NOAA fact forum - Part 7 (1 and 2)

My apologies both for the delay in posting the remaining videos and for the lack of captioning. The speaker here is Sheboygan Mayor Vandersteen. The camera's battery ran out midway through his presentation so there are two videos for this speaker. My apologies also for the shakiness of the video.

Perhaps I am cynical, but I doubt that tourism will greatly increase for a marine sanctuary when Sheboygan couldn't even manage to keep the Dairyland Surf Classic going. They couldn't find someone else to take on this event when it's originators were ready to call it quits or to start another freshwater surfing event in Sheboygan, but scores of divers and tourists are going to come around to read about shipwrecks? I say read about shipwrecks because most will not dive them. The very features of the lake that preserve these wrecks discourage diving to see them. Would they even be visible from a glass bottomed boat? Those who will brave the cold and dark to dive such wrecks are well able to do so already. We don't need federal interference to assure that. I don't think this will bring in tourists in an amount sufficient to pay for the costs down the road.

And the costs down the road, Mayor Vandersteen, are what our children and grandchildren and great grandchildren will be paying for through the nose. The federal debt of this nation is already astronomical. How is such a project even sustainable? Oh wait - I'm sure the costs will be covered by the draconian fines imposed by NOAA for breaking any of IT'S rules and regulations - rules and regulations created by NOAA - not the citizens of Wisconsin, and enforced by NOAA's own law enforcement agency. That is NOT what this author wishes to leave to her grandchildren.

The bottom line is that no one is saying the wrecks should not be preserved. We all agree that they are historically significant and a part of what makes this community special. What we are disagreeing on is whether or not we can take care of them ourselves or whether we wish to forgo our own responsibility in the matter and burden the rest of the nation with those costs.

Which will inevitably lead to the federal government restricting the constitutionally established (In the State Constitution)rights of the citizenry. Because if you give a mouse a cookie, he's going to want a glass of milk to go with it. And if you give the federal government responsibility that you should shoulder yourself, they will take the freedoms that accompany those responsibilities. Freedom and responsibility are two sides of the same coin and you cannot give away only one side of that coin.

We can take care of our own property, sir. It would be ethically and morally wrong to burden the rest of the nation with this. It would be wrong to add to the debt burden our children and grandchildren and great grandchildren are already facing thanks to such expensive government programs. And it would be wrong to deprive our children of the freedoms guaranteed them as citizens of Wisconsin because we lacked the strength of character to shoulder the responsibilities of maintaining those wrecks ourselves. The tourism and commerce you expect whether they materialize or not are an argument from greed and possibly sloth and the citizens of Wisconsin are better than that - or at least this author thinks they are.

This blog has also posted video from a meeting held in March of 2017 to organize some opposition to the proposed sanctuary. (Which was the first time this author had heard about it even though the process has apparently been going on for some years.) That video may be found here.

"He that is greedy of gain troubleth his own house; but he that hateth gifts shall live."~ Prov 15:27