How Real World Experience Affects Political Theories

Although I am not one of them, there are people who enjoy reading political science or 'theory of government' books. It would be interesting to see what a person of that type would go through if exiled from their reading lamp to the right place in the real world.

Let them take a campground hosting job for awhile. Quite aware that my suzerainty is much better than the average gig, or rather, that its clientele is much above average, I am still affected by the experience. It gives me a chance to see how people behave when they act as they really want to act.

1. Many people immediately turn to generating noise, destruction, or filth. 
2. Unmindfulness of the consequences of their own behavior on their neighbors, who have an equal right to enjoy their public land.
3. Using a construction site generator to power a microwave oven to make a cup of tea or coffee. Are they really unable to understand that they can heat a pan of water on the propane stove in 3 minutes?
4. Do they need high power appliances in their RV, including a 54" diagonal television set?
5. The redneckization and ghetto-ization of American popular culture. You see that every time a codpiece pickup truck comes into camp, with thumpah-thumpah "music" pounding the ground around it. More than anything else it is the music that makes me feel completely unpatriotic toward what used to be "my" country.
6. And speaking of codpieces, why does almost every one of these suburbanites and city slickers have a four-wheel-drive machine, while I -- a guy who could actually benefit from one -- do not have one?
7. Why am I the only mountain biker who uses the flatter trails -- which are actually appropriate for a self-powered, wheeled machine? Put differently, why don't people hike on rough rocky trails, and pedal on smoother flatter trails?
8. How citified and feminized our culture has become. The more someone thinks they are a 'nature lover,' the bigger of a fraud they probably are.

The good news is these annoyances are quite minimal in my suzerainty, for which I am grateful. For instance, after a busy Mother's Day weekend, there wasn't a scrap of litter left at our campsites. Wonderful!

Experience with real people in the real world persuades one to see the great deity of democracy as having 'feet of clay.' How could we be brainwashed with the notion that it represents some kind of perfect theory? Readers are encouraged to talk me out of spiraling down into a preference for mildly repressive authoritarian regimes.

Outdoor Perfection

I actually got a picture of both of them disporting on the ridge, but it isn't worth showing. After all, that is the whole point.

Chilly, dry air. A mostly blue sky, with a few puffy clouds. And just enough cool breeze to stimulate without annoying. But I wasn't the only creature to respond to the breeze. A turkey buzzard was using ridge-lift to fly along, almost effortlessly.

A mountain bike, a dog, and a turkey buzzard. I thought my dog was tired until she saw that turkey buzzard. Then she blasted across the ridge, using the trail as her route -- quite surprising. The turkey buzzard was curious about her, but didn't taunt her as much as a dastardly raven would.

It doesn't get any better than this. But you're not telling us anything new, the long-suffering reader is thinking. But I don't care. I'm not trying to invent something, I'm merely trying to wallow in something good.