Thursday, November 27, 2014

Roads, Public Lands and the European Union Idea

Freedom of movement on public roads is something we all take for granted and which did not exist in ancient days. In Europe, for example, Germany served as the model for the greater "Autobahn" idea to get rid of old toll road practices, which greatly diminished freedom of movement. Indeed, things have greatly improved through the European Union -- the antithesis of the former selfish war-torn Europe of individual greedy States, where movement was greatly restricted.

America is facing the reverse problem today of State and private interests trying to appropriate more and more land for regional and/or exclusive use, thus reducing public lands and RESTRICTING individual freedom.

U.S. Senator Martin Heinrich has it right at the New York Times in The Land Grab Out West.

We have written previously at Home Ownership, Elites, Wealth, Congressionally Plundered Federal Lands and a Polarized Society of Haves and Have Nots about how vested interests over the centuries have pilfered national American land from its citizens for ultimately private gain.

If all of this land in the United States still belonged to the people, as it should and as it originally did, there would be much less national debt and much less taxation of the people. Now the people who have acquired that land privately want to keep all the loot and pay no taxes. That is not going to work.

Ideally, the federal government in America represents everyone in the country.

By contrast and by definition, individual U.S. States are minority-run collections of vested local and regional interests and it is hard to make a case that they have done anything useful in American history that could not have been done better federally. A similar logic applies to Europe.

The U.S. Interstate Highway System is one example of "bigger" thinking. Just imagine all U.S. roads being solely in greedy and selfish individual State hands.

A Europe of open borders within its jurisdiction has of course brought new problems, but has also opened up Europe to more freedom of movement by its citizens -- thus INCREASING freedom for all. Will it stay that way? We shall see.