Where in the World is Chuckie Sandiego?

Spanning the globe to bring you the constant variety of worthless comparisons of exotic foreign locales to Pullman… the thrill of erudite cosmopolitanism… and the agony of plebeian Wal-Marts… the human drama of preening intellectualism… this is Chuck Pezeshki's's Wide World of Socialism!


This week, globetrotting WSU professor Chuck "Mr. Civil Discourse" Pezeshki checks in from the island of Kauai in Hawaii for another illustration of his illusionary socialist zeitgeist. In a column in today's Moscow-Pullman Daily News Chuck informs us that the friendly Hawaiians have no need for private beaches, so therefore we should do away with private ownership of farm and forest lands around here, and apparently, motorcycles and four-wheelers:

In our own little neck of the woods, we're running up against a lot of the same kinds of issues. Access across and to private land is big - from disputes on Moscow Mountain, to Potlatch Corp. selling passes for land access, to the recent closing of part of Sanders Beach on Lake Coeur d'Alene. People are flocking to our area to buy their own little part of paradise or ride their ATV on land someone else owns.

[...]

We're not as lucky here. With a few notable exceptions, we've set ourselves up under the screaming principles of "private property rights" or "we've always rode our dirt-bikes here," instead of accepting we all live here because it is a beautiful place...

Pezeshki mentions how expensive homes are Hawaii, without looking more deeply into why other than the old liberal saw of "real estate developers on one side and permanent residents on the other." I imagine the environmental and development regulations in Hawaii are pretty rigorous. That might have something to do with it.

I can hardly wait to see where Chuck visits next time! Perhaps a visit to the former East Germany or Poland might snap him out of his fantasy world of central government planning and no property rights...