DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Palus Politicus Our National Parks

Experience and opinion go hand in hand. Both can apply.

I was only speaking for myself. Are people not allowed to speak for themselves now? You're the one that keeps trying to talk for everyone else.

Your mom did one thing. That doesn't mean it applies to everyone. I didn't say that it applied to all consumption oriented tourists, I mentioned the tendency that I have witnessed.

If we were restricted to talking about specific cases your argument would suck a bit less. The topic is "Our National Parks." Eminent domain was involved in parks. It's still possible. How is that unrelated? The only craziness in here is the insanity of my expecting a different result when trying to have a productive conversation when you're involved.

Eminent domain is not involved in any of the portions of these stories. None. Are you now going to post the entire history of our national parks and claim it is relevant to the discussion that we were having? Bait and switch con games are obvious to thinking people. So is seeing people trying to to veer the conversation away from the actual topic to derail it from its intent. It's not the masterful craft you obviously think it is.

It's unrelated to what we were discussing. And actually you know that and seem to be playing the role of a troll at this point.

Bringing up, "Yeah but eminent domain happened several decades ago so let's talk about that" isn't any sort of attempt at trying to have a productive conversation.

How many hikers do you know? You know, those people who buy T-Shirts to commemorate their travels to the places they hike to commemorate their journeys. They too must be out their just trampling up the forests and polluting them. You've been hopping from place to place like a rabbit trying to evade a fox since this thing started and it's not getting any better for you.

The National Parks are one of the last areas of government funding that need to be touched, IMO. I love visiting them. My family's last trip with my husband before he passed was to several National Parks (Badlands, Mount Rushmore, Rocky Mountain, Arches, Canyonlands), I live about 5 minutes crom Cuyahoga Valley National Park and visit regularly. My kids and I, along with my sister and her kids, are taking a family trip to a number of National Parks this summer (using life insurance money from my husband, doing something he would have LOVED!). Rocky Mountain, Arches, Canyonlands again, and adding Brice, Zion, Capitol Reef, Grand Canyon, Joshua Tree. I have decor in my house tracking our travels over the years. The trips to the National Parks have been our favorite trips.

To lose funding for them lacks the forsight or intelligence. This is an area we could/should expand. Our parks bring in tourism, jobs, money. They provide beauty, nature, memories, history. Once those lands are mined/pipelined etc., they will never be the same again. They're no longer a natural resource for all to enjoy (the founding point of the National Parks).

All I can do is sit here and shake my damn head.

Protect Our National Parks!!

You along with millions and millions of others across generations.

The National Parks are wonderlands of nature.

They are also sanctuaries for wildlife that need protection.

Common sense and logic is all that is needed to understand.

So you going on a tangent on HAMAS and Israel is fine, but my talking about something that actually is related to National Parks is somehow out of bounds?

When one's family has had land taken through eminent domain for a park and one goes back to visit and it is a mess, it gives one a different perspective.

The idea of the National Parks is great. The actual execution is hit or miss.

Just because something is a good idea, doesn't mean you should ignore the actual specifics of how that idea is executed.

I know good hikers and I know bad hikers. You're the one that keeps trying to overgeneralize into some all or nothing narrative.

I understand this is your opinion. But I'd be interested to know if you can site another institution or organization consisting of 400+ sites and experience 323+ million visitors annually that is run more efficiently or in your view executed more efficiently? Just like any organization including, in my opinion, both government and private enterprise - with enormous scale comes some inefficiency. And a little inefficiency in execution while providing access to the wonders of the national parks AND raising a net profit in the Billions is not a bad thing. jmo

I'm not a big fan of agglomeration in general. I think the bigger an entity gets, the more it is responsible for, generally speaking, the worse it gets. Proper attention can't be given to everything. The more there is to pay attention to, the less attention each piece gets, often to the point of being overlooked altogether. I'd rather have good oversight of a 100k acre park, than poor oversight of a 1.36M acre park.

I'm also not a big fan of using profits as a measure of success. Too often, profits seem to come at the expense of other considerations. How much money the parks make is very low on my list of priorities. I don't care if they operate "in the red" if they are carrying out the mission of preservation. Yet, I'd still like to limit costs where it makes sense. How commercialized and profitable we can make the parks is not the goal for me.

Well the bigger something gets the more difficult it is to manage. Yes. That's fact.

But that doesn't answer the question - can you name something as big as the National Park Service that is run more efficiently? Just because something is large and has some inherent inefficiency due to it's scale, does not seem like a solid basis for supporting something that can potentially do much harm to natural resources that so many currently enjoy AND a service that makes money. The point of the profit isn't that it is making a large margin - it is the fact that it is not costing the tax payer to finance it.

We do not know for sure that irreversible harm is going to be done. [1] Why take the risk for a saving that is essentially pennies. [2] Does anyone think Trump and Project 2025 is about making ordinary US citizens enriched and have better lives? ... or is this purely about allowing companies to profit from looser regulations. . . which sort of brings us full circle. I can't comprehend thinking this is a good bet to make.

Because the question doesn't seem particularly relevant? Where does showing that other large entities also don't run well get us? My argument is for "right sizing."

What am I allegedly supporting?

I'm not sure that the profit numbers attributed to National Parks are as direct as some people are interpreting them. I'm guessing it's sort of like the discussion of how much income a Super Bowl brings to the surrounding region. Yes, money is coming in around it, but it's not necessarily directly paying for itself.

1. What risk are we talking about?

2. Sadly, some people do. But, it (whatever "this" is) is probably not "purely" about anything. What "bet" are we talking about?

He doesn't care if the parks operate in the red while at the same time wants government spending cut everywhere. You don't get it yet?

The purpose of the parks isn't to make money. The value they provide is not financial to me.

I still don't want the parks to waste money or spend money in ways that are detrimental to their mission.

I do want the government to cut spending across the board. I know balancing a budget is a horribly complex idea for some, but it is generally seen as the fiscally responsible thing to do.

But feel free to keep trying to twist things if it makes you feel better.

Not going into a deep dive because you seem to be avoiding any real debate here - it feels like trolling by way of a half hearted attempt at what might be a debatable point.

Your position seems to be that you are in favor of the cuts to the National Parks. You seem to have based at least part of that opinion based on the size of the organization and it's inefficiencies - it was something you stated as justification for your opinion. Hence size of the organization is a talking point.

1. The size of the Nat Parks reflects the number of sites and to some extant the number of visitors. Ergo "it is what it is". Because the Nat Parks Org has to be BIG because of this nature - either you believe everything/anything BIG needs to be culled, which would be a really bizarre position to take. Or - you think the Nat Parks is excessively inefficient and operates with poorer execution than other large organizations. THAT is why my question was asked.

2. The National parks are self funding and they "work" - they do not cost the tax payer money. Profit as such doesn't matter so much as the fact they do not cost the US tax payer money. This point is so very basic the very fact you deliberately try to miss it indicates your "debate" is in bad faith.

3. The 'bet' - is that we have beautiful, amazing natural resources. They are operated by an organization that costs us nothing. They are visited by over 300 million visitors annually. Any change to how they operate and from an environmental perspective what is allowed to take place on that land - is a risk. YOU argued just because there is change does not indicate that harm will necessarily follow. So you are betting/assuming/hoping/predicting with your opinion that harm probably won't come or won't be that significant ... there really isn't another way to interpret your statements. My point was why risk it? What's the benefit other than potentially a few dollars that are literally nothing in the big picture of Fed Govt. And knowing Trump and knowing Project 2025 and 'Big Business' - the potential to lose something precious is significant.

It really isn't hard at all. And yet ....

What you have proposed is you have no objection to the government cutting the parks funding.

You want to cut the parks income by closing visitor centers. Because you know, "trinkets bad".

Then after cutting their budget coming from both direction your answer is to wait until it can no longer sustain itself and problems arise to fix it.

I'm not sure how you think they are "making money". Not only do they use the money they generate but also the government is subsidizing them with more money.

Since when is not generating enough money to sustain yourself and running at a loss "making money"?

You haven't shown any waste of funds. Instead you simply claim the funds are wasted with no basis in fact. Visitor centers actually help generate money to help sustain the parks yet you claim they should be closed.

None of that meandering makes any sense. Something that is actually beneficial to all Americans no matter their politics is something you target while showing zero basis in facts that any of what you propose is needed or justified.

Oh that's right, what if gas prices get to high for them to drive there.....

The thread stands on its own. You can't undo the things you have posted.

I can almost guarantee your’e not a true Christian, and I can almost guarantee you’re a Christian Nationalist in the trump cult. Amen.

As far as National Parks go. I get into all of them for free with my lifetime Gold Star Family/Veterans pass. And I’ve been to many before and after Trump took over. Before trump they weren’t great but now they are understaffed, the food and restaurants are trashy. Many of the entry gates are unmanned. The parks are overcrowded and the trails are trampled and littered. Foreigners pay an extra fee to get in,(which I agree with, but it’s like $50 per person, and when they find out how much it is, many turn around. And that’s the ironic thing most off the staff are Blacks, Latinos, and Asians.

I don't have an opinion on specific cuts because no one has been willing to provide me with what exactly those cuts specifically are. That's what I've been asking for rather than making assumptions they are bad because of the reasoning of "they are bad because they are to the parks" or "they are bad because Trump made them." What exactly are they?

1. The size of the Parks in totality can potentially be problematic, but I've more been referring to the specific park that keeps being brought up. Why does Bears Ears have to be 1.36M acres? There seems to be this underlying assumption that more is always better. Unfortunately, more than one can effectively manage can be detrimental to all of that total.

If we lived in a system that had infinite resources, (human, material, and natural) more would be better. Unfortunately, we don't and everything is finite. Costs and values have to be considered and balanced.

I do think monopolies and oligopolies (BIG Business) should be broken up. I do think wealth (BIG accumulation) should be more evenly distributed. I do think the trend for more power to concentrate federally (BIG government) is bad and should be reversed. I think the messed up belief that more is better that this society pushes in every way fathomable is bad for humanity.

BIG is relative. But I do believe there is a very real point where things are bigger than they should be. Unfortunately, there won't always be more to consume.

2. If they don't cost the tax payers any money, where are these cuts coming from? Where do you think the federal budget gets its income?

3. ...Sure, the parks are the bet you've been referring to.... If they aren't operated "perfectly" which you seem to admit with your everything big has inefficiency line of thought, that seems to imply they could run better. Is there risk in change? Sure. But, you can analyze risk if you're willing, and perhaps find change for the positive. Am I saying the change absolutely is a good thing? No. I'm saying I don't know.

I'm not betting anything. I'm saying let's look at all the facts before breaking out our proverbial shotguns.

The rush to judgment we have nowadays in this age of highly polarized, ragebait media is not a good thing to me.

If blatantly false assertions weren't made, I'd be much less likely to "argue."

In the big picture, I agree the National Parks are beneficial and need protection. Yet, the details still have some importance.

Yellowstone was created in 1872 when President Ulysses S. Grant signed the Yellowstone National Park Protection Act.

This is not complicated.

There is a history of learning how to run, care, and protect.

There are experts with extensive Park knowledge.

What is not needed are cuts that have caused 3,000 employees to be laid off.

If you have an interest investigate. Watch The National Parks: America's Best Idea.

I have no objection to cutting the funding in theory. I need to know more about actual cuts to know whether or not I object to them.

I want to cut expenses and environmental impact, and I think selling consumer goods is counterproductive to the parks mission.

I'm not hellbent or up in arms about it, it's just my opinion.

If the surrounding businesses want to sell stuff, more power to them. I still don't particularly like it, but I don't like a lot about the modern consumer culture.

I don't think they are making money, yet that's an argument that keeps getting made in this thread, so I address it.

Claiming I don't want them to do something is not the same as my claiming that they are doing something.

I'm not targeting anything. I'm responding to posts on a message board and giving my opinion because that's what message boards are for.

Alas when responding to meandering, one tends to meander.

If they were employees that had complaints against them and poor performance reviews would it be okay? Or are no employees allowed to be laid off ever?

Edit:
I'm not claiming they were bad employees, but repeating that 3,000 number over and over doesn't really tell me all that much.

If there weren't constantly so many bad/erroneous arguments made (I'm not saying you in particular), I'd probably not be sick of the topic and annoyed by people trying to twist what I say (again not you.)

I've probably watched it. I have/have had DVD boxed sets and a load of books on the National Parks. Yet, if I'm trying to investigate something I'm probably not going to a source with a title which seems to indicate an inherent bias.

So ... Because we don't know the minutia of the cuts and the details of what environmental protections are being removed - you don't wish to offer an opinion that it might be bad? That seems to sort of sum up your last reply to me.

On the one hand I can say you might technically be right or sound - on the other, it's hard to imagine a Fed Govt. announcement being made over something trivial or small. While not necessarily known - it's not unreasonable to discuss this from the basis that the cuts must be reasonably significant and offer an opinion on such a basis. It's hard to imagine something that was discussed in Project 2025 not being significant and essentially being about companies and the elite making more profit and getting wealthier at the expense of both others and the environment. To me and others that seems simple logic. Occam's Razor. Which loops back to - why mess with something that works. Why mess with something that is self funding and provides a return. Why mess with something precious and risk potential harm.

As to the size of the service and whether it can be made more efficient. You're arguing both sides of something there ... we agreed organizations inherently become less efficient when becoming very large. If we know very large organizations will involve some inefficiencies, why would you assume or suggest I think we can make them more efficient again. If that was the case - then we wouldn't agree that large organizations inescapably become a little less efficient, we'd be saying that large organizations don't necessarily become less efficient because inefficiency can be resolved (the opposite of what we agreed). And efforts to restructure and improve do not need to center around financial cuts or loss of environmental protections.

I thought it all started when James Dutton was given the land in 1883

You haven't tried to investigate anything. You've done nothing but throw out hypothetical and hyperbolic questions and theories with no substance or evidence to support any of any of it. It's been nothing but a bunch of "what ifs".

It might be bad. I've never said otherwise. Some of it is likely bad. Yet, I'm not just going to march along nodding my head when you repeat fiction as facts. The parks are not self funding.

If the argument is (/had only been) that the proposed budget cuts are huge and the system had already been stretched past what it could handle and that is bad, I could say yes, that makes sense.

A ~75% reduction in funding to the park system as a whole leads to the obvious question of how in the world is that supposed to work.

Yet when looking at more granular issues that had been brought up, opinions can vary.

I'm not arguing both sides, I'm arguing two different things. While large organizations inherently have some inefficiencies, that doesn't mean we should ignore every inefficiency and pretend they don't exist. Tax payer funded operations should strive to be as efficient as possible. Some inefficiencies can and should be addressed. To me, effectively saying they're big so they're allowed to be inefficient is a bad argument.

While efforts to restructure and improve do not need to center around financial cuts or loss of environmental protections, that doesn't mean that all cuts must be the wrong decision or that trying to apply environmental protections to every/anything is always furthering the parks' mission.

Sometimes (oft times?), politicians do seemingly good things in order to sabotage their replacements. Designating a national park sounds good. Adding extra responsibility and a giant area to an already cash strapped organization with an understanding of how the Republican party generally works and public sentiment toward the idea of National Parks was effectively dropping a grenade on the way out the door whether or not that was the intention.

Partisan politics being what they are, I have my suspicions.

At the same time, I do think "Trump's" response has been pretty awful.

Spiral gave you his first hand experience of visiting these parks before and after the cuts. Of course you ignored that. You really aren't fooling anyone here.

I get the desire to call what I've done nothing to minimize all your lies that I've pointed out. That doesn't make it true.

Your argument about possible harm isn't a "what if?"

It's sad, really.

I didn't ignore his post. I agreed with it (excepting the religious bit at the beginning that I wasn't touching), so I felt no need to address it.

Or did you miss the they weren't great before part?

Adding a giant park right before the next guy takes over wouldn't stretch already limited resources even further?

Talking about how trashed and trampled things were didn't reflect my experience?

I can understand the larger point you're trying to make.

I would be less skeptical of these cuts if we didn't have the DOGE saga as a backdrop (a series of cuts that showcased, among other things, a stunning lack of planning/thought and execution).

IMO the National Parks should be invested in to make them the best experience for all to enjoy.

There is expertise to make that happen.

The amount of business they bring to the surrounding areas is enormous.

Stores, restaurants, services, lodging etc. the tourist dollars are the local economies.

Every effort should be made to manage it for the benefit of the Parks themselves and the people who visit them.

Yet he, unless you believe he was lying, stated plainly the contrast of the quality of the parks before the cuts verses after.

Who "added a giant park" before Trump was elected? The only thing done was adding further protection to lands already owned and managed by the government. And none of that area is or was a "park".

You haven't pointed out any lies.

Skepticism seems perfectly reasonable to me.

Your argument makes a lot more sense than the ones I read while trying to play catch up on the thread. I had been avoiding PP for reasons that once again manifested, but was down with an annoyingly lingering cold and bored and figured why not see what was up. Doesn't seem like much has changed. Overarching ideas I want to support, but arguments for them so bad I can't resist responding to them.

Which cuts are we talking about? A lot of the cuts are only proposed and haven't taken effect yet. Which parks did he go to? The same parks or different parks? He could be right in his inference on cause, or not. Wasn't blatantly wrong, so didn't seem worth bringing up when there was so much elsewhere that was clearly wrong. Like I said I agree with what he said for the most part.

You keep trying to lump your bad arguments that I'm refuting with an overarching idea that I agree with. Just because the umbrella you keep trying to hide your malfeasance under exists, doesn't mean the lies you spun were the same thing.

You guys keep saying Obama and research supports that. If you want to quibble over park or monument when it was brought up in a National Park thread, I'll leave you to it.

The BLM and the NPS have different funding. Cutting the Bureau of Land Management's funding pushes a lot less buttons than invoking the "National Parks." Though, you may have finally accidentally stumbled upon a point. Bears Ears National Monument is funded through means outside the NPS, though as it was brought up in a National Parks thread about cutting the NPS's funding, It does all get rather confusing. It's not just government managed but also by some sort of tribal council. "While Bears Ears National Monument itself is a protected public area rather than a traditional national or state park, it literally surrounds and directly borders several distinct park units." (Google search results for are their parks in Bears Ears....) "In a legal context, a park is broadly defined as a tract of land set aside and maintained by a government body for the use, enjoyment, and recreation of the general public." (Google search legal definition of the word park.) Is it a "park"?

Changing someone else's words is lying about what they said. It's how the voice in your head operates. 888 keeps insisting tax payers don't pay anything for National Parks. Lies are lies even when one doesn't realize one is doing it.

Sure. So they were better before the cuts and worse after the cuts and now you want to go down another rabbit hole.

Malfeasance? What illegal, wrongful, or entirely unjustified act are you claiming has been committed against you? Talk about playing the victim in unrealistic terms.

That's what it sounds like when someone claims they're trying to reach a destination as they take every off ramp they come to on the highway. Their actions do not follow their claim. They claim it's someone else trying to stay under an "umbrella".

Boiling down what someone has been saying by cutting out all of the crazy rhetoric added to the message is not lying. But I do understand how you would find that frustrating.

You have a habit of claiming others have made no point while all you have done is ask questions, throw out whatabouts and created false narratives that do not exist.

It's almost as if you're talking to yourself in parts of your post. But I will say you have elevated the art of extreme hyperbole to heights never before achieved.

I really don't want to go down any more rabbit holes. I was just raised to be a perfectionist, then worked in metrology (where accuracy and precision are the focus), and have a hard time resisting correcting you when you're wrong and/or inaccurate.

You repeatedly, purposefully change my words (seems wrongful and unjustified) in what seems a pathetic attempt to damage my reputation, and unfortunately you've been on the boards long enough and have enough of a following to have something of a "public position." So, yes, I used malfeasance. Mostly because it doesn't get used enough in my opinion, and I figured it would irk you when you didn't know what it meant and had to look it up.

I'm not playing the victim. I'm just pointing out what you do.

It's lying when you completely change the message-- Even if it's because you completely missed or misunderstood the message. Especially when you go on to claim that you know what I meant or know.

What false narrative did I create? You created false narratives of what I allegedly said. Do you have a problem with asking questions? I think people should ask more. There'd be fewer idiots with false certainty.

Nope, you're the one with the self-admitted voice in your head that talks to himself and seemingly projects on others.

You don't read enough if you think these mild foothills are heights never before achieved.

So you used a word by it's very definition is wrong and now you insist on trying to justify that. And when Reader's Digest did the condensed version of a story they were wrong because they told the exact same story in much fewer words. Got it. And somehow you are now trying to position yourself as being smarter than I am as yet another excuse for your mistake. Your superiority complex is strong. You just made up yet another excuse for using a word that's definition does not fit your assertion by trying to claim it was because you were smart and I wouldn't understand the meaning of it. What a weak argument. Do you really expect anyone to believe that BS?

Asking legitimate questions that pertain to the discussion aren't a bad thing. But asking "whatabout eminent domain" where none exist, using "trinkets are bad" as some hair brained reasoning to close visitor centers..... It's just been one line of BS after another. Those are not the same thing as asking legitimate questions.

In your zeal to present yourself as the smartest guy in the room, you are falling well short of that. And none of your empty headed nonsense will ever irk me. Your kind are common everywhere on the internet. And as much as I hate to burst yiour bubble, a lot of people much smarter than yourself have tried to accomplish the same thing and failed miserably. You are no different.