Re: Forest Service Fee Demonstration Site

<b>Devil's advocate role follows:</b>

<i>Our public lands are our heritage and our birthright.</i>

Birthright? Really, that's just an emotional argument without any basis in fact. There is no God given right to us of the land.

<i>We already support the public lands agencies and our public lands through our federal taxes.</i>

Tax support for the forests has declined tremendously and the lack of funding has resulted in a lot of problems. Besides, why shouldn't people using the forest provide more of the funding than those that don't? While the public as a whole gets benefits from the forests those that use them for recreation get more. Eight cents a day is hardly excessive.

<i>Fee Demo sets a precedent of classism where only those who can afford to recreate will be able to do so.</i>

That's true of life in general. It takes money to drive to the forests--a lot more than the eight cents a day an annual Adventure Pass costs. Nobody is arguing that we should get free cars and gasoline too.

<i>Those who can't afford it will be barred from their own public lands.</i>

You are exagerating. The program only bars them from parking their cars.

<i>Fee Demo has nothing to do with the stewardship of public lands. It is, in fact, the beginning of an attempt by corporate America to privatize and commercialize our public lands.</i>

That's just pathetic paranoia.

<i>The Forest Service is basing the success of its fee projects on compliance. The threatened $100.00 fine is nothing less than extortion!</i>

How does this parking fine differ from any of the others are society imposes for not complying with the law?

<i>People need a place to go - relatively free and un-fettered from society's pressures. Our public lands are the last of these places, and Fee Demo destroys this ideal.</i>

How does paying a yearly parking fee destroy one's ability to get away from society's pressures?

<i>Businesses that sell passes are selling-off our freedoms. These vendors make a profit from the loss of one of our basic rights as American citizens: our right to access our public lands.</i>

They get 10% of the fee. That's hardly a big profit and hardly even worth their time. REI doesn't even collect their part (you can get a pass for $27 there). The lands are still accessable without the pass anyway.