The National Parks: The Super-Rich's Greatest Idea by Gary NorthI have been enjoying the PBS documentary on the national parks. A large chunk of my adult life, and my relationship with my spouse, has been spent in a beautiful park or monument.
I love nature. I am grateful that somebody rich enough could buy up the lands and preserve it 100 years ago so I, too, could see it in its natural state. Wonderful. If developers and smaller land owners were to have bought up the lands that are now parks, OR if the super-rich that bought the land wanted to develop it (which would have been their right) Americans would not have the scenic beauty, or the myriad flora and fauna, that the parks preserve.
Mr. North's essay makes clear he has actually never even visited a national park since he states "consumers must apply to reserve a pass" into the parks. That is simply untrue. You go there, you drive in. You pay the entrance fee (if there is one). If you want to camp, space at campgrounds is limited and only recently the park service has allowed reservations for camping spots, but that is the only time I've ever heard of being able to "reserve" anything regarding entry into the parks.
Then Mr. North gets off on this tangent of park land use, hikers vs. bikers vs. cars, fire management practices, and some other red herrings that have nothing to do with the premise of his absurdly sophomoric editorial, which rambles and goes off point. Often.
From what I can discern from his inane and badly researched rambling, Mr. North is angry that the super-rich elites are trying to lock up land from you the people so you can't own it, develop it, enjoy it in the way you want, or even visit it.
As a libertarian thinker, I see that those lands now within the national parks are priceless in value, and no one else could have bought that big a chunk except for very wealthy people, who through the market had created their wealth and were free to do with it what they wanted. They were capitalists in the very best sense of the word, and they used their great influence and wealth in a positive way by donating the land they bought to never be used, but preserved. Hey, they bought it outright, and it was theirs to develop/not develop/give away/mine/ranch as they saw fit. Rockefeller could have sold, ranched, leased back to the ranchers, or developed the land east of the Tetons in Wyoming if he wanted. But he didn't want to.
A society, I believe, can be judged by what they value, protect and treasure. True, the super-rich started the National Parks idea. But on the whole, that America had some foresight to protect these places speaks volumes about us as a group of people. As a beneficiary of these gifts, I am grateful that I can see a vista today almost exactly as it looked 100 or more years ago. I'm glad condos don't dot the rim of Grand Canyon. I'm thrilled that Grand Canyon was never dammed, unlike Glen Canyon, whose loss was and is immeasurable considering the dam that drowned such beauty has never lived up to the hype that caused it to be built...as in, the water it holds back as Lake Powell is not greatly used for agriculture or development, and the electricity the turbines produce cannot be sold in a large quantity because of transmission and grid issues.
But I digress. Gary North does make a point about how the parks do lock up land. And I've been to many parks that, I have to say, don't really rate the protection or status of a national park designation, or the designation is so huge and crazy that it really locks up a lot of land that doesn't need to be part of a park necessarily. I've been in and around enough parks to know. I've also seen acres and acres of western federal land that is not park land that is being mined, grazed, and logged at below-market rates to businesses that would rather lease from the federal government than own that land and pay the taxes. I say sell that land. That is another topic of discussion, though.
Mr. North is also ignoring that there are developers that do benefit from a park's designation. I present Gatlinburg outside of Great Smoky Mountains National Park as exhibit A. Personally, I think Gatlinburg is a festering boil on the mountains of Tennessee, but some people just love it. It's miles and miles of hotels, stores, theaters, and cheesy tourist attractions that, without the nearby national park designation, would probably never have developed the way it did. The land there is no less pretty naturally as the rest of the park (barring the buildings), it has just been developed to the point of nausea. Developers have won the day there, Mr. North. Go check it out. Then actually go into the park and see what could have been developed. You don't need a reservation...you can drive right in!
Being in nature is, at its core, the most intense way to feel being free that I have ever felt. Thoreau felt it and wrote volumes about it. In fact, I probably wouldn't have such strong libertarian/free thinking tendencies had I never been hiking in beautiful places, being self-sufficient, and letting my mind wander and ponder the nature of freedom and existence. The realization of personal liberty and self-sovereignty is a priceless gift, and just a small part of what the national parks have given back to me. Yeah, I have issues with the park service since I've actually been on the ground and had to work with them, but they are fleeting. The place is what matters. The plants and animals matter. Being able to go and see these places matters.
Mr. North: before you try writing about this topic again, please visit a national park so you sound like you know what you're talking about. Um, wait...just spare me altogether and never write about it again.
