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Greg Truitt, a frequent companion in small-town curmdgeonry, saw the trend coming years ago, and I naively dismissed his prediction. It was back when the river corridor was becoming the Arkansas Headwaters State Park.
The whole plan here,
Greg groused, is to find
ways to charge us for what we used to get for free. Pretty
soon there'll be a fee to park next to the river and go for
a walk. This country just won't let people do anything for
free. We're not doing our duty for America if we're off
skipping rocks across a beaver pond instead of spending
money at a shopping mall, and they're coming after us
slackers, Quillen.
I dismissed that as a cheapskate's paranoid ranting, sinc it came during one of those rare periods when our municipal government was not providing sufficient material for our compulsive gripers' support group.
But Greg was right, and the trend is growing. Now we read that the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management are going to start charging, in some places, just to be on public land that we own anyway.
There are reasons. Recreation used to be a by-product from public land. The real use was logging, grazing or mining. Those activities provided income to the land-management agencies, and we were welcome to pitch a tent, go for a stroll or enjoy the view, as long as we didn't get in the way of the important stuff.
But now logging, grazing and mining aren't the economic powers that they once were. Recreation is the major user of public land, and if we want other users -- stockmen, lumberjacks, miners -- to pay, then why shouldn't recreation?
The Forest Service and BLM need money to handle the crowds that flock to public lands, and they're not getting sufficient revenue from timber sales and grazing fees.
By this reckoning, recreation has been getting a free ride.
Other factors may be at work here, too. The idea of a public sector operating for public benefit on public funds, although popular once, is now heresy and subversion.
Our schools go out begging for DARE propaganda from Col. Sanders, reading programs from Pizza Hut, crime-prevention materials from Wal-Mart. They sell ads on buses. We seem to think that education should be
self-supporting.
The county jail now charges inmates, and in many states,
prison labor is contrated to private enterprises, to help
cover the rising costs. Granted, that's one way for America
to compete with cheap Third World Labor -- pass more laws
to produce more prisoners who will work cheap. After all,
the 13th Amendment does allow slavery, as punishment for
crime whereof the party shall have been duly
convicted.
There's also talk of corporate sponsorship for national parks, as well as increasing entrance fees. We couldn't just pay taxes for parks for everybody -- that would be socialism, I suppose.
Another factor could be that it's unfair
for
government to compete with private enterprise. If you have
to pay to stay at a private campground, then the public
campground should presumably charge similar rates.
And if you have to pay to go to Disneyland to amuse yourself, then why shouldn't you have to pay to go to San Isabel National Forest for the same purpose? Is that fair to the tax-paying privately owned Disney company? In a nation dedicated to commerce, should we allow people to just wander around and look at mountains and creeks and the changing aspen, all for free?
Obviously not. That we ever could is a mere accident of history, a grievous error now fortunately being corrected by the Contract Republicans. Anybody who thinks otherwise is probably some kind of elitist, just like those snobs that listen to public radio or patronize public libraries.
But they've missed a few things. We haven't quite reached the level of Mexico City, where the air is so polluted that oxygen sales are rather brisk -- but why shouldn't people be charged for breathable air? Isn't it unfair for government, in the form of anti-pollution laws, to be competing with private firms who sell oxygen?
Where was the fee for watching the lunar eclipse the other night? Is it fair for HBO and Cinemax to have to compete with a free cosmic spectacle?
And I hate to think of the time I've spent on the front porch, watching electric storms hover above the Arkansas Hills on summer evenings. Here I've been freeloading, getting these fireworks shows at no charge, when America is full of entrepreneurs who sell tickets to pyrotechnic displays.
Maybe I'll ask Greg about it the next time he comes by, providing I can afford the fee -- certainly there must be a charge for talking with friends, and if there isn't one yet, there soon will be. It's downright unamerican to allow people to enjoy themselves for free when there's money to be made.
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