Entitlement Creates Environmental Destruction

Some people are just whiners. Let me start off by reminding you of two things:

1. Life isn't "fair."
2. There is no such thing as a free lunch.

Recently, the Bush administration rolled ahead with a plan, introduced under Mr. Clinton, which limits the number of snowmobiles crawling into Yellowstone park during winter. The numerical cap is higher than the current daily totals, but at the main entrance to the west, the number of vehicles allowed to enter daily is halved from its peak.

Environmental groups say this is too small of an action to be effective; I agree. I'd ban every single snowmobile from public lands and force people to actually face the cost of their destructive moronic hobby. But enough of that.

If they limit it to 550 snowmobiles, that takes half our business during the busiest times," Glen Loomis, a snowmobiler and owner of Polaris West in West Yellowstone, said. "That's going to be a huge impact on the town of West Yellowstone. How would you like it if someone came in and said 'we're taking half your money'?

Glen's committing a logical fallacy. He assumes that he is entitled to continue making a profit from a situation he has done nothing to create.

Nature invented Yellowstone. Someone else made the snowmobile. And, like many people with advantageous locations, Loomis has been making profit from the juncture of these events. However, what is easily given is easily taken away; my thought is that Glen Loomis should grow up and admit the gold rush days are over.