, they want to be taken SERIOUSLY when they voice their opinion it would help if they practiced what they preached. If someone is so up in arms about the state of the forests to try and tell someone they cannot build on forested land, I think they oughta be willing to use their own property for natural conservation. If you want to rail against pollution, you might not want to drive an SUV. If you want to rail against corruption, you better not have taken any bribes. The list goes on and on.

Basically people have the right to voice whatever opinion they want and I have the right to say that if they want to impose their ideas on other people they oughta get their own house in order first.

Rick

I had thought of fire.

How about the dreaded "neighborhood associations", or "deed restrictions"? They limit what can and cannot be done.

Maybe I am missing the point, but there are a LOT of ways folks are constrained.

Jeez, what a discussion. Thom & Sammyg2 said some valid things about fire suppression. In the late '60s into the mid '70s I worked in fire control and as a ranger in Sequoia/Kings Canyon National Parks. All fires were suppressed. In the areas where the Sequoia Gigantea are growing, The duff (accumulation of stuff that falls on the forest floor over time) had built up to a depth of maybe 8 feet in lots of areas. The Sequoia trees have thick bark that is fire resistant. But if the build up of duff really got burning, the heat would be such that it would burn through the bark & kill the trees. This situation was brought about by the policy of suppressing all fires. And it is true that fires are required by the Sequoias and other trees & plants for reseeding. The rising heat from fire dries out the cones so the seeds can fall out. Of course with the duff so deep, the seedlings' roots wouldn't reach mineral soil to be successful. Eventually they started controlled burning, but the situation there & other places resulting from total fire suppression is still about the same. There needs to be a common sense approach - something that always seems impossible in so many situations.

Yes they do. But they don't tell you that you cannot build a house on your land.

Not only that, but the deed restrictions and such are either local law or are voted on by the members of the HOA. Therefore it is similar to having legislation passed which I am 100% fine with. You get a law passed, more power to you.

I don't think you will find a single example where an individual or a group has unilaterally gone outside of the government and imposed their will on a private citizen. At least not one where the perpetrators didn't go to jail.

I would think that economic controls would come into play. What if the insurance companies refuse to cover property built in specific areas? Without homeowners insurance, financing is not possible.

Probably working on the Mt. Lemmon fire scene a few years back watching an entire little village destroyed has modified my thinking. Some people have to be saved from themselves.

Very few people have an opportunity to practice "good foresting techniques" even if they do live on land that was developed a hundred or two hundred years ago - whatever that has to do with anything.

In your world view they should not be taken SERIOUSLY - so their opinions can be ignored. I don't think that's right. Certainly, it's your right to ignore them and your right to tell society to ignore them. I just don't think society SHOULD ignore them. After all, the right to citizenship is not based upon perfect behavior.

Everyone's house has some disorder - democracy is pretty messy.

Of course they do! They can bulldoze their own land and allow the land to return to its natural vegetation. The seeds and spores are there in the ground, waiting for a chance. In 50 or 100 years they will probably have a very nice little forest where their house once stood.

Well, if they want to spout off about the forest and tell other people they can't build their homes on land they bought and paid for while not doing every single thing in their power to bring about reforestation including giving up their own land then...

Yep, I will ignore them.

Sorta like I ignored Darryl Hannah when she chained herself to that garden in LA to protest the rightful owners of that land developing the land as they saw fit. Here's a newsflash, Darryl, how about you just give up YOUR land to let all the folks of LA garden? Here's another thought, how about you give up some of those "Splash" royalties and BUY the land? Then you can let all the happy folks farm to their heart's content. Until she is ready to do one of those two things, then she should shut the hell up.

That isn't unAmerican, it's called common sense.

Gee, Rick..

Now we know your hot button issue!!

Yeah, the whole idea of people spouting off about how other people should live while not doing everything they personally can to fix the issue is certainly a hot button issue for me.

How about lumber companies paying for cleaning up their own mess in federally owned land. How about lumber companies paying for the roads into federally supported forests. How about taxpayers paying subsidies for lumber company land resources. I agree - companies should pay their own way before telling us how we should use America's land.

Um, ok, I agree with you on that.

Now go get legislation passed to make the lumber companies stand up and fly right and quit trying to foist your problems with the lumber industry on the private citizen.