ACCESS--What does it mean?

[russ]

The term "access" means "permission, liberty, or ability to enter" or "freedom or ability to obtain or make use of."

"Anti" means "opposed to" or "against." If you are "anti-government" it doesn't mean that you want some restraint on government. It means you are actually opposed to government itself. If you are "anti-communist" it doesn't mean that you are okay with certain kinds of communism or a certain amount of communism. It means you are against communism, period.

So, if anyone out there is truly "anti-access" to state lands, it means you are totally opposed to the idea that people can go there.

We all have access to the state forests and WMA's. Anybody can go there. And you can even drive to most places in a motorized vehicle. So it doesn't make sense to accuse somebody of being "anti-access" unless they are opposed to access itself.

What we really have are disagreements on the types of access and the limits of access.

For example, I do not think that people should water their horses at canoe put-in locations, because lots of people don't like to walk through horse manure with their bare feet. Anyone is welcome to disagree with me on that opinion, and we can have a cheerful discussion or debate about it, but it would be fundamentally unfair for anyone to accuse me of being "anti-access" or "anti-horse" or "anti-equestrain" just because I want what I consider to be a sensible restraint on where people water their horses.

All I am saying is that it doesn't make sense to label a person or a group as "anti-access" or anti-use" or "anti-orv" just because you disagree on what kinds of restraints ought to be placed on one or another specific kind of motorized recreation.

The facts are actually pretty simple on this topic. All the members of NJTLC agree that we want motorized access to state lands, but we also agree that there also must be some restraints on motorized recreation. The areas of tension involve the amount and kinds of restraints.

We can debate which roads and trails should be open. We can debate whether or not this or that particular piece of land should be an ORV/OHV park. We can debate whether or not the the fire-breaks should be open to various kinds of traffic.

All these debates are about the kinds of access and the limits of access, not access itself.

[jeepinjp]

Anti-Access in the context of this board is and has been obviously in relation to motorized recreation.

[russ]

Understood, JP. What I'm trying to point out is that it comes across as a vague slur, so it takes the discussion in a negative direction.

If somebody calls me "anti-access," all I know is that it is literally untrue, but that he is somehow dissatisfied with my personal opinion about where and how he should operate one or more of his motorized vehicles.

I don't object to him driving his Jeep all over the hundreds of miles of Jeep trails in WSF. I don't object to him participating in enduros in WSF. But suppose he wants to ride his ATV in WSF, and I say "No, that's against the regulations, and I think the regulations are good on that point."

Now, he might call me "anti-access" because I disagree with him on that one particular point, but it's obviously not true.