Jim Beers: California Dreaming - Bumpkins, French Fries, & Religion

My five recent Essays (several more are planned) on the Religious Nature of
the Environmental and Animal Rights Movement have elicited some strong
objections. I have been told it is "hilarious" that I call environmental
and animal rights goals "religious". Also, it has evidently struck a nerve
that I depict much of what is being done as implementing hidden agendas. I
was pondering how to respond to these matters as I left for California
recently to attend a wedding.

It took only two days in California to find the answer to the objections
about my saying the "Movement" is "Religious" and that the "Movement" is
moving incrementally toward extreme goals by means of hidden agendas.

I.                    Hidden Agendas or Unintended Consequences?

A.    The local television station was running a piece on the forest fires
all over the west. An older lady "environmentalist" was consulted on what
should be done about the homes and ranches being burned by the fires. Her
answer?

                        The "real" problem was all those people living in
"fire-prone" areas. Not

                        only was the cost of protecting them prohibitive,
"wildlife habitat" was

                        disappearing because of "all the development". Such
lands should be

                        returned to native conditions and placed under
government control.

Comment: California already has a large chunk of government-owned land that
is increasingly off limits to all uses. Additionally they have large chunks
under "easements" and under strict "freeze-everything-as-is" zoning.
Loggers and ranchers (who reduce fire material and maintain fire fighting
road access) are joining hunters, fishermen, trappers, and wildlife
biologists (real ones) in California museum exhibits with mastodons,
saber-toothed tigers, and other extinct species.

Californians want to "protect" everything and stop all uses of natural
resources. They see themselves as the "vanguard" of Environmental and
Animal Rights actions. So all that "protection" creates more fires and the
answer is "more protection"? Because it is expensive to government to
protect rural residents from government-caused (like wolves) fires, all the
bumpkins should be cleared and/or relocated.

Like Federal health care proposals, an initial "goody" (help with medicine
costs or doctors charges) morphs into Federal "authority" to "pull plugs" or
dictate who receives what service based on age or some doctor's judgment (as
in Dutch euthanasia decisions or Canadian treatment scheduling). Here in
the US our Environmental and Animal Rights advocates get land uses shut
down, roads closed, Wildernesses designated, loggers and ranchers retrained
as taxi drivers, hunters and fishermen squeezed out and all this results in
record fires year after year and the answer is MORE? Only if you view this
reasoning as an ideological or religious tenet to be imposed incrementally
and forcibly by government, no matter what, can you explain it.

Clearance of the rural countryside in Scotland occurred in two parts
(1782-1820 & 1840-1854). The last period overlapped with the Irish Potato
Famine and the depopulation of Ireland. When most all the rural Scots had
died of cholera or starvation or emigrated to be supplanted by a few rich
and powerful Lords, a distraught Scot is reported to have told an English
recruiter "Since you have preferred sheep to men, let sheep defend you."
The clearance of rural Americans by wolves and fires and government
bureaucracies are no less cruel. Some may call the results of western fires
"unintended consequences", I believe they are deliberate and incremental
hidden agendas of the Environmental and Animal Rights Movement aimed at such
rural clearances.

B.     CNN carried a celebratory piece on the proposed (and reportedly sure
to pass) ban in New York City on "trans-fats". A New York doctor was all
gushy about how "necessary" and "needed" this latest diet mandate was for
everyone. French fries, donuts, etc. were to be "reduced?" although
questions about alternatives or taste were evaded like North Korean
"negotiators" answering questions about nuclear future plans. She cited the
"smoking precedent" and how other things will also have to be banned "for
our own good".

Comment: Once a "precedent" (in this case smoking taxes, bans, fines, etc.)
establishes government jurisdiction, the rest is as they say, academic. The
Environmental and Animal Rights Movement artfully weaves these "precedents"
(Wilderness, Roadless, Cockfighting and Horse Slaughter jurisdiction, dog
ear clipping, vegetarian diets, etc) into a whole cloth. When our
government views the US Constitution as "evolving" and simply grants itself
(by just passing a law) the right to take property (for non-public purposes
or without compensation) or to dictate YOUR use of YOUR animal property or
to make PUBLIC property (land, waters, wildlife, etc.) reserved for public
use into unused, unmanaged, unprofitable fiefdoms of Environmental and
Animal Rights religious imaginings it is the imposition of one group's
religious values on the rest of us, plain and simple. If trans-fats can be
banned why not ban meat or fish or dairy products or "non-organic foods"?
If horse slaughter can be banned by a simple vote in Congress, why not pet
ownership or livestock husbandry or hunting or fishing or trapping or? Only
if you understand these incremental changes as steps in imposing the
religious beliefs of this Movement, no matter what, does it make any sense.
America was founded to protect the practice of all religions and not to
(like Old Country monarchies or certain Asian and African oligarchies or
Moslem countries) impose one religion on all citizens by force, taxation,
deprivation of property, and simple bureaucratic denial of things like
Church building permits or in this case, what is to be allowed for you to
eat or cook with. Once again this is an incremental hidden agenda and even
if you say it is an unintended consequence, it is the imposition of one
group's religious beliefs and values on the rest of us and this is illegal
and wrong under American guarantees and concepts.

It is ironic that some people act righteous about imposing their values
forcibly on others, be it dietary or lifestyle or residence or governmental
character. Truly there is no merit in such actions. Liberty is an
essential element of merit, for an act is only deserving of praise if the
one who carries it out is responsible: "Where liberty is not, neither is
merit" to quote an 11th century abbot. Simply because you cannot convince
free men and women to live as you want or do what you want is no
justification for imposing such beliefs on them forcibly.

If any reader still has any doubts about the religious nature of the
citizens and bureaucrats imposing these religious values on the rest of us,
I can thank the National Park Service and a Marin County, California
write-up for tourists for answering these misgivings for me.

1. The National Park Service "Welcome Movie" in the Point Reyes National
Seashore Visitors Center ends with these words. Visiting this Park will
"Renew your Faith and Rejuvenate your Spirit". (This while we erase all
trace of religious practice and belief from the Ten Commandments in
Courthouses to the mention of Christmas throughout society.)

2. The summer Coastal Traveler Guide to Marin, Napa, Sonoma, Lake, and
Mendocino Counties reports the following about the town of Bolinas:

"Come to visit but treat it as you would a visit to a Hindu temple in
Gujarat, India or a mosque in the tribal frontier of Pakistan - because
Bolinas is a temple to progressive utopia.

I saw a man drive a stretch limo Hummer into Bolinas, where many residents
have 'Hummers Suck' bumper stickers on their cars. It would be culturally
analogous to an American girl walking into an Iraqi mosque wearing a
Brazilian bikini.

The stretch Hummer was chased down the street by taunting residents, past
The Bolinas People's Store, which is at 14 Wharf Road behind the Library on
the main street, and has excellent organic greens, croissants, and chai."

It is not only wrong but dangerously fatal to view this as ideological
"do-goodism". These are fervently held extreme beliefs to be imposed on us
incrementally by force. Just as certain Moslems in Nigeria or Saudi Arabia
or elsewhere "partner" with government to restrict the religious liberties
of others and certain Hindus in India work with government to restrict
religious freedom: many Environmental and Animal Rights advocates in the US
and other western nations are "partnering" with government to deny the
freedoms, rights, and liberties of others based on their religious beliefs.

It is my intention to write further on this matter in my series on the
Religious Nature of the Environmental and Animal Rights Movement.

Jim Beers
4 October 2006

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- Jim Beers is a retired US Fish & Wildlife Service Wildlife Biologist,
Special Agent, Refuge Manager, Wetlands Biologist, and Congressional Fellow.