The Taos News from Taos, New Mexico • Page 4

A4 THE TAGS NEWS Thursday, Aug. 2,1990 Favor Contra Ranchers should make some friends Lately you can pretty easily predict how the chips are going to fall. Every time an issue inflames rural New Mexicans, the ranchers take one side and the environmentalists take the other. Regular as clockwork. And that's a shame.

Ranchers and farmers are practitioners of "applied environmentalism," if we may coin such a term. For centuries they have preserved the health and productivity of the land for their progeny. There have been abuses of the state's rangeland, certainly, but good ranchers know more about caring for nature than a lot of the loudest voices at environmental rallies. And they know what kind of hard work and sacrifice go into keeping the earth in shape year after year, decade upon decade. That's why it's a shame that organization's like the New Mexico Farm and Livestock Bureau persist in taking hard-line positions against every ecological activity on the books from a study of mountains lions near White Sands to the preservation of natural wonders on the Gray Ranch near Animas.

The mountain lion study is promoting the existence of those dangerous critters, ranchers say. The Gray Ranch belongs in hands of the cattle barons. Nature preserves just attract visitors, the local ranchers say, and visitors are a bunch of trouble. The ranchers need to get smart and make some friends before they make some enemies. The environmental movement gains more momentum every year.

The environmental lobby already wields enormous power in Washington and the Nature Conservancy is a powerful enough organization to walk in and buy parcels like the Gray Ranch when beef raisers are struggling to pay their property taxes. Ranchers could become valuable allies of the environmental movement, preserving water resources and open space in their own way and using the power of environmental organizations to their own benefit. If ranchers continue to pose as nature-be-damned capitalists without a care for their property's health, they may soon find it much harder to lease federal property for their livestock. If agriculture doesn't soon learn to make friends with the environmentalists, the industry may soon find itself with a profoundly dangerous enemy. The Taos News Sucesor de El Crepusculo, fundado en 1834 por el padre Antonio Jose Martinez.

Robin Martin, owner Billie Blair publisher Bryan Welch editor, general manager Suzanne vaterio circulation manager Debbie Medina business, advertising manager Anne-Marie Clark design department Staff: Ana Maria Anglada, secretary Martin Baxter, mailroorn Dick Behnke, reporter Chrislel Blomqvist, darkroom technician Lisa Earl, proofreader Deborah Ensor, Tempo editor Lisa Ferrante, compositor Dale Fulkerson, photographer Francina Gonzales, advertising representative Bryan Gusdorf, advertising intern Patrick Henry, news assistant Luella Kramer, editorial assistant Sale Medina, mailroom Jerry Padilia, El Crepusculo editor Daniel Quintana, advertising representative Rick Romancilo, camera operator Renae Romero, mailroom manager Mike Stauffer, reporter LeeAnne Tafoya, mailroom Deborah Trujlllo, Sylvia Trujillo, mailroom Tommy Trujillo, news intern James Vigil, photographer Sandra Vigil, composing supervisor Published every Thursday, second class postage paid at me post office in Taos, NM, and additional mailing offices at Espafiola and Albuquerque, N.M., USPA 615-640 Subscription rates by mail, payable in advance: in Taos County and the Moreno Valley; elsewhere in New Mexico; elsewhere in U.S. and in loreign countries. Published by El Crepusculo, Inc. 120 Camlno de la Placita, Taos, N.M. Changes ol address may be mailed to P.O.

Box N.M 87571 All departments, telephone (505) 758-2241 Back to school or school to that is the question 1 Shakespeare's LAWMAKERS' ADDRESSES AND NUMBERS Congressmen: U.S. Sen. Pete Dotnenici, 3004 New Post Office S. Federal Place, Santa Fe 87501, phone: 1-988-6611; or S.D. 434, Washington, D.C.

20510, phone: 1-202-2246621. U.S. Sen. Jeff Bingaman, 119 E. Marcy Suite 101, Santa Fe 87501, phone: 1988-6647; or 524 Hart Washington, D.C.

20510, phone: 1-202-224-5521. U.S. Rep. Bill Richardson, 327 Sandoval Suite 201, Santa Fe 87501, phone: 1988-6177; or 332 Cannon House Office Washington, D.C. 20515, phone: 1202-225-6190.

State Legislators: State Sen. Carlos Cisneros, Box 1129, Questa 87556, phone: 586-0873. State Rep. Frederick Peralta, Box 5453, Taos 87571, phone: 758-4905 or 758-3021. Forum Remember Hiroshima Editor: Annually in the first week of August we read in the paper and hear on television newscasts about this year's Hiroshima-Nagasaki commemoration.

It is neatly tucked away in the back pages of the paper with a few seconds obligatory mention on the tube. Maybe we really don't want to remember the only time nuclear bombs have been used with the intention to kill people, not just to test the weapons. The context for last year's was not very'different years before. The United States and Russia, though less hostile than at many times during the cold war, were still basically head to head with nuclear arms prominently displayed. Who could have predicted what 12 months would bring? Democratic uprisings sprouted in Poland, in Czechoslovakia and in Yugoslavia.

Most dramatically, the Berlin Wall was ripped down by ecstatic Germans while being supported by the East and West German governments soon to become one nation again. Lithuania, Azerbaidzhan and other splinters of the once "evil empire" Soviet Union stood up for independence. The central Soviet government was restrained and promises that after an orderly process, independence will be granted. The cold war is being pronounced dead everywhere. The time has never been more auspicious for peoples of the world to stand and proclaim an end to the further production of nuclear weapons.

And what better occasion than the anniversary of the only time in the history when these nightmarish weapons were used. And what better location to make this statement saying "no more" than at the very place where the bombs were created in our own backyard, Los Alamos? Let us join those all over northern New Mexico who will be gathering peacefully and lawfully to hear music, listen to speakers, and witness dance and native ceremony at Ashley Pond Park in Los Alamos at 4 p.m. on Sunday (Aug. 5). Carpools will assemble at the Flea Market parking lot in Taos at 2:30 p.m.

All over the nation, and indeed all over the world, people will be assembling on this, the 45th anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing. Let us join them in speaking loud and clear that the time is now for the expertise and technical knowledge of facilities like the LANL labs to be converted to life-enhancing pursuits and stop contributing to the manufacture of nuclear bombs. Yes, this year is special. Let us make it count. ELLIOTT LIBMAN Taos Stop burning Editor: The Department of Energy may have lost Congressional funding for its plutonium research facility for now, but it is still seeking free rein to continue the contamination of our air with hazardous and nuclear waste incineration at Los Alamos.

For nine years they've been burning this waste and spewing the by-products into our air without any requirements to monitor for any toxic compounds. They have been sending us things like sulfur dioxide and hydrochloric acid (major components of acid rain), lead, cadmium, mercury, strontium-90 and many other known cancer-causing and mutagenic agents. Now the state Environmental Improvement Division is attempting to enact monitoring requirements of these emissions, but the Department of Energy has filed suit in federal court to be exempted from them. Los Alamos Nuclear Laboratories is fighting them in the state courts. Persons who feel they have a right to breathe clean air, free of carcinogens and other toxic waste and believe that the government should at least keep an accurate record of what they spew out, should send letters to Senators Domenici and Bingaman and Congressman Richardson expressing their concern.

RIMARALFF Taos Thanks, Chief 1 When Sam Taylor creator and donor of the cactus sculpture in front of the Diner remarked in the Bryan Welch article Notebook," July 12) on Tres Piedras that "we wouldn't be able to live out here" without the Cozarts, he wasn't kidding. Most of the hardy souls who live in T.P. could probably do just fine, thank you, without the conveniences the Cozarts provide, such as a diner, grocery, and gas station with wrecker and repair services. But living in and around the Carson National Forest, there is one service that is essential. Like a hanging, when your house is on fire it tends to wonderfully concentrate the mind.

As chief, Duke Cozart is a glue that binds together the T.P. Volunteer Fire and Rescue Department. We're a small outfit, but we get the job done. Many out-of-town and have benefited from our operations on and around Hwy. 285, a major mountain artery that starts on Hampden Ave.

in Denver and concludes in Espanola. Without the time and expertise donated by the Chief, it's unlikely that there would even be a viable fire department. BOB DANESI Tres Piedras Individual rights form bedrock of U.S. democracy It says in the Declaration of Independence, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by the Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among What Jefferson is saying here is clear enough: that individual rights are antecedent to any government, are independent of any government and that governments are brought into being to protect those rights.

This is the Natural Law, available to reason, which all government-made laws must respect if governments are not to become criminal. We need government, then, because at times some individuals do not respect the rights of others. A right is something that requires nothing whatsoever of others except non-interference. You may with reason check out any alleged "right" by asking, "Does it require anything of others except non-interference?" If it doesn't as freedom of speech doesn't, Your turn R.P. Dickey as freedom of religion doesn't, as freedom of peaceable assembly doesn't, and so on, then it may be a right.

If the alleged "right" does require something besides non-interference, then it is not a right because it implies that somebody else could be forced to provide the means for it, and that would be slavery. There are many things we "need," but of course don't have a right to. Food, for instance. You have a right to try to grow food or earn money to buy food or to get food in any manner that does not interfere with the rights of others, but of course you do not have a "right" to food because, again, that would imply that somebody else could be threatened and forced to help provide the food for you. It is the same with shelter, clothing, an and so on down the list of things that require human labor for their production nobody has a right to any such thing, for obvious reasons that stand to reason.

The government we need to protect individual rights rationally requires police officers, judges and a national defense program. In protecting individual rights against criminal aggression, the government may not criminally aggress or threaten to criminally aggress against individual rights. The government ought to be reasonably managed, and in getting money for the proper management of its affairs it may not criminally aggress or threaten to criminally aggress against individual rights. There are many ways a reasonably managed government could raise enough money to fund its three proper operational functions without resorting to criminally extorting money from people and calling it "taxes." Among the immediately obvious way governments could raise money without extorting stealing it from people are these. They could sell all the land and buildings that they now "own," and put those trillions of dollars into trusts, endowments, etc.

They could hold more lotteries. They could institute more users' for government services. They cpuld levy and collect taxes non-coercively, where any and all taxes would be voluntary, as they should be in reason- Taxes are now collected by threatening to punish people if they don't cough up the money that is rightfully theirs, i.e., hy the crime of extortion. Majny other non-coercive ways could he thought of if most of our mind-sets weren't sort of locked inta this canard, this biggest con job of all time that links a man-made thing such as coercive taxes with death, a natural thing, as both being "inevitable." If a government were reasonably managed, indeed it could quite easily raise enough money without; compelling people with threats of violence to cough it up in the form of "taxes." But even if they couldn't, and even if a majority of legislators, lawmakers or people in general voted overwhelm' ingly to tax qoercively or keep coercive taxes, as in fact they have done, it still would not be and is not right to extort money from people. If Patrick Henry had said, "Give me non-interference or give me death," more people would now understand what liberty means, Non-interference, a respectful, thoughtful non-interference, is exactly what liberty means as each of us gives it to and gets it from others.

R.P. Dickey is a writer, poet former college professor WW Uves in.