10-25-2021, 09:15 AM
I've got a good case of two sides engaging in disinformation. If you do a search for the name "Grulkowski" and the acronym "NHA" you'll get a list of stories complaining that the person named Grulkowski spewed a bunch of lies about some effort to designation a chunk of Montana a National Heritage Area (NHA). Read where this story is reproduced or echoed in lots of mainstream places and the narrative is that Grulkowski lied about what the designation does.
Some folks in Great Falls formed a committee to press for the NHA designation of an area bigger than a whole county in Montana. The story here is that folks who did this are a certain kind of people: urban progressives who love the idea of federal government seizing land from private owners. They are spitefully unaccountable to anyone, and have lied about organizations they claim are on board with this. Granted, the NHA designation specifically prevents land seizure or any kind of controls. That is what the mainstream complaints focus on, that Grulkowski and friends are lying about what the NHA designation means. But that's not what Grulkowski and friends said. The issue is that the committee pushing for the NHA are only getting started toward a long term goal of all the things Grulkowski warns about.
That's because the process involved in confiscation and control often starts with a fairly harmless NHA designation, and then escalates over the years. The whole point is to get federal attention focused on a particular area so that calls for rising controls become unavoidable.
For once, I'm not on either side. The Bible makes a lot noise about common or shared ownership of land. It also says a lot about supporting inherited land rights. The problem is that we have two immoral forces clashing here. On the one hand, private land owners are notorious for fencing and blocking folks from just passing through. That's a sin in the Bible. But the federal government is also notorious for confiscating property, and it doesn't matter if there's compensation, because inherited ownership is a big deal in the Bible. Think about King Ahab and Naboth's vineyard.
But I think we can say that the problem with the federal government's policies is that they are guided by some of the most evil people I've ever encountered -- and I have dealt with those "Green" pagan idolaters before. The traditional American notion of private property ownership rights is a lesser evil, in that this idolatry tends to do less harm.
Still, my point is that it's very easy for one side to dominate the mainstream press such that folks honestly believe there is no other side to the controversy worthy of a hearing.
Ref: Cascade County and part of Choteau County in Montana; proposed Big Sky Country National Heritage Area.
Some folks in Great Falls formed a committee to press for the NHA designation of an area bigger than a whole county in Montana. The story here is that folks who did this are a certain kind of people: urban progressives who love the idea of federal government seizing land from private owners. They are spitefully unaccountable to anyone, and have lied about organizations they claim are on board with this. Granted, the NHA designation specifically prevents land seizure or any kind of controls. That is what the mainstream complaints focus on, that Grulkowski and friends are lying about what the NHA designation means. But that's not what Grulkowski and friends said. The issue is that the committee pushing for the NHA are only getting started toward a long term goal of all the things Grulkowski warns about.
That's because the process involved in confiscation and control often starts with a fairly harmless NHA designation, and then escalates over the years. The whole point is to get federal attention focused on a particular area so that calls for rising controls become unavoidable.
For once, I'm not on either side. The Bible makes a lot noise about common or shared ownership of land. It also says a lot about supporting inherited land rights. The problem is that we have two immoral forces clashing here. On the one hand, private land owners are notorious for fencing and blocking folks from just passing through. That's a sin in the Bible. But the federal government is also notorious for confiscating property, and it doesn't matter if there's compensation, because inherited ownership is a big deal in the Bible. Think about King Ahab and Naboth's vineyard.
But I think we can say that the problem with the federal government's policies is that they are guided by some of the most evil people I've ever encountered -- and I have dealt with those "Green" pagan idolaters before. The traditional American notion of private property ownership rights is a lesser evil, in that this idolatry tends to do less harm.
Still, my point is that it's very easy for one side to dominate the mainstream press such that folks honestly believe there is no other side to the controversy worthy of a hearing.
Ref: Cascade County and part of Choteau County in Montana; proposed Big Sky Country National Heritage Area.
