It's been kind of like sitting on a gradual landslide that keeps going down, down to into a bottomless pit.

I no longer have any information on the bill, Carter did bring around a similar bill trying to pass it. The use of executive orders in place of passing laws is something that has evolved over time. Originally executive orders were used to direct the function of administrators within the operation of the government and now they direct any function outside of the governing body that a sitting president chooses. Prior to Clinton using an executive order to create "The Grand Staircase Monument" in Utah the National Parks had tried to gain control of the Kapairowits Plateau by saying the coal seam there couldn't be developed because it could be seen from the Bryce Canyon National Park 40 miles away! This coal seam (the cleanest burning coal in the world supposedly) was put off limits by Clinton's action declaring the area a National Monument making the use of a coal supply of his supporters inevitable. In Utah we referred to it as 'quid pro coal'. Now even most of the roads in this monument are off limits affecting the ranchers and tourism who used to access beautiful country for the benefit of visitors. Once the feds gain control of land the restrictions never cease. Some ranchers who have owned land and the water rights for over 100 years were recently told they no longer had the rights to the water to protect a turtle population that is not native to the area. No government should ever have the right to control land, it is a method to control people.

No she wasn't responding to Hegel. And it doesn't say that any two positions must exhaust the possibilities. She was talking about compromise.

Good one! Spent a few years down under. They analyse there, too. ;^)

See my post below.

Could be that I miss the point, but the quotation is what she said. What she said seems clear. If I wanted parables, I could read Aesop's Fables or the bible.

The right does not destroy you, the right does not win in the long run -- it depends on what people do, and yes we are constantly having false alternatives forced on us.

It is not a fallacy of a false alternative. You missed the whole point of it and rewrote it as meaning "claiming two alternative statements are held to be the only possible options". That is not what it says.

Do you have a copy of the bill?

There was another one for national land use controls in the late 1970s under Carter that almost passed. Were you involved in that? It was a big defeat for the viros, and the defeat made a big difference to a lot of landowners everywhere, so fighting it really did matter.

I haven't been able to find a copy of the actual legislation but have read about the greenline regulations as promoted by its proponents. Instead of the sweeping legislation they lost, as a "compromise" they got a single enormous area at the Pine Barrens in NJ under the control of USF&WS that ruined people. Another one followed at the Columbia Gorge in Oregon and Washington, and they are still pushing, using NPS "Heritage Areas" as an incremental approach.

EPA has been increasing its tentacles in the name of "clean water" ever since. Obama has just expanded it administratively, bypassing Congress, and that is now being fought in the courts.

Probably AR was responding to Hegelianism, in which there are two opposing ideas. One introduces the mixture of the two ideas, resulting in a movement toward the idea that one wants to achieve. If that's the case, then AR wasn't the only one to consider only two possibilities, and we can see how that approach is taking place before our eyes. Now, imagine performing that synthesis over and over over 200 years, and it's no surprise that we see what we see.

Maybe this is overly simplistic, but I think AR's meaning is pretty straight forward. To paraphrase, she seems to saying that there is truth and there is untruth. With regard to these absolutes there is no middle. Any attempt to create a middle requires a "individual" to create and hold a contradiction - requires one to hold that a fact is half true and half false at the same time. Existence exists is right. Existence is non-existence is wrong. To say it is both requires a mind to invent the impossible, and then believe it. Such a double rejection of prima facia rational reality seems to be the equivalent of being proactively obtuse... And yes, maybe even evil.

It's actually more than that, if you throw in the farmers with the agricultural subsidies and the manufacturers with the export subsidies, etc. The entire country is sucking on the government tit, which is why it's virtually impossible to get a constitutional majority on anything. What's needed is a 250 year plan to get back to constitutionalism, correcting the mistakes that caused "progressivism" along the way. This is a process that we won't see in our lifetimes, but if we start now to establish a truly functioning constitution that doesn't have the flaws of the original, we will eventually have a worldwide Galt's Gulch. In the meantime, we need the patience of the "progressives," who've been working their program for nearly 200 years.

Perhaps you're British.

It was called "The Land Use Act" and was being promoted in 1972. It had many provisions for taking control of someone's land if they weren't using it 'properly'. We campaigned, wrote letters to senators and congressmen, it was not very popular. However with the advent of the 'Environmental Protection Agency' far more over reaching regulations have been passed without any way to contest them. So the win was still a defeat. Don't know where you might find a link.

"every issue" must be the problem here. It must be an issue such as a some dispute or statement with a existential or moral or political aspects to which logic is applied then there may be some evil in compromise. It cannot be about making economic choices since there are usually other choices which will fit the available possible transactions and have no good/evil or right/wrong or true/false aspects.

Ugh! I checked my home state Illinois and find that 1 of 6 is on welfare (food stamps). What a mess!

First, let me say that I believe in the quote. But unfortunately, we do not live within the pages of a book. No matter how rational we are, we are living in a world that is mostly irrational. It has been my experience that in certain situations, actually in many situations there is not a choice between right and wrong. We know that the wrong is evil. But the right can destroy you. If that is true (and believe me, it is) what should a rational person do? This is even more true when people depend on you for their very existence. Do you have the right to destroy their lives because of your principles? I am told that the right always wins in the long run. But, what if there is no long run? Only now or never. Life can throw those hardballs at you. Again, based on my experience, if you are in the game of life, a participant in the arena, things may occur to you that doesn't allow for a choice of right or wrong. Ask anyone over 65 who is being honest, if this is true, and, if this is true, can one still call him/herself and Objectivist?

Perhaps.
I tend to think of them as irrationally jealous of real competency...and have an inordinate need to do a "premptive strike" on the competent.

Those you identify are people afflicted with narcissistic personality disorder (NPD). Our current President has this affliction, wherein it becomes impossible for them to accept any guilt for failure, no matter how responsible they are. The sad part of NPD is that many times, these are intelligent persons, but due to their obsessive view that they are without fault, they can't credit anyone else for success. It is impossible for these people to think in terms of a "carrot/stick" balanced incentive process, only thinking of how to punish the lesser beings around them for not recognizing their superiority.