Even the NY Times reports on this propaganda

"So you're an out and out socialist that believes the government should own
all property and dictate how it's "best used." Gotcha."

I predicted you would go this route and you didn't disappoint. You're correct
that in the definition of socialism, in which the state owns the company, you
insinuate that I believe the state should own the land. That's not what I profess.
Here, the state does not own the land but instead has a roadmap to distinguish
what land is best for what use. Locally, this is what can be understood as a
"Master Plan" for development, in which the town decides where what goes where,
be it school, park, whatever. I have thought for years that the US has never had a
conceivable land use plan and that lack thereof has turned out private interests,
and by default, public interests, to do as they please with land owned or otherwise
occupied for whatever endeavor. The problem with this, as we've witnessed, is the
hodgepodge of illogical, wasteful use of one of our most precious and limited
resources, land. We can forgive our forebears of the errors of their actions, as at
the time of the first 200 years of settlement, land was in such amounts that one could
barely see the time in which one feared the decimation of such an expanse. Perhaps
I suffer from an eastern affliction that our own situation must reflect the fortunes of the
rest, and of course that's patently untrue. But as the concurrent histories of either coast
bare, we have squandered our land in the name of personal freedom. This notion of
personal freedom now clearly stands in the way of the happiness of the multitude.

As we witness a rebirth in agrarian culture and the inevitable nature of water competition,
we are caught between the promise of textbook capitalism and the limitations inherent of
that economic model. Population pressures exacerbate these connected issues and the
inefficiencies of unrestrained, or rather poorly regulated, commerce have made our options
paltry. We need leadership in this arena, and frankly with the conservative zeal at present
we are missing an opportunity to table fixes to this problem.

The fix, then, is to set aside the best lands for agrarian use and to tackle the festering
inefficiencies of unfettered capitalism, net, speculative development, that result in the
unused brownscaping we understand as blight. Since there's no material market function
to adequately deal with this problem, the result has been for market forces to continually
seek new land farther out from the market in which it serves. Despite the trend of throngs
of employment age seeking work back in areas of higher density, land is still being developed
at a pace that ensures complete domination in little more than a few generations' time. This is
not fancy or hysteria, it is fact. We've already seen the fruits of progressive thought establishing
better living situations for those in higher density areas in the form of reworking pedestrian and
service business footprints. While a step in the right direction, these measures still don't address
the inevitable wars by proxy that will erupt between parties over land and water use in the extended
reaches of land-rich counties, and in fact may be pressing the problem further by passively allowing
the continued settlement of areas already stretched beyond natural capacity that can no longer be
extended by man's science and legal middling.

This observation is different from the mission of the Park Service, which was established to set aside
lands for, theoretical as it turns out, perpetual conservation. We have seen how water competition has
subverted Park plans out west and lack of leadership of any measurable kind in the great desert of the
southwest will undoubtedly result in mass misery.

So really, I don't see your countering my argument by calling me a socialist adds to this discussion,
as it exists plainly for the purpose of hyperbole, a logical non sequitur. In my world, capitalism is a
model of economic activity that in theory raises the lower classes but not an unquestioned writ either.
I am here reminded of my suspicions that many persons have a very narrow view of what capitalism
is and should not be and confuse the machinations of commerce with bad legal roadmaps. Currently
we live in a state by which such roadmaps have created a damaging plutocracy which votes with its
wallet rather than with the convictions that promote the common good.

Unfettered capitalism is no substitute for thoughtful leadership.

"PS: You're the one giving love to Big Oil. They're trying to stop fracking and development of natural
gas to keep their monopoly on energy production. It's why this piece of propaganda was funded by
Middle Eastern oil sheiks."

If you mean that "Gasland" ( 2010 ) had two pro-Chavez production assistants on staff, one an EPA
official whose input was probably minimal, you'd be correct, but to jump to the conclusion that Fox
was abetting an enemy is hyperbole. By extension one could surmise this as a form of guerrilla film
making of a subversive sort more opaque than all of the shenanigans Big Oil has perpetrated over
the years unbecoming of a source as unbiased and equal as "Energy in Depth".

If you mean that pieces such as "Gasland" 1+2 serve to counter the auspices of "Truthland" and
"Fracknation", then yeah, Fox deserves the opportunity to defend his arguments and stop this
steamrolling venture known as hydraulic fracking until it is better understood. I'm not going to
take whatever Big Oil says without thoughtful, critical and honest analysis, because they have
lied to us before, and no amount of flag waving is going to pollute the point of this debate,
which is to prove that fracking is safe or stop it in its tracks, economy be damned.

The hinge is geology, and we have consensus among industry geologists versus the opinions
of outside geologists, and this fact is what will expose the truth. How we get there is anyone's
guess, but I cringe at the idea that any geologist knows outright what is going on in rock as deep
as these wells go. Here's a literal case where going down with rose colored glasses is as good
as going down blind. As George W Bush correctly said, out of context, "we have to be right every
time," because the issues that cloud the waters of gas production must be understood and not
given in to emotion and exhaustion. If the parties are wrong, and unfettered drilling holds sway
as it largely has, politics will become very local.

So, we know two things: the geology in support of fracking is contested. That must be resolved
by science alone. We know that the industry has deliberately affected laws that favor its position
and has committed shortcuts to processes that have undermined safety, to put it diplomatically.
If you'd care to see how effective a small gov't is, go live on the coast of Louisiana for a year.

Hiring attack PR firms does not bolster the industry's argument, such actions are spurious
and cynical, and grassroots activism such as Fox's can not supplace sound public policy.
Once we get the science clear, we must have the appropriate policing of the industry to
prevent the sort of deliberate management that resulted in the Gulf Oil explosion and
spill and the very compromised clean up that followed. That's not creating "Big Guv't"
for the sake of it, that's being smart.

We have too many messes to let this one go. As always, the messes usually start at the sources:
industry and lazy-so-fair gov't. The problems of gov't are for another debate.