Sorry, but this is my take:

ISIS: Idealists
Gun Lobby: Idealists
Christian Right: Idealists
Skin Heads: Idealists
GOP: Idealists

I'm sorry, but the greatest threat to democracy is idealism... as that always... ALWAYS leads to a totalitarianism via a surrender of the mind to a 'great ideal'. — Mayor of Simpleton

Why be sorry?

A lot of people will agree with you, that idealism is a threat to democracy and ALWAYS leads to totalitarianism. They just have a different "Idealists" in their mind: Leftist socialists (Idealists), environmentalists (Idealists), Gay right activists (Idealists), Occupy Wall Street activists (Idealists), Democrats: Idealists, whatever, you name it. But for many people it is totally inconcievable and utterly incomprehensible to even think that the loony dangerous other side could ever reason anything or have in common any values. That's what I have learned for example following Philosophy Forums and other US forums.

I personally think that idealism isn't a threat to democracy. What is only dangerous when people resort to outright violence. And any political ideology that starts from the idea that violence is necessary, is a threat to democracy and will lead to totalitarianism. It's as simple as that.

What about the ideologies that say violence was once necessary/is part of the long-gone past/no-longer necessary of the currently existing state of affairs? Because liberalism is incredibly violent, except such violence does not involve explosives or bullets, but bureaucratic and contractual coercion.

I think that all political ideologies start with, in practice, the question of how much violence. Violence itself is always part and parcel of any form of ideology.

Why be sorry?

A lot of people will agree with you, that idealism is a threat to democracy and ALWAYS leads to totalitarianism. They just have a different "Idealists" in their mind: Leftist socialists (Idealists), environmentalists (Idealists), Gay right activists (Idealists), Occupy Wall Street activists (Idealists), Democrats: Idealists, whatever, you name it. But for many people it is totally inconcievable and utterly incomprehensible to even think that the loony dangerous other side could ever reason anything or have in common any values. That's what I have learned for example following Philosophy Forums and other US forums.

I personally think that idealism isn't a threat to democracy. What is only dangerous when people resort to outright violence. And any political ideology that starts from the idea that violence is necessary, is a threat to democracy and will lead to totalitarianism. It's as simple as that. — ssu

I probably shouldn't, but it seems to offend a lot of people when I make this statement... or maybe they are uncomfortable or... really I have no idea, but the reactions are simply not very good.

Funny thing is, I really don't support any collective idealistic efforts. I find Leftist socialist just as totalitarian and the Right Wing conservatives. I don't really get the gay rights activists in that they highlight difference rather than embrace similarities. I find that equality of rights is not when one recognizes differences, but that differences are something that really don't matter; thus are for the most part background noise. Environmentalists have the tendency to make claims that mankind is solely responsible for the environment, which seem a bit of an arrogant perspective. We are part of the environment and not the 'masters of environment'. Occupy Wall Street was honestly short sighted and a list of complaints of which the protestors were themselve largely responsible for, but wished to play the blame game... oh, and they never really offered up any constructive solutions or viable alternatives. The mantra of 'what do we what: CHANGE, when do we want it: NOW, what should that change be exactly: WE HAVE NO IDEA AT ALL, who should make this change: SOMEONE ELSE'... reminded of the unsatisfaction of teens... as if simply being annoyed was a productive solution.

Anyway.... back to the real topic...

Perhaps I have simply seen too many movements that seemed to be 'harmless idealistic mantras' that have later proven to become totalitarian rules of a power driven megalomaniac sitting on the throne of that power. The potential destructive powers of idealism just puts me off that track. I cannot think of any notion of idealism that is immune to this potential of becoming a totalitarian rule that surrenders the mind by negating adaptation of notion and disallows (or tries to disallow) accumulation of new information/experience/knowledge.

I fail to see that such idealistic notions of status we might field match up with the relative nature of accumulation/adaptation of the universe; thus to stay consistant with the function of the universe I'm only part of I drop all my idealism as best I can... a sort of try again, fail again try to fail better approach. Perfection is a totalitarian myth and not worthy of consideration, as perfection cannot be defined without making an appeal to a special case or a personal preference. If it is defined in a manner that it must apply to call cases and be the standard of measure for all preferences, that is when the dangers must arise... some sooner than others.

Meow!

GREG

Funny thing is, I really don't support any collective idealistic efforts. I find Leftist socialist just as totalitarian and the Right Wing conservatives. — Mayor of Simpleton

That's what I think is the biggest problem in our time: 20th Century collective ideologies (with examples from the left and right) were so bloody and ruinous that we now have difficulties to find any kind of collective ideal for such big constructions as modern states. If you do have such large entities as nation states (or even larger constructs like the EU), there should be something in common with the people inside these constructs, some kind of collective thinking. Otherwise it's a road to disaster.

Perhaps I have simply seen too many movements that seemed to be 'harmless idealistic mantras' that have later proven to become totalitarian rules of a power driven megalomaniac sitting on the throne of that power. The potential destructive powers of idealism just puts me off that track. I cannot think of any notion of idealism that is immune to this potential of becoming a totalitarian rule that surrenders the mind by negating adaptation of notion and disallows (or tries to disallow) accumulation of new information/experience/knowledge. — Mayor of Simpleton

The problem with fully fledged idealism is that the supporters of any ideology seldom accept a compromise, to gain some kind of consensus with people having totally different opinions, which means that some things have to be dropped and some things not wanted have to be implemented. Making compromises "with the enemy", as it can be seen, is something that goes against idealism.

I think there is a some kind of social aspect of group behaviour in this. In political movements it's usually the "purists", the staunchest supporters of that ideology that come to dominate the movement. Moderates that would be willing to look for a compromise are seen as "selling out". Perhaps it's because people that tend to get active in political movements are themselves dissatisfied with the present.

Ideologies give us clear and simple answers to what the reasons are for our problems and what ought to be done.

Democracy itself was an ideal (still is in fact), and 'idealists' have led the way, often at the cost of their lives, against religious persecution, slavery, racism, imperialism,and a variety of other things which, to be fair, should be placed next to the more egregious abuses it has led to. To live a life in which we don't consider any ideals or values or people worth fighting for seems, to my idealistic frame of mind, a pretty meaningless existence.

Doubtless a more apathetic or nihilistic mindset is less prone to violence and chaos than the crusading mentality of the idealist - but also less likely to love and hope and long for a world with more passion and beauty and 'justice'. There, spoken like a true idealist against the coldhearted 'realist'. Somehow the virtues of both positions need to be synthesized in a thoughtful manner rather than set up as incompatible enemies; I think it can be done to a certain extent.

Indeed that is the case, but I often wonder why it is considered to be such a good and nobel notion.

I still view democracy as a process and not an ideal leading to any idealistic ideas that functions as fixed points in value notions.

Truth is, I find that the nobel people who have died for what we've considered to be ideals are often those who oppose idealists that place limitation of ideals upon the freedoms of these nobel people and thus they wish to protect...

... it gets all muddled up with freedom of ideals against freedom from ideals and the dying for ideals for the sake of living for freedom of ideals and ...

... it gets messy.

Personally I find that the term ideals is a loaded term. On one side we are speaking of nobel concepts of freedom and such, but on the other side we are speaking of limiting absolutes placed upon freedoms by a totalitarian dictator of sorts. Unfortuantely the razors edge is everywhere when speaking of ideals.

This applies to justice or beauty or whatever value attribution one wishes to put forth into motion. For the life of me, I greatly question any absolute polarities of value in any of these ideals. As I see it, ideals have meaning within a very specific context, but are themselves limited to that constraint of that concept and are still subject to adaptation due to accumulation of information/experience like it or not. When such ideals expand beyond the bounds of their limited context, they run the risk of becoming a totalitarian concept when failing to take into realization the relativity of the nature of values and the accumulation of information/experiences;thus negate the adaptive refinement that ideals are subject to... so ideals when applied in an absolute/universal manner are arguments that collapse upon the weight of their own arguments... unless the one proposing the ideals insists upon suspending accumulation/adaptation... I just cannot figure how one is supposed to stop accumulation/adaptation, as one simply cannot stop the arrow of time placing a hault to information/experiences, unless they wish to demand and command a surrender of the mind by those upon whom they impose their ideals... no matter how nobel they might appear to be.

Personally I feel that all arguments for the establishment of ideals is simply appeals to special case that is subsequently misapplied upon cases that simply do not apply, but are forced to comply.

Please understand that I do indeed have my ideals (principles) and I do field value notions upon these (my) ideals, but I try my best not to have the never to suggest that my ideals are indeed the absolute standard of measure with which all others must form their world perspectives. All I can do is try, as often I really fail at this effort.

Maybe I fear too soon, but that seem to be far better than reacting too late. Ideals that seem to be nobel can quickly garner a special status of being beyond criticism and off the table for critical debate. Religion had this self-granted grace for a long time and in many ways still has this self-justified self-acquired liberty. Personally I find that movements such as Occupy Wall Street or Anti-Globalization or Global Warming tend toward this special status of criticism is off the table... in short it's a bandwagon.



(Where would I be without a silly sequitur non-sequitur YouTube music video?)

Funny thing is it is very diffucult to form a bandwagon for relativism, as the bandwagon is indeed the comfortable ride for ideals to be pimped as absolute ad populum musts or the given. I seem to make a habit of questioning the given, as I tend to take nothing for granted

Indeed idealism may lead the way in the fight against various other idealistic notions... but funny thing is if they dropped the idealism we'd have very little to fight about in the first place. Afterall, the idealist who fights for freedom is fighting the other idealist who constraints that freedom.

Then again, this would require all sides to drop the idealism at the same time and maintain this drop, so I suppose that's not gonna happen anytime soon, so I'm left with my 'anti-Idealsitic Ideals'... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oShTJ90fC34

I sort of wish we'd adopt a position of relativist accumulation/adaptation 'oh... that's different... cool... collect' rather than the ideal of absolute/universals 'oh shit... that's different... that's wrong... kill'., but that's a wish.

Anyway...

... what was the OP writing about?

Maybe I should stop ranting and get back to the OP... the jet lag is killing.

Meow!

GREG

...but funny thing is if they dropped the idealism we'd have very little to fight about in the first place. — Mayor of Simpleton

Now, now, you're just being silly. I hope.

Idealism isn't the same thing as fanaticism.*** Fanatics have an odor of mania and possession about them (smells like burning electric insulation), whereas idealists reference a standard of perfection; a principle to be aimed at: tolerance and freedom, the liberal ideals. Idealism smells like lily of the valley.

Realism, on the other hand, is neither fanaticism or idealism. Is there such a thing as being "too realistic"? No. Real is real. Reality doesn't get more real. (It can get less real, however, as when someone exclaims in exasperation, "Unreal!")

Ideals (Christ-like love, abolition, anti-war/peace, universal suffrage, organic farming, direct democracy, elimination of poverty...) become the subject of fanaticism when some narrow aspect of the ideal becomes the object of a very narrow focus. Christ-like love can be perverted into a life-denying obsession of self-denial which is no benefit to anyone. Political ideals about the rights and obligations of the people can be perverted into the "get government off our backs" obsession which boils down to 'no government except when I want something from it'.

Idealism is, I think, an essential leaven in societies which do (and must) run mostly on realism. Yes, idealists like Henry David Thoreau (check out his essay, Civil Disobedience) can be a nuisance. Massachusetts threw him in jail for not paying his taxes (Emerson paid them for him). His refusal wasn't libertarian tax avoidance, it was on behalf of either abolition of slavery or opposition to the Mexican American War (sorry, can't remember which. Probably the MA war...).

We really need idealists to challenge the status quo. (Leaven, as you know, changes a brick into a loaf.) Change-agents need their ideals, which we might not like. One of the most-loathed groups working for black civil rights in the south during the 1940s and 50s was the Communist Party, USA. They were on the side of the angels in their efforts. That was before they were effectively neutralized, along with much of the left by ruthless Republican realists like J. Edgar Hoover, et al.

***[ORIGIN mid 16th cent. (as an adjective): from French fanatique or Latin fanaticus ‘of a temple, inspired by a god,’ from fanum ‘temple.’ The adjective originally described behavior or speech that might result from possession by a god or demon, hence the earliest sense of the noun ‘a religious maniac’ (mid 17th cent).] [1 the practice of forming or pursuing ideals, esp. unrealistically: the idealism of youth. Compare with realism... a standard of perfection; a principle to be aimed at: tolerance and freedom, the liberal ideals.]

Now, now, you're just being silly. I hope. — Bitter Crank

Given the context in which we live in, probably, but philosophically not really. Non-contextual idealism is a cancer of the ego.

Idealism isn't the same thing as fanaticism.*** Fanatics have an odor of mania and possession about them (smells like burning electric insulation), whereas idealists reference a standard of perfection; a principle to be aimed at: tolerance and freedom, the liberal ideals. Idealism smells like lily of the valley. — Bitter Crank

True it isn't the same, but it is the foundation upon which fanaticism is born; thus I tread lightly in granting idealism such a postitive status.

As for it smelling like a lily of the valley... I'd say more like a rose:



To every idealist I feel the lyrics apply:

I know you'd like to think your shit don't stink
But lean a little bit closer
See that roses really smell like poo-poo-oo
Yeah, roses really smell like poo-poo-oo

(sorry, I just cannot resist YouTube)

Realism, on the other hand, is neither fanaticism or idealism. Is there such a thing as being "too realistic"? No. Real is real. Reality doesn't get more real. (It can get less real, however, as when someone exclaims in exasperation, "Unreal!") — Bitter Crank

That I can agree with...

Ideals (Christ-like love, abolition, anti-war/peace, universal suffrage, organic farming, direct democracy, elimination of poverty...) become the subject of fanaticism when some narrow aspect of the ideal becomes the object of a very narrow focus. Christ-like love can be perverted into a life-denying obsession of self-denial which is no benefit to anyone. Political ideals about the rights and obligations of the people can be perverted into the "get government off our backs" obsession which boils down to 'no government except when I want something from it'. — Bitter Crank

Indeed, but to be fair we can spin ideals to be either positive (good) or negative (bad). If we try a bit harder we can even re-spin these attributions of postive and negative to be the polar opposite given a different context. The problem is when one wishes to ignore that spin of a pet value notions can be re-spun to a very different direction; thus changing the value attribution to the ppint it could be the polar opposite of the original notion, is not really a view consistant with realism.

Idealism is, I think, an essential leaven in societies which do (and must) run mostly on realism. Yes, idealists like Henry David Thoreau (check out his essay, Civil Disobedience) can be a nuisance. Massachusetts threw him in jail for not paying his taxes (Emerson paid them for him). His refusal wasn't libertarian tax avoidance, it was on behalf of either abolition of slavery or opposition to the Mexican American War (sorry, can't remember which. Probably the MA war...). — Bitter Crank

I think it was a poll tax that's fund went to the MA war...

We really need idealists to challenge the status quo. (Leaven, as you know, changes a brick into a loaf.) Change-agents need their ideals, which we might not like. One of the most-loathed groups working for black civil rights in the south during the 1940s and 50s was the Communist Party, USA. They were on the side of the angels in their efforts. That was before they were effectively neutralized, along with much of the left by ruthless Republican realists like J. Edgar Hoover, et al. — Bitter Crank

I could have stated that first sentence her to be "we need idealists to challenge the other idealists sitting in the seat of power"... a sort of tit for tat?

Well... when the revolution is over and the rebel wins, doesn't the rebel become the establishment?

I sort of think the leaven was a brick loaf all of the time...

... then again, we have not much other option as this utopia of relativism I have is simply a philosophical notion, that (unfortunately) cannot ever be tested until all abandon ideals as fixed points in value outside of special case context.

***[ORIGIN mid 16th cent. (as an adjective): from French fanatique or Latin fanaticus ‘of a temple, inspired by a god,’ from fanum ‘temple.’ The adjective originally described behavior or speech that might result from possession by a god or demon, hence the earliest sense of the noun ‘a religious maniac’ (mid 17th cent).] [1 the practice of forming or pursuing ideals, esp. unrealistically: the idealism of youth. Compare with realism... a standard of perfection; a principle to be aimed at: tolerance and freedom, the liberal ideals. — Bitter Crank

I always find this to the major league bullshit.

There is not standard of measure for perfection, as perfection in the face of accumulation/adaptation is a myth for the sake of totalitarian control.

I do not endorse tolerance.

Toleration is a horrid ideal. It is a lie for the sake of saving face and faking peace. It is the effort to deny real thoughts and intentions for the sake of social pressures. It requires no effort to understand or dialog leading to any understanding. Tolerence is simply silent hatred with a smiling face that has a unspoken limit to it's patience. When that unspoken limit is reached and the tolorator is not long able to be silently patience, more than not, a spontanious explosion of seemingly irrational yet calculated conflict occurs. Toleration is not a road to peace, but rather the prelude to war. In no way do I ever advocate tolerance, but rather dialog and communication that leads to understanding and possible an accord, but an accord is not necessary.

I'll remain with my anti-idealist ideals as best I can.

Meow!

GREG

The use of the words "tolerance" "toleration" and tolerate have had diverse careers in the last 200 years:



Herbert Marcuse coined the phrase "repressive tolerance", which is what you are probably thinking of, MOS.

Tolerance, to my way of thinking, is not intolerance disguised. They are opposites with quite different consequences. Lately the concept has been given a negative spin: pejoration. Tolerance is not used sometimes to mean "loathing without action". One 'tolerates' what one loathes, until one doesn't tolerate it anymore, then attacks it. So, in this school of thinking, tolerant people are a time bomb who will eventually explode all over some suffering minority.

I think that is quite wrong. Tolerance is not embrace, true. But it is a making room for, an acceptance of, more than a grudging willingness to interact with. I can tolerate muslims, but I won't be converting. Muslims can tolerate Christians without converting. And both without any sort of punitive action. Tolerance isn't rejection disguised. It's open rejection and acceptance of the difference. I reject the founding principle of Islam, for instance, but I accept others belief. And viva versa with respect to Islamic/Christian interactions.

Tolerance is a recognition that others are different. Not the same. and OK, but without a wish to become like. I can tolerate transsexuality. I accept that it exists. I don't feel anything that transsexuals report feeling. Much like heterosexuals who accept homosexuals don't feel what homosexuals feel. We get that each other's attractions are different, and we accept that. But we are not the same.

I don't need to be loved, embraced, celebrated, etc. by people who are not homosexual. They can even be appalled by my lifestyle to their hearts content. BUT, tolerate my existence. Leave me alone. You mate your way, I mate my way. If you don't want to come to my party, fine. I might not want to go to your's either.

Many people tolerate behaviors they decidedly don't like--all sorts of things. Toleration is what makes complex urban life possible. We don't have to look at every case of difference (like, people who decide to get their faces tattooed with pseudo-prison-style ink and feel a wave of warmth, "Ah, sweet diversity." Frankly, I'd just as soon people keep their ugly tattoos on their scrawny bodies to themselves. I tolerate their display. Now, if handsome hunks with great tribal tattoos want to walk around the grocery store naked -- I could tolerate that too. (So far, haven't had the opportunity. Too few stores tolerate tattooed naked handsome hunks walking the aisles looking for good deals in canned peaches. And the weather in Minneapolis is fairly unforgiving at this time of year -- the high for today is only 8F. The naked walk from car to door would be way too long, no matter how short it was. It would be... intolerable.

Herbert Marcuse coined the phrase "repressive tolerance", which is what you are probably thinking of, MOS. — Bitter Crank

Well... it's spooks me to see that someone of credibility has addressed this topic. It makes me feel less alone in my madness. Thanks!

Meow!

GREG

A lot of people will agree with you, that idealism is a threat to democracy and ALWAYS leads to totalitarianism. They just have a different "Idealists" in their mind: Leftist socialists (Idealists), environmentalists (Idealists), Gay right activists (Idealists), Occupy Wall Street activists (Idealists), Democrats: Idealists, whatever, you name it. But for many people it is totally inconcievable and utterly incomprehensible to even think that the loony dangerous other side could ever reason anything or have in common any values. That's what I have learned for example following Philosophy Forums and other US forums. — ssu

But of course leftists aren't occupying public land with guns trying to get free stuff. Rightwing knownothing ranchers are. And the same is true about gun rights weirdos and anti-gay weirdos and the religious right - all intent on imposing their views on others.

In contrast the left supports tolerance, democracy and multiculturalism.

This is the classic "reverse-meme" used by conservatives: call those fighting intolerance intolerant because they are against intolerance. It demonstrates the total intellectual bankruptcy of the right.

By "repressive tolerance" Marcuse meant tolerance of the violent, repressive structures in an advance industrial society - like wage slavery and capital. It comes from a time when conservatives actually pretended they cared about democracy and rule of law, and used that as an argument against the revolutionary left. It had nothing to do with the left's struggle for inclusiveness, except that strategically open socialist societies were often subject to subversion by US interests (as Central America learned), and hence Marcuse was not averse to keeping a watchful eye on how international capital would attempt to use open institutions to subvert revolution.

So, Marcuse meant the exact opposite of people rising up against Wall Street and its financial power, for instance. He contrasts repressive tolerance with "liberating tolerance" which he explicitly defines as intolerance of the Right and tolerance of emancipatory movements of the left.

You can read his essay on this here. http://www.marcuse.org/herbert/pubs/60spubs/65repressivetolerance.htm

Good - I need the refresher. It's been a long time since I read Marcuse.

But of course leftists aren't occupying public land with guns trying to get free stuff. Rightwing knownothing ranchers are. And the same is true about gun rights weirdos and anti-gay weirdos and the religious right - all intent on imposing their views on others. — Landru Guide Us

I don't think Bundy-militia has much support as you intend to portray. It's a small cabal of people that actually aren't so much in touch with reality, who then are closely viewed by the police.

Then there's the what I referred to the past "Sagebrush rebellion", the idea that federal "landlordism" was destroying their economic lives (as there are actually people living in the countryside you don't care much about). It isn't at all what the Bundy's are rambling about, as a major incentive was to get land from the federal level to the state level and cesession of federal lands to state lands isn't actually what Bundy's want. They would likely see the state as irritating as the US government in the end.

Similar arguments of the intrusiveness of the Central government to rural things is something present even here in Finland in Lapland, and the people there surely aren't in any way similar to some American right-wing ranchers. Here too a huge part of the most Northern Communities are Wildlife Preserves and Government lands and the people there tend to think their livelyhood as at stake when some environmentalists from the South want everything to be part of a nature park (with similar condescending attitude to the ideas that the people there have about their livelyhood as you have). Yet they don't have any ideas of the type of Frontier mentality and/or American individualism as in the US.

Here's a picture of Government land ownership in Finland. Government land in green (government owned water areas in blue). From the map it ought to be obvious that there might be friction between the Government and the few people living about land rights.

I had personal experience with the Sagebrush Rebellion in the 80s. My view is that they are no different from the Bundy Militia types. They wanted to abuse land for their own profit through resource extraction, mostly through abusive mining and cattle grazing, and resented national policies against that. The cattle ranchers and miners had been given a free ride to use public lands for a century in the West and simply didn't want to face the reality of how their abuse had degraded the productivity of the land, requiring a new cost/benefit analysis at the very least.

The larger question you raise about central government "interference" in rural affairs is probably the real issue here. Needless to say, I don't think it is interference. I think it's rational policy relating to land use. I frankly don't want rural people to control large portions of land - history indicates they abuse it and history indicates it results in land oligarchs arising.

Let fishermen decide how much to fish and within a short time there will be no fish for the fishermen or the rest of us. That's why resources need to be regulated, and for the most part owned democratically. We tried the alternative. It's failed.

A lot of the western lands on which sagebrush rebellions might flourish are "marginal" lands in terms of their ability to recover from exploitation. They are rather dry, and some are at a fairly high altitude. They don't recover quickly from deforestation, over grazing, disruption of soils through mining activity, and so on. The reproduction of soil by natural process is VERY slow in these areas.

Native Laplanders likely live a more compatible lifestyle in forested land in Finland and northern Sweden and Norway. The rebellious sagebrush people are not native to the area, and are, for the most part, introducing lifestyles that were developed in much more forgiving ecological settings. What works in the well-watered, warmer, and lower parts of the US doesn't work so well in high, dry areas.

In the 19th century, railroads were built across the Great Plains of North America, and settlers encouraged to take up residence. (Hauling immigrants was one of the few income-producing activities the railroads had -- they were built without adequate economic justification.) The immigrants established farms and small communities and started farming. 40 years later, a lot of the immigrant farmers had packed up and left because the land was not actually capable of supporting agriculture. The soils were too dry and the climate was too harsh. One of the consequences of this settlement was the severe dust storms of the 1930s.

The Great Plains still do not have a bright future as agricultural lands, for the same reasons now as then. (Irrigation has helped, but the Oglalala aquifer which has supported irrigation isn't going to last too much longer.)

There have been proposals, not altogether unreasonable, to depopulate much of the Great Plains and let the land lay fallow.

Dave Foreman, of Earth First! fame, suggested the Great Plains be repopulated with bison and native grasses, and open only to subsistence hunters. You can't help but admire vision like that.

The larger question you raise about central government "interference" in rural affairs is probably the real issue here. Needless to say, I don't think it is interference. I think it's rational policy relating to land use. I frankly don't want rural people to control large portions of land - history indicates they abuse it and history indicates it results in land oligarchs arising. — Landru Guide Us

Actually here (in Lapland) the biggest land ownership problem has been with the government and the Sami people, Europe's only indigenous people. There's been a problem for Finland to ratify ILO Convention 169 Concerning Indigenous and Tribal Peoples. The basic problem is how to define someone to be Sami. From the 16th Century onwards, as the ownership of (Finnish) Lapland was with Sweden, the Government hadn't made any separation of people to being either Sami or Finns. And as you might guess, the Sami people have disagreements on the government land ownership in the North, for instance with grazing rights. What land is the government and what belong to the Sami is an issue. Sound familiar?

Now unlike in the US, the real problem is actually making the distinction between those who are Sami people and those who aren't. Finns have been populating Lapland since Antique times, time of the Roman Republic, along with the Sami people, and there actually hasn't been any similar colonization of Lapland as lets say in North America. Here there haven't been such tumultous demographic changes as lets say in Central Europe. Hence there is the Finnish Sami Parliament that basically decides who is Sami and who isn't. There are about 8 000 Sami people living in Finnish Lappland. As the indigenous people are given more perks for example in reindeer herding than Finnish families have, that have lived in Lappland for long time too, the legislation protecting indigenous people strikes a bit of a discord today (in Norway and Sweden, reindeer husbandry is legally protected as an exclusive Sami livelihood).

Sami children. Notice that there isn't any racial difference from other Nordic people (even if that in the heyday of racism was tried to be proven, especially in Sweden).

They wanted to abuse land for their own profit through resource extraction, mostly through abusive mining and cattle grazing, and resented national policies against that. — Landru Guide Us

Well, this is quite universal. If you are a cattle herder or a reindeer herder, yep, you will likely want to have those grazing rights. Reindeer don't know just where they legally are permitted to graze and where not.