regulation

We Need More Wilderness

People sometimes ask me why I am so opposed to urbanization, and turning forests and farm fields into strip malls, office parks, and housing developments. Or at the same time, why I am opposed to closing off more public lands to wilderness, or what some call “neccessary reforms” and laws that will benefit the public as a whole.

My answer is simple: we are losing our freedoms, bit by bit. For every claim that every development is neccessary, that every new law is needed to reflect changing times or real needs, there is a counter point of lost freedoms, lost wilderness.

Powley Road Before Stars Came Out

Wilderness is not a place that is baricaded off from motor vehicles, or is highly remote. It is a a place where man can live his life relatively untrammeled by other men.

Where not every part of his life is decided by strict regulations and policies that seek to control and force him or her to act in a specific way. Where a person can be free to make his or her choices, without government dicating everything her or she must do in her life.

…We need more wilderness.

Liberty as Wilderness

I have written many times in the past on how much I dislike State Parks and State Campgrounds. I dislike the high degree of enforcement, the rules and regulations, and the number of people that are crowded into a small area. I much prefer to be alone and make my own rules, limited only by a basic respect for the natural world around me.

Deer

I have never viewed wilderness as a fixed or pure landscape. There is no pure wilderness for me, no set of clear definations, except for the need to be fairly remote, fairly private, fairly free from the big government enforcement precence. Certainly, a scenic view is nice, and quiet from passing traffic is great, but it’s not everything.

Fulton Chain of Lakes

Liberty should be the primary goal in wilderness. Wilderness is a place with the fewest regulations and rules possible, the farthest place possible from an enforcement precence. I just like to be myself, spend time in the woods, observing nature, and doing things on my own pace, without the regulations or control of the government.