Rarely do politicians just come out and say it. This is Kline in a letter to an ATV rider:
There is nothing sporting — athletic, physically demanding — about riding any machine anywhere. And it’s a damned annoyance to folks who see the outdoors as a place to go for quiet and solitude and self-exploration. I would be happy to ban the use of the internal combustion engine off-road, by anyone without a handicapped sticker, subject to a stiff fine. Maybe we could call this an anti-obesity measure.
Please circulate this to all motorized sports enthusiasts, so they can remember never to vote for me.
Adam Kline
I may not agree wth Kline, but that’s not the point. Kline telling the ATV crowd to ‘fuck off’ is the coolest thing ever. Our local politcians are so boring. Thank God the Klinester is out there keeping it interesting.
If you really want to have a laugh, read the comments on this post over at Postman’s blog. Here are a few:
A great example of tolerance on the left. If it’s not something that he agrees with, Kline would simply legislate it out of existence. Senator Kline, how about legislating the banning of dogs as pets. After all, sometimes they bark loudly. Or maybe another Senator would like to propose a law banning an activity that Senator Kline enjoys to help illustrate why he is wrong.
Posted by Jeff B. at 06:39 PM, Mar 02, 2007
Amazing that a politician could alienate so many people in such a brief letter! To be honest, that takes serious talent.
His elitist attitude is truly disgusting and is well beyond acceptale even when applied to the conduct of politicians. I sincerely hope he is called to the carpet over this matter.
Posted by Moe at 09:45 PM, Mar 02, 2007
Good stuff.
My family used to go camping at a place where you left your cars in one spot and hiked a ways to the campsites, where you set up your tent.
It was a beautiful, peaceful, clean place. There were plenty of hiking trails and beaches and caves and cliffs. It was the best maintained place I had ever been to. The people were friendly, the rangers were great.
Fast forward to the 80’s and 90′ and now. Even though the sign states “no motorized vehicles”, people figured out they could get their atv’s down the trails. It’s loud, there is litter, the really pristine places are now full of tire tracks. It sucks to go there.
Good for Kline.
Yup, coolest thing ever
There’s a certain group of people who think “freedom” (as in “America is a free country”) confers on them the “right” to operate noisy, smelly machinery anywhere, any time, at any speed, over any vegetation, no matter what it does to the environment or other people’s peace and quiet.
Needless to say, the people with this mentality invariably vote Republican, so Kline isn’t losing any votes that he ever got or ever will get, anyway.
As for banning dogs, I personally think that’s a damned good idea, and all my rabbit relatives heartily agree!
@3 By some strange coincidence, the same people who take as gospel the notion they have the right to operate noisy, polluting machinery anywhere they please, in any manner they choose, at any speed they wish without regard to the safety of nearby hikers, pedestrians, or rabbits … somehow took it into their heads that “freedom” does NOT include the right to be for peace, or to express any political opinions differing from theirs; and doing so makes you a “terrorist.”
DEMOCRATIC TO-DO LIST:
1- Ban ATV’s
2- Restore Habeas Corpus
3- Stop Illegal Spying
4- Ban Torture, Really
5- Close the C.I.A. Prisons
6- Ban Extraordinary Rendition
7- Tighten the Definition of Combatant
8- Screen Prisoners Fairly and Effectively
9- Ban Tainted Evidence
10- Ban Secret Evidence
11- Better Define ‘Classified’ Evidence
12- Respect the Right to Counsel
13- Impeach Bush and Cheney
Let’s see him stand up to Boeing regarding jet emmissions, or work to make the shipping industry greener, or to take any number of other stands that would actually result in improving the world. This just plays into the Right’s notion of latte liberals and doesn’t do anything to build the party.
5 you forgot 2. Allow dogs in bars, restaurants, swimming pools, saunas and hospitals.
Hey Gullible Fools:
So much for “Greenhouse Gases”…
http://www.t-g.com/story/1192103.html
GROAN. THE WELSHER IS BACK. HAVE YOU PAID THE GAMBLING DEBT YOU OWE TO GOLDY FOR THE BET YOU LOST?
DIDN’T THINK SO.
LOSER.
I suppose his critics would prefer that Sen. Kline be a pussy and respond with some sort of half-assed, conciliatory politician-speak, but it makes me proud to live in the 37th LD and call Kline my senator. Not so much because he wants to limit ATVs on public lands, but because he is willing to speak so honestly about an issue on which he is clearly passionate. It is amazing that the sort of people who accuse Democrats of being traitors and terrorists for opposing White House policies would be so offended by a politician taking a strong stand and challenging people to not vote for him.
As for ATVs, I don’t do much camping, but I’m well familiar with the attitude of people who believe that their right to enjoy a motorized vehicle trumps the rights of all others to enjoy nature. Every summer I take my daughter to the Jersey shore for a week on the beach with her cousins… a ritual I enjoyed as a child. There are days now when the sound of the surf is drowned out by the sound of the jet skis jumping the waves, and beach goers are constantly forced to inhale their noxious exhaust. It is goddamn annoying.
Just because someone is upfront with their classist, racist, sexist or other beliefs doesn’t mean they should be supported. Instead of attacking folks who get thrills from these things, require the big companies that make them to make them quiet and more fuel efficient. But that would require attacking a target that’s bigger than oneself, or that doesn’t generate an easy laugh from your political base. How is that politics as UNusual?
As a snowmobiler, and dirt biker I will log in. There should be places to ride, and places for peach and quiet. The machines damage, and erode pristine areas, and the people that ride them should be required to pay for the damage they do though. What’s fair is fair.
No one can expect others to stop doing what they love (snowmobiling) so they can have peace and quiet every single place in the woods.
The “woods” are owned by, and should be enjoyed by all, whether you hike, bike, snowmobile, or cook meth….
Just kidding about the meth thing….
kirk, you got it – right, right, right
Goldy is just a simpering follower of the bellow and bray of the political mouth.
But of course we can’t attack the people who make these vehicles with standards —God no. Electric maybe to cut noise, some dedicated small roads to provide access – god no. Can you say like GOLF carts…
Do these riders pay taxes and are they citizens? Well — not as good as the prigs who want to spoil all fun.
I have used an ATV to go miles into Desert and Rock areas of Eastern Washington, where there is nothing and it is very hot. I guess someone could walk, they don’t — barren, void, no people, love the places. It is not the lush West side, full of dogs, dogs, kids, kids, and walk a mile campers with their new Lexus wagons.
But oh, sure Adam, take away my weekends with my two boys. Silly old fat bellied fool. If you check, he lives in a million dollar house.
But oh so bellowing and smug – and Goldy, your blog has become boring and shitty. Will is not as good as you. His stuff is mostly lifted from other blogs, and a lot from the Stranger — it seems. Of course, Dan does have a cult like following.
Adam is over the top on this one.
How about horses, then you have all the manure. Bet Adam likes manure — it can be very green and surely is organic…… DEMOCRATS, I AM ONE, WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO HEALTH CARE FOR CHILDREN???????? ADAM, YOU ARE IN POWER NOW – DON’T FRITTER THE TIME AWAY ON NONSENSE – LET KEN JACOBSEN DO THAT. DON’T NEED TWO OF YOU.
@12
Talk about citified elitism.
Born on Whidbey; raised on Fidalgo. We rode horses when we weren’t HIKING. The first motor bikes in the woods ruined all of that, along with the trails. The vast, VAST, majority of ORV users – with the obvious exception of rescue teams – need to get off of their fat asses and walk. Living creatures belong off-road – not the internal combustion engine. NASCAR elitists, most of them.
How ignorant and effete can you be?
So, Lawrence, what is ignorant about liking the solitude of the desert scab lands of Eastern Washington?
Oh, I know. All the really cool people are your next door neighbors. Hiking around in their REI gear.
God you people around Seattle are so out of touch. I am politically more left than you, by the way. We are a family of Wobblies.
Eat Shit, idiot of the elite. And for sure all who don’t fit your mold of society have fat asses, oh sure. The new shallow insult hurled all around….god, what a simpering bore……lambasting fat asses….great politcs of the vapid……Gosh, are you in high school to boot?
Laurie – you are living in the past, some long ago childhood.
Sorry.
The world is not the safe little place of the small island of Fidalgo.
Painful, but gone forever. Someone invented the automobile, the telephone and computers….. the fat asses are here to stay…..and horse manure stinks a lot.
Little boys have to have their toys…
@7 Where the hell is Shelbyville, Tennessee? Can they read and write there?
@7 So we’re supposed to take the word of some Bible-belt state college professor over the research findings of 99% of the world’s climatological scientists? Keep pumping my gas into your Hummer, Redneck!!! I appreciate your business! Collecting dividends sure as hell beats working.
This is one of those subjects where neither side is listening to the other.
ATVs. Do they belong on quiet forest trails? No, of course not, although some ATV enthusiasts will disagree. There are some that are simply in it for the thrill, and a few that race up and down trails to deliberately disturb hikers and scare horses.
But… There are appropriate places for ATVs, and people that want to use ATVs should have places to enjoy them.
Hikers and nature enthusiasts. (I really would like a better title there.) Most are concerned that wilderness areas are kept pristine (or as close as possible) for current enjoyment and future generations. They know that once these areas are gone, they are effectively gone forever.
But… Some just have an elitist distain for anything that the “common man” enjoys. If “Joe Sixpac” enjoys a beer, then they will look down their noses at beer. If the “average person” likes something, it’s bad, by definition.
If we let the folks on the fringes do all the talking, then nobody will be happy with the results.
Lordsman,
With all of your driving around in Eastern Washington, did you happenned to see the weed called the tumbleweed? You are helping spread it. It is non-native to North America. It does not grow in virgn soil. The native plants will crowd it out. But once some one drives an ATV or moterbike across the scab lands and breaks up the soil, it grows. It is a major fire hazzard. Livestock can not eat it. It gets into hay crops and then they have to be plowed under. All of the real farmer in E. Wash. thank-you for your help with this problem. And large tracks of “open” land in E. Wash is privately owned, did you have the owner permission to cross thier land? Thought not.
And where is the desert in E. Wash? There is one in in E. Oregon, but not E. Wash. And the scab lands are cause by flooding, not by lack of water. And just because you think that sage and grass but only a few tress is wrothless does not mean that you should be allowed to harm the land at will. It is not your land.
@10 No, Kirk, the problem isn’t all with the companies that make them. After all, they’re merely fulfilling customer demand. Kline is spot-on: 99% of this problem is attributable to the boorish, fuck-you attitudes of the rightwing, redneck jerkoffs who don’t know what “Keep Off the Grass” signs are for.
We should — and do — provide public places where people can operate their machinery to their heart’s content … places where the impact doesn’t matter.
They should — and don’t — limit their activities to places where such activities are appropriate, and stay out of places where their activities are destructive.
The whole point is these assholes have an attitude that they can do anything they want, anywhere, anytime, in any manner, without a shred of thought or consideration for anyone else. They think they’re the only people on earth who have any rights, and everyone else is supposed to kiss their asses.
Horses don’t belong on ATV or hiking trails, hikers don’t belong on equestrian or ATV trails, and ATVs don’t belong on equestrian or hiking trails. Because horses, hikers, and ATVs don’t mix. Why is this so hard for some people to figure out?
from one john to another – good post
some of this reeks of the KING’S FORREST – denied entry the British masses were starving, amid bounty of game in the private reserves of the King…..and poaching was death
popular democracy means popular
not sure why a horse that shits everywhere is better than a quiet moped
100% of the problem is people marginalizing folks who are in a different group or who look different etc. and then dehumanizing them via name calling.
Glen, you are all wrapped up in some blanket.
My family are Eastern Washington farmers.
Stock will eat them whole green, tumbleweeds. And not a problem in the hay if the land is irrigated.
Deer tracks and horse tracks are great for vegetation to grow.
No desert in Eastern Washington, reading to many books. Oh, forgot called semi arid for the academics. Some is desert complete with cactus, and horned toads. Get real.
Bureau lands, state lands, Railroad lands, still vast tracts and quite open.
You can’t make this stuff up.
Laurence–what’s your point and why have you grafted a bunch of different quotes from different people together?
YO LIB DID YOU SEND GOLDY ANY MONEY LOSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSER
Laurence lived on that tiny island out there in the Juans too log.
His whole life is now reflected in the “well, this is how we did it on Fidalgo.”
Break out Laurence.
Every single day, many tons of horse shit were a major problem in the big and growing cities at the turn of the century, New York, London, Paris. Early autos were a very enviro friendly change.
Of course true Greenies think horses are romantic – and forgive their shitting all the time, stinking high vapors shit, cow shit is sweetly tame by comparison.
Ride a cow on the pristine trails, Laurence.
46 million people without health insurance. The DSHS is a cruel joke. Last week, the Dept. of Corrections released dangerous criminals unto the streets.
And this is where Adam Kline takes a stand. Gosh, seeing as there are no off road trails in his district, this is a regular profile in courage for this politician.
Goldy, you should be proud. He represents you perfectly.
OK, OK, I give in.
Next time I will ride a cow, and that, after burning my three ATV’s and two giant Dodge pickups……SUPER RAMS WITH ADDED PACKAGES
Adam Kline needs to get off the cheap booze……esp. with the pills
Again, this quote isn’t about ‘saving the environment’ from people who drive where they shouldn’t, or the Rep would have called out the folks from his district who take a short cut through the Arboretum on their way home from Microsoft.
There are thousands of miles of trail and hundreds of thousands of acres that are off-limits to motorized vehicles. The areas that are available to operate offroad vehicles legally is rather limited.
The vast majority of offroad enthusiasts are respectful, responsible, law abiding citizens. Sanctioned offroad events require (and test to ensure)that the bikes or ATV is able to pass a decible level test. If they don’t pass they are not allowed to ride. Of course there are bad apples in every segment of society that make the majority look bad. These people are looked down upon and ostracized by the offroad community.
I noticed on Senator Kline’s website that he likes to throw a block party every year and hire a band…I wonder how he is going to keep the sound level at 45dB at the property line? By the way, conversational speech is 60dB.
Is anybody aware that Sen. Kline introduced a bill to allow judges to receive reimbursement for travel from their homes to the courthouse in which they preside? I sure would like to get paid for my commute to work! He doesn’t care about the people…he’s a Mt. Baker elitist taking care of the power people.
Further, I will not address ATV, or “quad”, riders, however I can say that offroad motorcycling is an extremely demanding and athletic activity. EXTREMELY. Anybody, such as Senator Kline, saying otherwise is doing nothing more than demonstrating their ignorance of the issue at hand.
I wonder why it is that a politician from the exclusive Mt. Baker neighborhood of Seattle is proposing this bill? It will primarily affect the rural areas…why haven’t any politicians from the rural districts proposed this type of legislation?
Of all the problems this state needs to address this is what he is going to take a stand on?
35. This is a cheap attempt for him to curry favor with his base, just like Ann Colter’s remarks, but with less vulgarity.
Think like me, do like me, be like me. ME, ME, ME.
I don’t know what Kline’s motivation for this statement was, but he’s obviously preoccupied with something.
Strange perspective for a guy that represents a district with one of the most diverse constituencies in Washington.
BTW, the people he despises are probably the same folks who VOLUNTEER as search and rescue workers and continually pull the North Face draped, “hay, I’m on a hiking trail with 5000 other city folks” posers every month. You know the ones…..”Ah yah, I’m lost on this trail on Couger Mtn., but like; I have this cell phone, so it’s all good, right”.
OK I’m all for this legislation. Next objective: a total ban on mountaineering. If we have to go and rescue one more idiot from Rainier or Hood this winter…..
Best,
sme
Seward Park
Wow, I thought the cold war was over. Little did I know that socialism was right here in my backyard. Why are you hiking and camping in ORV-designated areas? There are hundreds of thousands of acres that are restricted from ORV use. I don’t pretend to understand your desire to climb those wonderful mountains and risk your life and limbs, not to mention the people who will risk their own lives to save you at taxpayer expense. Yet I would never dream of infringing on your ability to do so. This is by far the biggest waste of time and energy I have witnessed in some time. We have REAL issues for concerned citizens to tend to. Education, safety and infrastructure should be first on OUR list. I welcome any of you to actually learn more about the ORV community and about the joy and happiness that this hobby brings to my family and friends. Intolerance is ugly, prejudice is too! And you are painting me, my family, my friends and fellow ORV users with a wide brush of unfair and untrue stereotypes. As with any group, there are trouble makers who set these stereotypes in play, but should we judge all people on the actions of a few? Tolerance, understanding and a willingness to work together is a theme I hear from progressives, but I don’t see any of those core beliefs in practice here. Practice what you preach! Now hammer me and my fellow ORV users while you enjoy your pot and Starbucks. Just kidding, not all of you enjoy starbucks! LOL
Gone Ridinig X2 (possibly X10)
A completely subjective evaluation:
Most of the Kline supportive statments on this thread were submitted during office hours.
Implications??
No one seems to want to communicate after 5:00.
Scott @ 40
You will find that most ATV users have Jobs, can afford the machines, and probably 50% are union members.
They know a good “work ethic”, and appreciate the time with their families.
They don’t worry too much about what their “neighbor” is doing, or not doing. They pretty much see their glass as half full.
This bill is full of BS. I would hope that the good Senator, and those that support this bill only whisper when speaking. If not, they could be sued for their “uttering” BS.
I was born and raised in Washington. It sickens me that the tree hugging mamby pambiests continue to try and dictate to me, my family and my neighbors how to live in Washington. What a bunch of arrogant jerks. My family has loved and lived ATV riding all our lives. We spend many hours and dollars maintaining the public areas that we utilize for these purposes. Kline would have it so we would also be unable to do this on the six acres that we live on in Arlington. We built our home over 20 years ago with the purpose of raising our kids riding there. I have had horses and dirtbikes. They both require respect of your environment. We do that. Maybe not all of us, but “we” do. Do all car drivers and street bike riders and pilots and truck drivers all make a diligent effort to give back to their “place of recreation” of “place of which their use is intented” nope, not volutarily anyway. This guy is trying to perpetuate the dictatorship that I see Washington state as becoming. If you are not a hiker or mountain meditator, you have no business being here. It is for all of us, not just us and not just them. It has worked so far. He needs to f’ing leave it alone!
What these green thumbs dont get is as soon as they take it away from us 4 wheelers , dirt bike riders and atv people , then they will take it away from the horse back riders then they will take it away from the hikers, THe kline is a loose cannon , do a web search on him he wants to do away with punishment for crimes with just a slap on the hand , i wonder if he uses a leaf blower hmmmmmmm how many decibles is that , Im Handcapped from a accident at my job and the only way i can enjoy the out of doors is in my 4 wheel drive, do you tree huggers have any idea how much of your garbage we pick up on the trails and in the woods , because you couldnt carry it out , wake up , once they take this away from us , they are coming after you