A Few Thought-Evoking Doozies
   by Mark Edward Vande Pol

Copyright Notice TEXT: You are free to republish or distribute by email any of the first four articles below as long as you attribute the author, and provide a link back to this page. I would prefer readers be referred here with an excerpt, if only because the collection of articles forms a narrative that links the ideas between them as a total picture, but I will trust you to do what you think most effective. This information needs to be widely understood.

Copyright Notice GRAPHICS: You may NOT republish or distribute any of the picture books from this site (wildergarten.com), wildergartgen.org, shemitta.com, or shemitta.org. Please send people here.

Wildergarten: A New e-Book

This is a free book documenting the 34-year native plant restoration project on our land. This is 2,000 pages of photographic documentation in 31 separate pdf chapters describing in tight detail perhaps the largest, longest, and certainly the most successful project in terms of native purity (I am told) anywhere in the world. This has been arduous and expensive work, and is still in process. If you are involved in the effort to restore America's wildlands, there has been much original research and process development done here that could benefit you considerably. The site history alone is not to be missed. Enjoy!

Articles: On a Republic We Didn't Keep

The articles below form a coherent multidisciplinary synthesis, the like of which I have seen nowhere else in one place. (Believe me, I would vastly prefer that such collections were commonplace.)

Please read the descriptions of the first three articles carefully. They connect carefully-documented political arguments by the leaders of the American Revolution to a succession of events as the nation developed. Together these steps have reconstructed the mercantilist tyranny against which the founders staked their lives. More importantly, and unique to this site, these articles make understandable how this history produced our suffocating and corrupt modern regulatory system, who is sponsoring it, and how it affects you today. In particular, the other articles on this page emphasize environmental regulation, which is the principal justification offered for the current growth in centralized authority.

This has been a litany of elitist corruption in pursuit of power and profit. A steady string of legal measures, Constitutional and otherwise, has been instituted under the guise of noble ends, but they were demonstrably directed toward baser desires. Their true purpose was to build a corporate aristocracy every bit as overpowering as the one the American Revolution and thence World War I dispossessed, but far more useful toward building the military, industrial, and administrative infrastructure of global oligarchy.  The seeds were in place from the time the Constitution was written, glossed over by its defenders, and thrust upon a distracted public under the cover of turbulent events.  It is not difficult to recognize that we face a similar situation today, being inundated with a series of completly opaque measures with far-reaching consequences and at a breathless pace.

This time, however, it is global. There is no escape to some Randian fantasy of an unpopulated or remote land in which to hunker down so as to “start over.”  We have no choice but to undo these terrible mistakes of our fathers and obviously lack the means by which to do so easily, means long lost, but taught to us over 3,000 years ago.

Patrick Henry "Ratified": The Treaty Power, Its Perils and Portents

A discussion of how and why modern treaties can be enforced "legally" upon signature of the President, without ratification or even after rejection. Their effective terms can even be changed without concurrence.

Kelo & the 14th Amendment: Exploring a Constitutional Koan

The way the Citizenship Clause of the Civil Rights Act of 1866 was modified in the 14th Amendment to include "fictitious persons" (corporations) as "citizens of the United States," thus acquiring Federal protection of the privileges and immunities of natural persons. An exposition on the consequences of the resulting "selective incorporation" doctrine of the US Supreme Court.

Energy Racketeering: The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC)

A summary of the consequences of the first three articles in their current context. The origins and history of regulatory power as the resurgence of European mercantilism via tax-exempt foundations and environmental law. How the current system works using the example of NRDC machinations in the California energy market.

Knowledge Economy: A Simple and Workable Plan to Transform Education

This is as revolutionary an approach as you will ever see, anywhere.

On Environmental Policy & Technical Issues

Titus Lucretius Carus and “Nature” as Urbane Myth

The origin of the modern belief that Nature is self-optimizing and separate from people is in the writings of a 1st Century BC Roman poet, Titus Lucretius Carus. His teaching was adopted by the Enlightenment philosophers of the 18th Century, in part as a means to demean religion. This is an examination of their errors in that adoption: (1) At least part of Lucretius' teachings had Jewish origins, and (2) there is significant damage done to wildland habitat due to the modern urbane myth that "Nature" is best left undisturbed by people.

A Burning Desire

An Analysis of the Sierra Club Fire Policy. Activists seldom face technical scrutiny of their policy proposals. They are too busy supplying donors with what they want to pay much attention to the consequences. As a result, it is surprisingly easy to show how foolish their proposals really are.

A Letter to Brent McCoy

A plea to a witless activist who desires government "protection" of Giant Sequoia, and its necessary unintended consequences. Why heterogeny in science is so important.

Free Advertising

How media creates "experts" totally lacking in the technical knowledge to advocate specific environmental regulations. How their practical consequences end up entirely different than one might expect.

First Impressions: Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve, Stanford University

In June 2014, our family made a visit to the Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve while my elder daughter was graduating from Stanford. She had worked part of a summer there with the Research Coordinator, Dr. Nona Chiareillo on their grasslands survey. During the tour, I met briefly with the Executive Director, Dr. Philppe Cohen. I offered to write him with my impressions, now offered to you at the link above. Needless to say, I had no expectation he was actually going to read them, later to be proven correct. More is the pity, as the Preserve represents an archetype of a demonstrably errant land management philosophy with the dubious origins discussed immediately below. Jasper Ridge also represents a significant loss of research and business opportunity for Stanford and the global community it serves, developing new technology to bring back the wealth of life that land once expressed, and perhaps someday, more.

Klamath Basin

Most controversial environmental policy debates are driven by a hidden agenda, no matter how visible. This is an example of how activist claims can create results that preclude their supposed objectives.

Get a Cat - Get MORE Quail?

Yes, over the spans of three working lifetimes (three successive feral cats), that is exactly how it has worked here. The better a hunter the kittie was, the more birds I got.

Whatever Happned to Science?

This article was written in 1999 about the tragic conversion of the Soquel Demonstration State Forest (SDSF) from a scientific study area to a limited-entry park for the pleasure of suburban residents. It thus lacks the ability to produce sufficient income to deal with significant historical problems, nor does the State develop reliable factual basis for its regulatory policy. That is what you get with political control of the environment.

ESA "Reform"

An analysis of Richard Pombo's attempt to "reform" the Endangered Species Act.

Or Things Completely Different

An Interview with Mark Vande Pol

If you want to learn where I'm coming from, this is as good a place as any.

A Well Regulated Militia: Bringing Our Country Together... with the Second Amendment?

At the time the Constitution was written, the authors, and particularly Madison, supported a well-justified fear of police power and a standing army. The Second Amendment was instituted to emulate the Swiss model, mandating military training for the entire able-bodied male population to sustain a national defense. In no way is the American public today prepared to execute that charge. With a nation so badly divided today, the training required to fix that deficiency is also a way to unite the nation. The necessary tools are already in the law.

"Birthright Citizenship": A Fraud on the Constitution

How the Fourteenth Amendment Citizenship Clause made you government property. We need immigrant citizens, not illegal aliens.

Abortion - A Small Part of a Larger Issue

We have all sorts of life and death issues that pass unnoticed because of this Tar Baby

Child "Protective" Services

Your child has become a socialized commons.

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