Just hiking? “Then pay no Nat’l Forest fee,” Court says

[Sal Santamaura]

...Those with a liberal outlook (who make up a large portion of our country's population)...

...those with a liberal outlook (who make up a large majority of our country's population)...

It's too late to edit; I rushed an addition to my post and screwed it up. The "second chorus" was intended to be a refrain of the first, i.e. portion, not majority. Haste makes waste.

Sal, I like your style but your politics are as nutty as the 9th Circuit's.

Which (to steal your pitch and build on it) is the circuit most reversed by the Supreme Court whose decisions in reversing the 9th Circuit are generally considered by those with a reasonable, sane and normal outlook (who make up a large majority of our country's population) to be completely correct in that they corral the vast overreaches and downright lunatic decisions of a maverick left leaning circuit...

Not withstanding my word salad, you are clearly demonstrating the polarization that tears this country apart. A large portion of the US population agrees with many, if not most, progressive decisions made by courts such as the 9th Circuit and disagrees when SCOTUS overturns them. That liberal segment, approximately as numerous as are conservatives, finds the SCOTUS majority "nutty," not reasonable, sane or normal.

The fact that our election results so frequently approach 50-50, decided by extremely small margins, offers little hope consensus or rational compromise is in the cards. I find the situation sad and have no prescription to improve it. My coping strategy is to spend time hiking and photographing far away from people.

[Brian Ellis]

It's too late to edit; I rushed an addition to my post and screwed it up. The "second chorus" was intended to be a refrain of the first, i.e. portion, not majority. Haste makes waste.

Not withstanding my word salad, you are clearly demonstrating the polarization that tears this country apart. A large portion of the US population agrees with many, if not most, progressive decisions made by courts such as the 9th Circuit and disagrees when SCOTUS overturns them. That liberal segment, approximately as numerous as are conservatives, finds the SCOTUS majority "nutty," not reasonable, sane or normal.

The fact that our election results so frequently approach 50-50, decided by extremely small margins, offers little hope consensus or rational compromise is in the cards. I find the situation sad and have no prescription to improve it. My coping strategy is to spend time hiking and photographing far away from people.

Actually your responses to my statement about how the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals is viewed are a perfect demonstration of the polarization that tears this country apart and that you claim to find so sad. I said nothing about the politics of the 9th Circuit. I'd be willing to bet that most people here know little if anything about that court or what kind of decisions it renders or anything else about it. And for all one could gather from my message, the court could be considered nutty for any number of reasons having nothing to do with its social agenda. My statement was apolitical and was relevant to the OP's original message (i.e. what the 9th circuit does about fees in the national forests may not be followed by other courts because the 9th circuit is something of a maverick court). But you had to chime in with a political response.

As an aside, despite your defense of the 9th circuit on the basis of the popularity of its decisions, what a majority of the population likes or dislikes isn't supposed to be relevant to a court's decision. Court's are supposed to apply the law as best they can, without regard to whether their decisions are popular or not (the principal argument against electing judges and the reason why federal judges have lifetime appointments). Clearly that's an ideal, not the way things actually work in varying degrees in various types of cases with various judges. But it's an ideal that good judges seek to attain.

[Old-N-Feeble]

Steve... Here in the US, if we had a voluntary "honor system" for payment... the parks would go broke.

[Old-N-Feeble]

Sal / Brian... I like being a fence-riding nonafiliatory closer-to-Libertrian-than-anything-else person. This way I can disagree with nearly everyone because they're all wrong about something very important!!

[ROL]

$5 a day seems very reasonable to me, even if the only facility you use is the car park.


Steve.

"Car Park". How quaint. You ain't from around these parts are ye? Seriously, not a western sensibility. Think more in terms of FREE–DOM to use public lands in any way you or your Mexican drug cartel can defend with your right to bear arms.

[Mark Stahlke]

Keep in mind we’re talking Nat’l Forests – not Nat’l Parks, Nat’l Monuments, Nat’l Seashores, state forests, etc.

Reading the replies, it seems some folks overlooked this important line from the original post. Maybe it needs to be restated.

This is National Forests only. Not National Parks, Monuments, Seashores, state forests, parks, etc.

[Sal Santamaura]

Actually your responses to my statement about how the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals is viewed are a perfect demonstration of the polarization that tears this country apart and that you claim to find so sad. I said nothing about the politics of the 9th Circuit...

What you posted characterized 9th Circuit decisions as generally considered "nutty." You failed to specify who was doing the considering, implying that "generally" referred to the overall population. That's simply wrong. I merely attempted to correct other readers' potentially mistaken impressions (especially those outside this country) that a majority of our citizens generally disagree with said decisions.

...I'd be willing to bet that most people here know little if anything about that court or what kind of decisions it renders or anything else about it...

You'd be surprised at how many people who aren't lawyers like you know something about the 9th Circuit and what kind of decisions it renders. Assuming ignorance is not wise.

...And for all one could gather from my message, the court could be considered nutty for any number of reasons having nothing to do with its social agenda. My statement was apolitical and was relevant to the OP's original message (i.e. what the 9th circuit does about fees in the national forests may not be followed by other courts because the 9th circuit is something of a maverick court). But you had to chime in with a political response...

There is not a single judge, at any level, who does not interpret facts and law through the prism of their own experience and outlook. That is an inescapable fact of their being human beings. You characterize this as a "social agenda." If you do that, it would be equally valid to ascribe the SCOTUS' majority's decisions to their social agenda.

By the way, Henry introduced "my politics" with his post. I just pointed out that your generalization was invalid.

...As an aside, despite your defense of the 9th circuit on the basis of the popularity of its decisions, what a majority of the population likes or dislikes isn't supposed to be relevant to a court's decision...

I didn't say decision popularity was relevant. I just pointed out that your generalization was invalid.

...Court's are supposed to apply the law as best they can, without regard to whether their decisions are popular or not (the principal argument against electing judges and the reason why federal judges have lifetime appointments). Clearly that's an ideal, not the way things actually work in varying degrees in various types of cases with various judges. But it's an ideal that good judges seek to attain.

I give full credit to the vast majority (word use intentional this time ) of jurists, including those who make up the full 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, for actually applying the law as best they can, without regard to decision popularity. In fact, I suspect that the current SCOTUS majority completely disregards public opinion when writing opinions. How else could the prism of their outlook/experiences result in so many unpopular decisions?

[Drew Wiley]

Wierd. I've never even seen a Forest Service fee for anything other than developed campsite use. We do have SnoPark paid permits in winter, but that goes to the transportation agency (Caltrans) to keep the turnouts plowed for skiers. Where has this
been happening?

[wager123]

$5 bucks
pay the fee the NFS needs all the funds they can get! let make sure we have a NF or NP to go to !! help support them. if we don't they may not be here in the future.

[Heroique]

Weird. …Where has this been happening?

Nowhere near the remotest areas where you go and make extremely original geological and anthropological discoveries and where you sleep and sing with the wildest wolves and wiliest coyotes and scratch them behind the ears before escaping by a hair’s breadth from angry black bears and snarling cougars by glissading down rarely visited glaciers with no need for map or compass because you spend so much of your life here and know your way around the sun-bleached skeletons of brave explorers who didn’t quite have your directional sense and if only everybody else did they could come here too and experience the real wilderness in all its primitive glory and lonely splendor and not have to worry about ... standard amenity fees.

Drew, please don’t take my run-on sentence seriously – just having some good clean fun.

My real reply is to visit this U.S. National Forest link about Standard Amenity Fees which will put the appellate court’s “just-hike-don’t-pay” decision (in post #1) in a helpful context. Your Golden State & its beautiful national forests fall in its jurisdiction.