So sayeth our Commander-in-Chief. In a presidential proclamation dated September 3, 2009, Obama declared September 2009 National Wildnerness Month. In it, he reminded us that Johnson signed the Wilderness Act 45 years ago and that “vast swaths of public lands” have been protected since this ground-saving legislation.
Obama also references the “pioneer values of steadfastness and rugged independence” that came with those who braved the wilderness frontier. It is, ironically, this very sense of rugged independence that gives Westerners like myself (OK, I’m a New England transplant but after 15 years I think I’m an honorary Westerner) a sense that the less government there is, the better.
Unless, of course, you need to build a dam. Read author Paul VanDevelder’s excellent Great History piece on the American West, pork, and politics.
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