During the government shutdown, Joshua Tree National Park gates stayed open. Vandals cut down rare Joshua trees and damaged rocks, people cut locks and cut new roads out into wilderness. Can people be trusted to do the right thing without oversight?
What your article didn’t tell you is that those things happen even when the government is open. Somehow the other several dozen national parks were okay with the exception of a few over-filled trash cans.
And be fair by attributing the shutdown to both parties. It’s really petty when the blame game goes into effect like middle school children.
When it comes down to it, though, I guess I need the government to be my mommy and make sure I’m a good little boy.
It would be interesting to see the make up of the culprits like the Results graphs here. If I have some time later, I’ll see what I can find out for demographics.
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Police records are public documents unless there is an open case or it’s a juvenile, right?
I would hazard a guess that the perpetrators are young men with more testosterone than brains. And their galpals that think they have to be like their Man.
Why do people today think they can only said to be if they are ruining someone else’s property, or killing someone, ad infinitum.
The demographics would demonstrate age, gender, race, education - think of the marketing possibilities!!
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Shy- 1,250 square miles National park.
44 million suspects within driving range
No cameras
1,000 vandalisms
A dozen convictions would not reliably reflect Perps demographics.
So - you see no value in trying to record statistics in order to identify a specific group of persons more prone to be vandals? A group of malcontents?
Wouldn’t you feel that progress is made if you know your target audience in order to determine ways to alter their behavior? Not every vandal does it because of hate, many do it because they think of being a YouTube star <— that can be changed by hurting them where it hurts - their wallets, or their parents’ wallet.
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I think most people CAN be trusted to do the right thing. It just takes one bad act to change opinion and that is unfair. I do find the level of respect for others and their things has dropped over time and that is a societal issue.
But, to your point- unless non-humans are supervising the bad humans, then yes, we have always relied on humans to do the right thing and we often come out just fine.
The problem is that some humans suck.
The point is sad, but true.
I was a very strict libertarian while in college. Once I got into the real world & saw this generally, I realized how wrong that ideology really is.
Q:
During the government shutdown, Joshua Tree National Park gates stayed open. Vandals cut down rare Joshua trees and damaged rocks, people cut locks and cut new roads out into wilderness. Can people be trusted to do the right thing without oversight?
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