Mutually assured dysfunction 6: Paranoid-critical, Anti-government folks, meet California water

The DNP was very interested in reading the comments responding to the New visions for the Delta: A national park, perhaps? article in the Sacramento Bee.

As one might expect, a majority of commenters were opposed to the idea of a Delta national park. What is interesting, though, is the lazy dogma of many of the comments. It is an open question whether these folks have the capacity to express rational opinions or just opinions. The DNP could find only one rational (as opposed to ideological, interest-based) comment opposed to the idea of the park:

tomatoman1 wrote on 03/06/2010 10:58:03 AM:
Seems to me that bringing in more people, hotels and housing, and ferries is a bad idea in such a fragile environment.

This is an argument that the DNP respects and respectfully disagrees with. It is basically the argument put forth by the risk-averse, people like Jeffrey Mount at UC Davis and the PPIC’s water experts. The argument might be equally apt in the risky setting of cities like San Francisco or Los Angeles. Nevertheless, it is a clear, principled position uncontaminated by paranoia, NIMBY-ism, anti-government, or xenophobic irrationality.

On the other hand, there is the paranoid-critical stance. Embodying the surreal view of the real is DeltaGirl2 who, having found a DNP post to David Zetland’s Aguanomics blog, weighed in with this:

DeltaGirl2 wrote on 03/07/2010 07:42:38 AM:
“Don’t like overheated rhetoric on any side. My blog makes that pretty clear. Not a big fan of Restore the Delta, Dan Bacher, CSPA, and their nimby preservationist argument either. H**l, I even support in principle the peripheral canal, provided it can be proven to help stabilize the Delta’s ecosystem’s problems.” John Bass, aka deltanationalpark, found here: http://aguanomics.com/2010/01/farming-politicians-instead-of-crops.html It certainly seems like the “neutral” deltanationalpark prof. has a horse in the California Water Race.

Curiouser, and curiouser.

That’s right, the Sacramento Bee, the Met, the Nature Conservancy, and the royal me, known as the DNP, have teamed up to bring you $11.4 BILLION worth of ag and SoCal greed. Please note, Delta Girl2, the word “provided” in your citation of my Aguanomics comment. It’s an important word, meaning “if.”

If DeltaGirl2 is essentially of a NIMBY preservationist persuasion (as are many of the comments), then jbhunt offers a fine example of anti-government, anti-spending irrationality, the other major expression of good ‘ol California political dysfunction:

jbhunt wrote on 03/06/2010 07:41:16 PM:
Why not! The Government is taking over everything else! Our money,banks,car companies,health care just to name a few. What not take the land away from the families,that in some cases,have been living on for generations! What’s really scary is that some people think this is a good idea! Be very careful the government will someday want something you own!

jbhunt, just curious - do you drive on roads? Drink clean water and eat safe food? Go to school once? Did you know that the state already pays a substantial proportion of Delta levee maintenance through subvention programs? Shall we bring Bureau of Reclamation agricultural water subsidies into the discussion, jbhunt?

jbhunt, et al, did you all just ignore the section of the SacBee article that said that the DNP proposes that only the levees would become publicly owned, and not the land they protect nor the development rights to the levee edge?

Finally, to Ruth Gottstein: the DNP says thanks for getting it:

ruthgottstein wrote on 03/06/2010 04:13:00 AM:
Yes, yes, yes! The proximity alone to Sacramento, San Francisco and other urban areas make this an incredible location. It’s hard to believe that such a magnificent area has been unexplored and undeveloped in the fashion in which the study proposes.