The Tragedy of the Commons Revisited - Possibly Ad Nauseum

In Texas, within the memory of all those now living in Texas, and a good while before the time of those now living in Texas, there has never been much of a lands commons. Public land is scarce and often not precisely public. Rather use is typically encumbered by lotsa restrictions, and some have more liberties on the common lands than others. The exception is, oddly, beaches, where Texans are at liberty to drive anywhere they can drive, and do pretty much whatever they want once they stop, so long as they stop out of site of somebody that would report them to the responsible authorities or shoot them, for what they stop and do. Attempts to curtail vehicular beach access are generally met with disorganized but often effective opposition, including acts of vandalism against infrastructure facilities curtailing or symbolizing the curtailing of beach access. Thus, the ****, planning to curtail beach access along a stretch of beach in Matagorda County, has experienced some sabotage of its facilites in those parts, even though the actual curtailing of access is a ways off in the near future, maybe.

With regard to pollution and population growth though, access to the commons is in high gear in Texas. We are undoubtedly outpacing the nation as a whole in those areas, fer sure. But rather than rehash all of Mr. Hardin and associates subtopic (Garret Hardin, The Tragedy of the Commons (TOTC), 1968), http://dieoff.org/page95.htm -let's consider the TOTC hypothesis from the public service angle again as in (TOTC Revisted, Beryl Crowe, 1969. same URL). The very last subtopic of that topic spelled by Mr. Crowe "Erosion of the Myth of Administrators of the Commons" is interesting because it describes precisely what the Crumby Ovate spells below (since this topic reads subtopic by subtopic from the bottom up). Or, i.e., please refer to the bottom part of my, Ray's Thought for yesterday, Like Popcorn in the Microwave where is spelled the Crumby Ovate on "Systematic Failure - Long Term". In any event, Mr Crowe spells out in his very last sentence, thus, "In the last phase even staffing of the regulating agency is accomplished by drawing the agency administrators from the ranks of the regulated". Actually though I believe the Crumby Ovate was hinting that we have moved rather beyond that, and now the regulated have such control over the regulatory policies that they have relaxed, and now rather than go to work at the agencies themselves, they send in their dumb cousins and golf cronies instead; so far have the republicans progressed in their disproportionate access to what remains of the commons.

Yikes. I, Ray have to go work on that plant list, fer awhile. I'll be back.

The Tragedy of the Commons Revisited - Possibly Ad Nauseum cont.

Ah, where was I. Oh yes, I just quoted Mr. what's his name foretelling in 1969 that eventually, in all agencies regulating the commons, the fox emerges as the guardian of the hen house. Such has certainly come to pass; fat, lazy, stupid overly confident foxes guarding all the agency hen houses. So where does this leave the disorganized and powerless rest of us. “What recourse do we have?”, I ask redundantly.

Well, for example, at RGVECB we have turned to religion for solicitude, an activist religion, Druidism, which integrates us with nature and makes us aware of our relationship to nature and natural processes through the mediation of the most powerful force in these parts, and maybe in the universe, the White Goddess. She is, in some part, the commons incarnate.

But leaving Her out of it for the nonce, because She will do with us as She pleases in Her own time, what can we, Her Druids do, to keep Her from sticking our whole species into wickermen and torching us off?

Easy that. We can stifle our lying tongues and gluttonous maws and convince, satirize, or terrorize, the ignorant and vulgar into curbing their lying and gluttonous behaviors, too. We, the Druidry in these parts, are way smarter than they are, and we should no way have to suffer their pollution and their disregard for the Goddess.

So. What baggage can we dispense to lighten us up for this engagement? Easy that. Mercy. Show none to liars and gluttons and do payback to the maximum extent you can get away with. Be smart and don’t get caught. And don't ferget to have lotsa fun.

I sure hope this gets me out of the doghouse in these parts.

Ray Pistrum