Letters

From the January 2000 issue

(Page 2 of 3)

Of course some state attorneys general welcome Kyl's bill; it gives them concurrent authority to prosecute Internet gambling. Their opinions matter little, at any rate, because they are not elected legislators. Nor does Kyl represent the state attorneys general--unless, of course, this senator from Arizona has become the senator for other politicians.

Kyl should perhaps also pay closer attention to what others have said about Internet gambling. Although his present letter neglected to do so, Kyl has elsewhere credited the "crack cocaine of gambling" line to Professor Robert Goodman of Hampshire College. Professor Goodman was referring not to Internet gambling, however, but to slot machines and video poker--distinctly lower-tech and non-networked games.

Kyl misquoted me on the risk that Internet gambling poses to kids. The full line reads: "At most, it will marginally increase the chances that some kids will gamble--kids with unsupervised and unfiltered Internet connections, who have not been raised to steer clear of adult-only activities, and who have ready access to credit cards." Those extra words matter. They show not only that prohibitionists exaggerate the threat to kids but that responsibility lies with each kid's family.

Kyl poses a false dichotomy when he asks whether I favor giving the incumbent gambling industry special treatment (as his bill does) or banning all types of gambling (as he apparently would like to do). He overlooks a third option, one immediately apparent to anyone concerned with individual rights: Let people peaceably dispose of their money as they alone see fit.

Once again we witness the devastating effects of the crack cocaine of conservatism: trying to legislate morality.

Preservation Methods

The article about Taylor Ranch in Colorado ("Treasure of La Sierra," October) was a welcome sight. My group, La Herencia en Santa Fe, has been lobbying the state legislature for land grants and rights under the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo for more than 15 years. Some 40 million acres in Colorado are in the same legal position as the Taylor Ranch. Our group feels that private ownership is the only way to conserve these vast areas of the West.

New Mexico Sens. Pete Domenici and Jeff Bingaman are planning on introducing legislation on the land grants in this session of Congress. We are very concerned because they also want to purchase some land grant property and put it into the hands of the U.S. Forest Service.

La Herencia wants the land returned to the original heirs. If the government can't find the heirs, the group wants to be responsible for electing the Board of Trustees to administer these lands.

We do not feel that the federal government can do anything but create more problems for the impoverished people of northern New Mexico and southern Colorado. Private ownership and the government fulfillment of its trust responsibility are the only solutions for the future preservation of these lands.

We also feel that families like the Forbeses and Turners have done the right thing by preserving these lands. Most people think that groups like ours want to force everyone off our land grants. Our second group, Los Vecinos del Norte, does not want anyone to leave their land. There is nothing we can do about land loss that occurred more than 100 years ago; the only thing we can do now is live in peace with our neighbors. We are, however, reclaiming every single parcel of land that the government has had a hand in messing up.

Carmen Quintana
Santa Fe, NM
[e-mail]

Karl Hess Jr. and Tom Wolf argue that prospects for improved management of the Taylor Ranch arise from "the transforming power of the marketplace." But their evidence, and the history of the ranch, do not support such a conclusion.

The Taylor Ranch has been privately held and "in the marketplace" for more than a century and a half, including the past four decades, while it has been controlled by the Taylor family. Its untransformed management during the latter period has ranged in ecological quality from fair to dreadful. Socially, things have been worse, as the Taylors have assiduously defended their property "rights" against their neighbors while acknowledging nothing by way of property responsibilities.

What seems to be transforming matters now is that long-hostile parties are at last negotiating with each other meaningfully and finding ways in which to cooperate--a process that Hess and Wolf, to their credit, have materially advanced. Opening needed channels of communication is fundamentally a social process, not an economic one, and it can take place on public lands as well as private ones. After that, finding ways to make the numbers work is the smaller part of the puzzle.