Category: Culture

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Federal Politics – Deny State Authority

The idea of State Rights has long been neglected by our representatives in Congress and this neglect has allowed the federal government to grow like a malignant tumor. In the anti-Federalist paper, Brutus XII, we read, “that this constitution,… will not be a compact entered into by states,… but an agreement of the people of the United States, as one great body politic,…  The courts therefore will establish it as a rule in explaining… as will best tend to perfect the union or take from the state governments every power of either making or executing laws.”

Brutus’ pamphlet, published on February 07, 1788, was an accurate projection and his fears have become reality in our lifetimes.

Our republican government refers to two things:

  • the origin of the powers of a government (the people), and
  • the manner in which these powers are exercised (via representation).

James Madison said that “we may define a republic to be … a government which derives all its powers directly or indirectly from the great body of the people, and is administered by persons holding their offices…, for a limited period…” This is why we see Greg Walden thrashing so fiercely for the status quo — he enjoys his long tenure in D.C., something our founders would not have imagined.

James Madison also cleared the air with regard to democratic rule, stating, “Democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property.”  Fisher Ames added, “The known propensity of a democracy is to licentiousness which the ambitious call, and ignorant believe to be liberty.”

My position on the 17th Amendment

Today, the federal government has gorged itself on power and is wielding that power indiscriminately.  The only solution strong enough comes from the U.S. Constitution. Our founding fathers had a better understanding of natural law than we do, despite our technological modernity.

Our nation’s framers understood and agreed with Lord Acton’s observation that, “power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”  Thomas Jefferson noted that good government is properly effected through the dispersion of power not through the concentration of power.

Therefore, the first line of defense for maintaining “free and independent states” comes from the states themselves. Each state has a unique population demographic and natural resources, with differing interests and perspectives regarding program priorities. The federal government should not be entangled in these local interests. In the 2nd District we experience this continually: the Feds have successfully intruded into what should be local resource management affairs. The Federal government can then use the power of the purse (AKA, the printing press) to buy allegiance to their own  bureaucratic and administrative interests.

For the past 100 years we have been slowly losing our rights. We have allowed the federal bureaucracy to discount and absorb our state’s specific interests. As a result, we hardly know how to weigh these issues from our state’s perspective.

My question is, why is returning to state-chosen, state-focused Senators so scary?

  • What is it about the 17th Amendment that makes people think a state-oriented focus would be detrimental to our national well-being?
  • Is it because some states want more federal tax money poured into their unique projects?
  • Is it because your current congressman wants to sponsor corporate crony interests with taxpayer subsidies and loan guarantees?

Over-arching federal control has stolen the dialog and removed our focus from our local community and our local control. Greg Walden likes the status quo. He knows that I, as one man, cannot change the 17th Amendment and that this is a conversation about philosophy and ideas. However, this discussion scares Rep. Walden because it is an argument for state leadership and power instead of an impenetrable regulatory authority housed 3,000 miles away. Your current Representative is afraid to even discuss the potential changes which might diminish his own personal power.

Earlier this year Lawrence W. Reed commented on the progressive nature of the anachronisms that Greg Walden fully endorses:

“Without the 16th and 17th Amendments and the Federal Reserve, it’s inconceivable that the federal government could have grown from less than five percent of GDP in 1913 to nearly 25 percent in 2013. Were it not for those three gremlins, how many fewer trillions might our unconscionable national debt be? The toll on our liberties is also incalculable but surely considerable.”

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Amnesty is Coming Unless We Act

We all know that one of the main functions of the Federal government is to insure our security and aid in the naturalization of new immigrants. Neither of these items are being upheld by our current government. The reforms passed by President Ronald Reagan back in 1986 are not being enforced. Why should we pass new laws when the old ones are not being upheld?

We must secure our borders. That must be the first order of business. Instead, Speaker John Boehner (a close political ally of my opponent) told supporters that he is “hell-bent” on getting comprehensive immigration reform (i.e. amnesty) passed this year. My opponent, Congressman Walden, told fellow Republicans that they should concentrate on immigration (amnesty) “after the primaries are over”.

Rep. Walden has been endorsed by the Oregon Farm Bureau and U.S. Chamber of Commerce, both of which are very vocally pro-amnesty. Republicans in the House have lost their way on this issue. Most Americans want steady jobs for Americans before worrying about illegal aliens. We understand the need for border security and enforced immigration laws.

Republicans in the House are more concerned with looking good on NBC than they are with the wishes of hard-working Americans, and this has got to stop. Amnesty is bad policy for America and I am dedicated to securing our border, enforcing current law and opening up opportunity for legal immigrants.

Oregonians for Immigration Reform, Americans for Legal Immigration PAC (ALIPAC), NumbersUSA and others have all noted my strong stance on immigration issues and my opponent’s weakness. The time is now and the choice is ours – vote for legal immigration and an end to political gamesmanship.

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The FDA Hurts Businesses

My opponent recently released a letter to the FDA, declaring that their new rules on brewers and ranchers will hurt Oregonian businesses.

He’s absolutely right – but my question is, why has he been funding the FDA with printed money from Washington, and then writing flimsy letters against it?

Wouldn’t the logical solution be to cut off the funding for unConstitutional entities like the FDA and EPA? Why is our Congressman of 16 years so scared to take these Federal behemoths on?

My stance is much different than Congressman Walden’s. I think that the states should be in charge of their own departments, not throttled by Federal bureaucracy. Ranching and brewing are both critical industries to Oregon and we know how to support them, govern them and help them succeed in our neighborhoods and communities.

I’m running for Congress because I think that we have spent too long contenting ourselves with thrashing at the branches of bureaucracy. Establishment Republicans hide behind wimpy letters and empty statements, all the while voting for deficit spending and bigger government, rather than true, Constitutional change.

We all know, in our heart of hearts, that the current state of Federal bureaucracy is wrong. We are taxed on every activity, regulated at every turn and business is discouraged at almost every level (unless, of course, you know someone high-up in politics!). Let’s stop being satisfied with futile rhetoric and empty votes – it’s time to stand up for our freedoms in real, meaningful ways and begin to take our liberties back by dismantling the Federal machine.

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America the Beautiful

“O beautiful for spacious skies,
For amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties
Above the fruited plain!

America! America!
God shed His grace on thee…”

We all know the words, and we all love the sentiment in this old folk song. Our kids and grandkids probably sing this song in school plays, much as we did at their age. But even as we sing these cherished words, the beauty they represent is slipping away.

Ludwig von Mises, in his preface to Bureaucracy, writes: ”The main issue in present-day social and political conflicts is whether or not man should give away freedom, private initiative, and individual responsibility and surrender to the guardianship of a gigantic apparatus of compulsion and coercion, the socialist state. Should authoritarian totalitarianism be substituted for individualism and democracy?”

This is a searching question, and one we’ve all answered in our own hearts and on our own land with a resounding “no!”. The trouble is, do the proponents of the socialist state listen, and if they don’t, what is our recourse as liberty-loving people of the wide-open ranges?

Every lover of the west should be worried about the unelected bureaucracies driving the Endangered Species Act, the EPA, foolish natural resource policy, restriction of federal land use and endless regulation on hard-working land-owners and businessmen. But even more so, we should be concerned about the seemingly endless stream of borrowed and printed money that funds these unconstitutional hierarchies.

Any businessman or woman knows that money is a driver of action. Therefore, if we cut off the money, we can rein in rampant growth of bureaucracies like the EPA. With an endless stream of printed money and a false sense of security, faraway departments and special interests get to force their will on rural communities and individuals. They can buy media time, sway public opinion and use their money to falsely manipulate the marketplace.

If we elect principled individuals to Congress, who will serve their Constitutionally-mandated duty of controlling the purse and voting against frivolous spending, we can start to beat back these bureaucracies and restore our freedom as agriculturalists.

Congress needs to be held accountable. It’s not enough to blame the President, blame the media or blame our culture – these are all legitimate scapegoats, but they also serve the convenient purpose of absolving us from responsibility when something goes wrong. Congress must be re-elected every two years, and any Congressperson who has not stood firm on his or her principles and the causes we support needs to be challenged in the primaries, and must be rebuked on these votes.

Our government is a democratic republic, intended to represent the people and protect our God-given rights. We have excused well-meaning but ineffectual politicians for long enough, and it’s time to make 2014 the year of fiscal responsibility and free principles. The future of our farms, ranches and children’s agricultural future depends on our ability to require our representatives to truly represent us.

The time to start is now — the future of America the beautiful, with our spacious skies and amber waves of grain — rely on our resolve.

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The Closing of National Forests is a Battle We Must Fight

When so-called public servants suggest the increase of Federal land management, it’s usually sold to us as a great resource for our communities. We’re told that we’ll get wide open spaces to hunt, fish, hike, access with OHVs and use for countless other pursuits.

Unfortunately, all too often, once the government gets control of our land, it becomes closed to one or more of these activities. They close forest roads under the guise of “environmental protection”, ignoring the fact that keeping these roads clear aids firefighters in the summer fire season. The bureaucrats insist that they know better than we do how to enjoy our wild places, and so they padlock the woods and force us out of land that should rightfully belong to the local community.

More and more forests in Oregon are being closed to OHV traffic, and our current Congressman seems content with making empty statements and meaningless votes. For those of us who love our open places, this is a serious issue, one that is worth fighting for. We will not be content with empty rhetoric – if we aren’t willing to stand up, our kids will never know the freedom of Oregon’s mountains and forests.

As John George of Forest Access for All recently stated in a petition letter: “Further restrictions to open access of our public lands is not acceptable to the general population of Eastern Oregon and is not an acceptable form of land management for our public lands. OHV access has been a primary means of accessing our public lands for the last 100 plus years and is tied directly to the traditions and cultures of our communities…

…Further restrictions in OHV access through a closed forest ‘no cross country travel’ policy severally limits handicapped and elderly citizens’ ability to access currently accessible lands and disallows them from attaining goods and services they have historically utilized for generations. Open OHV access is key to our mining, livestock, timber and sustenance use of these mountains, any further restriction of this access mode puts our already tenuous existence on a continued downward trend. Simple loop trails are acceptable for some user groups and we support the recognition and development of those opportunities for groups, but those systems do not fully meet out the needs of all OHV users on public lands, and should not be looked at as a mitigation opportunity or strategy to address other OHV user concerns.”

The arrogance and shocking lack of concern toward the lifestyles of rural Oregonians is unjust and immoral. Our local economies suffer from these restrictions and our local governments lose tax revenue when our forests are given over the Federal government and padlocked. Our culture is in jeopardy and our freedoms are being constricted every day. I’m proud to stand with the hunters, OHV users, trappers, fishermen and outdoorsmen who are saying that enough is enough. Let’s take back our lands and manage them with integrity, consistency and the Constitution in mind.

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It’s National School Choice Week, and I Support School Choice

This is National School Choice Week, and I am thrilled to support the efforts of so many brave educators, teachers, lawmakers and parents who are standing up for kids, and the choices of parents and communities to pick what’s right for their families.

School choice is close to my heart, because Diane and I chose to home-school our two children, and were blessed to see our kids not only succeed in academics but excel out in the real world. Living on a ranch 36 miles from town would have meant multiple hours in a school bus every day for our kids, not to mention the countless wasted hours that a public school teacher must spend on discipline, and the lowest-common-denominator approach that so many schools are forced to take, even with well-adjusted, bright students.

So, we decided that our kids would be better served by more freedom, and the choice of home-schooling. By the time our children were in 8th grade, they tested out of High School on their SATs, and they reveled in the freedom to pursue their interests and take on entrepreneurial endeavors in junior high and high school. Children are gifts to us, their parents, and there is nothing that brings me more joy than watching my son build custom furniture using skills I passed on to him, or my daughter enjoying classic literature because my wife and I nurtured that love of English and let her experience the classics at a young age.

Because of my experience with our family, and the way that I see parents fighting for their children’s education every day, I fully support school choice. This doesn’t mean that I think everyone should do what Diane and I did, but that parents should have the freedom to choose the best option for their family and circumstances: whether that is private school, public school, charter school or home-schooling.

I think that parents and communities are the best advocates for children, and they know best how to motivate, teach and inspire their students. Centrally planned and mandated curriculums cannot account for the learning styles, unique capabilities and diverse backgrounds of children across America, and nor should it.

Through the wasteful spending of the Federal education system, the poorly written curriculum of Common Core and the deadly grip of unions in public schools, our kids are being left behind the rest of the world, and an entire generation of students are sentenced to duller futures because we are not giving them the choice to succeed.

For example, the 2012 Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) found that: “While the U.S. doesn’t break the top ten on any academic subject, it ranks fifth in educational expenditures at a whopping $115,000 per student. Only Austria, Luxembourg, Norway, and Switzerland spend more. Countries that outperform the United States spend drastically less.” as cited in this Americans for Prosperity article: http://americansforprosperity.org/legislativealerts/what-pisa-tells-us-about-american-education-reform

As the Federation for Children points out:

  • An estimated 1.1 million students failed to graduate with a diploma in 2011. That is 6,000 dropouts a day or one dropout every 29 seconds.
  • Nearly half (48 percent) of public schools across the country are labeled as failing, and they serve a disproportionate number of minority students.
  • Only 24 percent of eighth and 12th grade students have solid writing skills. Students who qualify for the federal free and reduced-price lunch program scored 27 points below students from families with higher incomes.
  • The national achievement gap between lower- and higher-income students is 27 points.
  • Students who drop out of school are twice as likely to end up in poverty.

Stats found here: http://federationforchildren.org/why-school-choice

This is a crisis of epic proportions, but opponents of school choice would have us believe that the status quo is “just fine”. Do those numbers seem “just fine” to you? How would you use $115,000 to educate your child, if given the choice?

It must be noted that, although there are certainly a few bad apples, teachers and principals are not the problem – the bureaucracy surrounding public schooling is. We are so worried about the protection of teachers and the satisfaction of the teacher’s union that we are failing our kids on a grand scale. More and more parents and students are begging for school choice and a chance to home-school, attend a private or charter school, or force change in their public schools, but comfortable education professionals and the entrenched status quo are stifling this movement.

We should be risking everything to make our kids’ dreams come true, not holding them back to meet our desires. So I think it’s time to remove the stigma from School Choice and let parents, communities and educators have a say once again.

Every child should have access to quality education, and schools should have to compete for educational dollars, not stifle dissent and punish parents who are simply looking out for their families.

Religious education, learning disabilities or low-income neighborhoods are just a few of the issues that school choice can help solve, so join with me this week, and let’s Amplify Choice – giving every child a hope of a bright future and the kind of healthy, intellectually stimulating education that my kids were blessed to experience.

More resources

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Some Thoughts on the Anniversary of Roe v Wade

“From the moment of conception, the unborn has a human nature. That he cannot yet speak, reason, or perform personal acts means only that he cannot yet function to the degree we can, not that he lacks the essential nature that makes those functions possible in the first place.”  — Scott Klusendorf, in The Case for Life

As you wonder about today’s tragic anniversary of Roe v Wade, consider the implications of Klusendorf’s statement. I believe Scott nails it.  He states an obvious, self-evident, common-sense truth that deflates the pro-choice moral position. Philosophically, there is no significant difference between the man I am today and the baby that I was in my mother’s arms 57 years ago. Clearly, this same logic also holds for me as an embryo only days or weeks earlier than that.

The logic of this pro-life position is stated clearly in what is known as the SLED Defense for Life. SLED represents four logical arguments based upon Size, Level of development, Environment and Degree of dependency.

Here’s a summary –

Size: Does size matter in our moral assessment of human beings? Embryos are smaller than newborns and newborns smaller than adults, but does that matter? Are larger people more valuable than smaller people? Since men are usually larger than women are women less valuable?

Obviously not. Men, teens, babies are not granted their inherent,  self-evident, inalienable rights based on our Creators consideration of their size or potential size.

Be thankful that people are not graded for size, shape or color like Grade A poultry eggs. Our internal moral compass informs us rightly that size doesn’t equal value.

Level of development: Does level of development matter in assessing our stature as humans?

Indeed, embryos and fetuses are less developed than you and I. Yet,  a two-year old is also less developed than a full frown man or woman. Is this where the pro-choice movement wants our nation to stand?

Are we willing to say that athletes have more worth or value than those who are less developed. Do bodybuilders have more worth than those who are handicapped or have not yet reached their full developmental potential?

Maybe it’s not just physical. Maybe this category should include mental capacity, also. For instance, embryos have no sense of self awareness. Would that  make a difference? Does a six-day old baby have self-awareness?   What about those who lack the immediate capacity for performing normal mental functions, as do the comatose, the sleeping, and those with Alzheimer’s Disease.

Environment: Your location has no bearing on your humanness. Whether you are in the local elementary school or the county jail your value as a human being is not weighed differently. The same holds true for you while in bed verses your stature at the office. You may look funnier in one place over the other, but your stature as a human does not change.

If this is true, how can someone claim that there is a significant difference between the nature of the “unborn” and the “born?”  The ultimate nature of this being is still that of a human.

Degree of Dependency: I have been an insulin dependent Type-I diabetic since I was in my late teens. That means I have taken somewhere near 40,000 injections of insulin (40 years x 365 days x 3 injections per day). My life has been the ultimate expression of dependency on modern medicine. Does that make me, or any of the other millions of diabetics less human?

Although humans differ immensely with respect to gifts, talents, accomplishments, preferences they all share in equal value as part of humanity. Humans are valuable because God has deemed them valuable and as their “creator has endowed them with certain inalienable rights that among those are the right to Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

No human being, regardless of size, level of development, race, gender, or place of residence, should be excluded from the moral community of human persons. In other words, the pro-life view of humanity is inclusive, indeed wide open, to all, especially those that are small, vulnerable and defenseless.

Photos courtesy of: http://heatherwagnerphotography.com/blog/

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The Deceptive Budget Deal

Last week, your current US House member sent out a puff piece attempting to justify his recent votes. These kinds of word games are exactly what’s wrong with Washington — in an age when more and more people are demanding honesty from their elected officials, why are we accepting these kinds of false claims? Rep. Walden asserts that this deal is a series of “common-sense cuts and reforms in the plan” that will “reduce wasteful government spending by $23 billion more and when passed will avert another government shutdown.”

An analysis by Republicans on the Senate Budget Committee (SBC) details where, the proposal identifies two specific years “(2022 and 2023) to reduce deficits by $28 billion.” Do you think that’s going to happen? Do you believe that politicians will keep these promises, when right now they are misleading us about the nature of the bill itself?

Only in Washington can a legislator put the phrase “reduce wasteful government spending” and omit the gutting of the sequester law. Also, Rep. Walden purposefully hides the $63 billion in spending hikes over two years. Where did those “common-sense cuts” go again? This budget increases spending by $64B over 2 years and proposes to reduce spending $23B over 10 years. Only from an out-of-touch political class can this be labeled as a common-sense “step in the right direction.”

After these spending hikes, the deal proposes $85B in savings, but only on paper. $34B of this isn’t even “savings” because they are “fee increases”, yet another clever way to make conservatives feel represented. They are fees, not taxes… right?

It’s time for honesty and true common-sense in Washington. It’s time to tell these elites that we’re not fooled by their word-games. Taxes are going up and so is spending, under this budget – are you happy with that outcome?

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The Right Response to the Affordable Care Act

If you drive anywhere in Oregon, you’re likely to see massive billboards touting “Long Live Oregonians”, using cute cartoon scenes.

The trouble is that while the ads are attractive, all the clever marketing in the world can’t mask a bad product, which is what we’re seeing at the Federal level. Obamacare is an unmitigated disaster, one that even Democrats are running from, as more and more individuals lose their health insurance and rates continue to skyrocket. As liberals flounder, they see what they think is an escape and they grasp on to it – the accusatory question to conservatives: “what would you do to fix healthcare?”

In response, many establishment politicians are apologizing to America. Both Democrats and Republicans are expressing dismay at the dismal outcomes of a poorly-written policy and badly-executed technology. Still others are trying to convince us that they are truly outraged by the price increases, or that they “understand the pain” of Americans who are experiencing rising medical costs and lost coverage.

Health care is a serious issue in American life. Government intervention only distorts the healthy dynamic between patients and their doctors, but apologies and small reforms are not what is needed.

For example, the Affordable Care Act (ACA, or Obamacare):

  • puts unnecessary restrictions on an individual’s ability to choose their own doctor, treatment and plan
  • places unwarranted taxes on common medical devices
  • strangles and inhibits medical industry innovation
  • burdens insurance policies with unneeded coverage requirements
  • has created yet another public/private behemoth of special interests, lobbyists and bureaucracy

Who will pay the price for this unnecessary quagmire? The American consumer.  When men are paying for mandatory maternity coverage, and young people are being punished for the mere fact that they are young and healthy, we have a serious problem on our hands.

We cannot continue this foolishness of universal health care. We need a full repeal of Obamacare, and we need to address the high costs of insurance and health care in the free market. If the government was in the technology business, we’d still be using computers the size of a basement – thankfully, the free market now creates powerful computers that we can all carry in our coat pockets at an affordable price. Let’s let the American health care industry go the way of the iPhone – to do so, government must get out of the way.

For more information on this issue, please check out the following links:

http://blog.heritage.org/category/obamacare/

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303309504579182061106839366

http://www.fee.org/the_freeman/detail/healthcare-reform-for-your-facebook-friends

http://heritageaction.com/2013/10/the-harsh-realities-of-obamacare/

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Forestry Issues in Oregon’s 2nd District; We Can Do Better

Professionals in our timber industries are the best-equipped stewards of our forests. However, in Oregon, more than 50% of the state is owned by the Federal government, so this means that private industry, state and local governments have ultimately no control over most of Oregon’s resource-rich landscapes. As a county commissioner I regularly see the tragic results from ill-conceived federal policies and the high costs of unintended consequences.

In Klamath County, and throughout the 2nd District, we find ourselves begging for favors from the Federal government instead of being allowed to create jobs, build communities and see prosperity flourish at the local level. The political establishment prefers rewarding national or regional special interest groups rather than local communities because that creates a culture of power, money and control for themselves. Federal control and regulation diminishes the effectiveness of those most likely to steward natural resources well (loggers, miners, ranchers, etc.).

A classic example of this troubling trend is the recent Restoring Healthy Forests for Healthy Communities Act (HR 1526). Instead of giving O&C counties and private enterprise responsibility for forestry lands (that are already designated “to provide for economic stability of local communities and industries”) this bill gives 50% of that land to special interest groups who have neither earned nor shown stewardship of it.

These groups, often environmentalists from San Francisco or New York, are usually headquartered in Washington, D.C. Ever wonder why these groups voice concern for Oregon’s communities and habitat while residing in the capitol?

These environmental special interests have political power in Washington, which allows their media moguls to raise the massive capital needed to control industries throughout the West. This concentrated power decimates our local communities. In Oregon’s 2nd District, whole towns and counties are withering financially. They don’t have access to their land’s natural resources, like timber, and the result is lost infrastructure and jobs that these communities desperately need.

The political establishment’s policy essentially denies these communities the freedom to pursue private enterprise and support themselves. This is not how our representative government is supposed to work.

Bills like HR 1526 eventually hurt those they’re trying to help, even though they are lauded by the media and the political class as wonderful bipartisan efforts. Congressmen Walden, DeFazio and Schrader’s bill is troublesome because Congress looks good while not substantially helping the region. The rural communities affected by this O&C bill accept these negotiations because they know the Feds dominate the conversation and they feel they don’t have a choice.

As your Congressional Representative, I’ll take a different stand. Although a cup of tepid soup might help a starving soul, our Federal legislators shouldn’t be working the ladle, nor forcing us to accept such bare-bones deals. Instead, they should allow us freedom to prosper, by opening markets and creating opportunities for success in the local economy, not in the halls of Washington.

Therefore, I’m going to stand up for Oregon’s entrepreneurs, foresters, harvesters, ranchers and miners. These are the vibrant businesses and families that have the tenacity to bring our communities back to life. I believe in these individuals more than I believe the professional politicians. I’ve lived and worked beside these ingenious, hardworking problem-solvers for years.  Unlike Washington’s half-hearted politics, offering tepid hand-outs saddled with onerous controls, these Oregonians just need government to get out of the way and let them succeed.

Don’t mistake my optimism for naiveté – I know there are difficulties in any public policy. But unlike some in the permanent political class, I don’t think these problems are unsolvable. I think it’s the responsibility of our representatives to truly uphold the interests of the people and not force citizens to take bad deals which entail more laws, more regulation, less enterprise and less freedom.

It’s disingenuous to bully local governments into accepting sub-par deals that fund special interest environmental groups from out-of-state at the local communities’ expense. It’s tempting to take these political “deals” – as a commissioner, my support for HR 1526 arises out of sheer frustration; I have no other viable alternative, but I think we can do better.

It’s long-past time that we stood up for the men and women who exhibit the professionalism and knowledge needed to insure successful timber sales and harvests while protecting these beautiful forest resources.

For more on our natural resources, check out the links below: