But no hope:
I think that if “wilderness advocates” quoted in the story valued empty ocean more than an oyster farm, they should have paid him to stop, instead of getting the government to make him stop. But hey, that’s just me. The new way to get what you want is to have the state take it for you. It’s different from theft because there are uniforms and everything involved.
Tar and feathers.
Sad story, and I’d agree this was handled badly. But it was slightly more complicated than the way Instapundit described things. Congress decided back in the 70’s that the location would become a wilderness area, and the executive branch took its own sweet time to carry out that decision. In the meantime, the oystering operations were authorized by a permit (an “occupancy agreement”), and the feds finally decided they wouldn’t give the owner another extension.
It’s like a landlord telling a tenet to move out because the building’s going to be pulled down. Too bad, but the landlord generally gets his way, and that’s all that happened here.
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You want to argue it was a bad, short isghted decision that didn’t benefit any human being in the world? I don’t think I’d argue. It would have been a whole lot better if some sensible marine biologists and wilderness managers had come by and “suggested” possible changes in operating procedures at the oystery that would be compatible with restoring the surrounding lands as wilderness. But that would have cost money and some effort by medium-to-high level civil service types. So you know that was never in the offing!
Environmentalists are upset that we pull wild food from the ocean so we have aquaculture to mitigate damage to ecosystems and then the environmentalists try and shut down aquaculture. They love the animals so much that they want all the farmed oysters killed.
I guess they would argue the oysters were going to die anyway and better a noble death at the bottom of a pit than in someone’s belly. That whole circle of life thing is over rated.
Mr. Obama cannot afford to risk a new recession that would irreparably damage his second term.
Yeah, because in his first term it failed to get him reelected.
Oops, wrong blog entry!
Guy I know sailed a yacht around the world about 20 years ago. Whenever he called in to a new port one of the questions the officials asked was “did you see any pirates?”. His answer “Of course but they all wore government uniforms”.