Seeking more freedom, less government

To the Editor:

As anyone hiking in our National Forest can quickly ascertain, there is an enormous amount of blown over timber laying on the ground and in many cases stacked up several feet deep in a crisscrossed mess. Most of this material is behind locked gates and therefore not accessible to the people looking for firewood.

It seems that we are being discouraged from using wood to heat our homes whether by wood stove emission mandates or by being locked out of our forest. Concern over air quality, we are told, is the reason for our government's push for us to use cleaner burning fuels.

Yet concerns over air quality do not seem to deter the USFS prescribed too wet burning piles. The government, it seems, is immune from the rules and regulations they impose on the rest of us.

Now it appears we will be fined if our wood stove emissions exceed the government imposed standards.

As time goes on, more and more rules, regulations, mandates and prohibitions are being imposed by our various governments that impact our lives and determine our destiny. Young people today that never experienced true freedom do not notice its absence. But for people of my age, that lived during a time when we enjoyed real freedom, the oppressive hand of government today is quite heavy.

Freedom, after all, is a relative term. Compared to a galley slave, we are free, but compared to conditions just 50 years ago in this country, we are oppressed.

Wake up America. It's not too late to go back to a government that truly represents the people. Vote for those that advocate a reduction in the size of the bungling and inefficient giant our government has become.

William Payne

Libby