SOME THINGS ARE JUST PLAIN WRONG

It has been nearly two weeks since I have written anything.  The reason is
that I love this great country and all it represents.  Therefore it has been
impossible for me to write as I usually do to defend a government whose
court orders a helpless individual to be starved to death.  The entire
recent affair from a husband/guardian fathering children with another woman
to denial of either a lawyer or jury trial for the helpless ward to the
parents' rejected appeal for custody to the silence of the animal "welfare"
organizations to the total absence of any outrage from "women's groups"
regarding the woman victim's plight was, for me, an unbelievable abuse of
government power and a chilling comment on the state of our society.  How, I
have asked myself, can I defend a government that orders such a hideous
thing?

The answer, as I concluded after much thought, is that either I work hard to
see that such things cannot happen ever again or I must assume blame for
whatever comes next.  It is with this in mind that I turn to a current
threat that is about to burst on the scene.

Political observations are something to be avoided because of all the
baggage they generate but sometimes they cannot be avoided.  Granted there
are good and bad Democrats and Republicans.  It is however, a fact that most
recent Democrats support animal rights activities, endangered species
programs, Wilderness, non-management of public lands or natural resources,
non-use of natural resources, government land acquisition, and more national
authority for the Federal government.  I say this as a dispassionate
observation of fact.  Currently, Republicans are perceived to be somewhat
less enthusiastic about these matters but alas this is a mirage.

Today the Republicans control the White House, the US House of
Representatives, and the US Senate.  One would think that property owners
(from dog owners and farmers to homeowners and rural residents), natural
resource users (from home builders and loggers to miners, ranchers, hunters,
fishermen, trappers, car drivers, and businessmen), public land users, and
supporters of specifically limited government would be less threatened by
government but such is not the case.  For whatever reasons, the Republican
appointees in the US Department of the Interior and the Republican Senators
and staff in the US Senate are little different than their current or recent
Democrat counterparts regarding animal rights, environmental extremism,
larger and more powerful Federal government, and all the other topics I have
mentioned.

Each year Federal acquisition proceeds to steadily add unmanaged (by the
Feds) lands and tax burdens on citizens.  Endangered Species abuses simply
grow and grow with no real remedies even discussed.  Federal lands are a
disgrace and incredible fire hazards.  Regulatory proliferation and
environmental and animal rights laws and enforcement threats to citizens
grow apace.  Private property continues to devolve toward the property
concepts of Zimbabwe where government controls all property through Federal
fiats.  There appears to be little if any effort by the Republican
majorities to remedy these growing threats.

But this article is not about the AWOL Republican legislators ignoring
needed reforms.  It is about the environmental ACTIVIST Republican majority
in the US Senate and the US Department of the Interior.  It is about wording
placed surreptitiously in the current Senate version of the Transportation
Bill by no one knows who.  It is about US Department of the Interior
Republican appointees that compose the wording and are little more than
environmental stooges for those that would destroy this nation.  It is about
Senators and Senate staff that will not return calls about the wording.  It
is about seeing the Republican Senators and US Department of the Interior
Republican appointees as Democrats-Lite and not as any alternative to the
environmental and animal rights legislative fiascoes of the last 35 years.
They believe they will get more votes by throwing environmental bouquets to
those like the Sierra Club and the Humane Society of the US who would gladly
cut their throats tomorrow.  They are in the midst of a fight and they think
their role is to be nice to both sides.  Hello, is anyone home?  In short
this is about the stealth amendment of the US Senate version of the US
Transportation Bill to include the creation of a Federal responsibility to
eliminate INVASIVE SPECIES.

This is an unconstitutional precedent but the courts ignored the
Constitutionality of the Endangered Species Act and look at how that has
grown and what it does (saves no plants or animals and importunes growing
segments of the US populace).  This is merely a bureaucrat's steroid and a
taxpayer diet pill.  This steals state authority and grows the Federal
government in unimagined ways.  This will create lawbreakers of citizens
nationwide and like those prosecuted for Endangered Species violations,
court decisions and unforeseeable penalties and precedents will proliferate.
This will take away property rights just like the Endangered Species Act has
done.  This will give the UN another foot in the American door as the US can
then justify signing a UN Treaty soon to be drafted.  This is bad science
because the INVASIVE title merely means the plant or animal wasn't "here"
(County, State, etc.) whenever (1492?, 1776?, 1865?, 1917?, or
fill-in-the-blank).  What has this to do with anything?  But enough of this,
INVASIVE SPECIES AUTHORITY FOR THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT isn't wrong because of these things, it is wrong because it is JUST PLAIN WRONG.

There are lots of good and very beneficial INVASIVE SPECIES.  There are a
few bad ones but there are just as many bad NON-INVASIVE or Native Species.

We are all better off having the responsibility for what plants and animals
we have in our State being the responsibility of (more accountable to
voters) State officials.  I don't want some Washington bureaucrat (WB)
telling me I can't have purple loosestrife in my yard or allow my bees to
make honey from loosestrife.  I don't want some WB telling me or my state
government we can't have rainbow or brown trout in our streams.  I don't
want some WB eradicating salmon in the Great Lakes or pheasants (the State
Bird) in South Dakota.  I don't want some WB using INVASIVE SPECIES as an excuse to close public lands or limit my uses.  I don't want some WB using
INVASIVE SPECIES concerns trumped up with some grant-gobbling professor to eliminate hunting, fishing, trapping, pet ownership, domestic animals, pastures, logging, etc., etc.  I don't want some WB telling me what plants I can have on my property or in our County or in our State.  I don't want some WB trumping up INVASIVE SPECIES nonsense to take my property rights.  Do you?

If you agree, please write, phone, or Fax YOUR US Senators.  Tell them you
want no reference to INVASIVE SPECIES in the Senate version of SAFETEA, the Transportation Bill.  Tell them you don't want the Federal government to
have any more authority over INVASIVE SPECIES than they currently have.
Tell them if they are concerned about HARMFUL plants or animals, to clean
them up on Federal lands (in fact they could start with the wolves they
recently brought back and which are causing more mayhem than any ten
INVASIVE SPECIES they can name).  Tell them this is important to you and if
they support this sort of extremism, you will work to defeat them when they
come up for reelection.

We each "have" two US Senators. Find out how to contact them and start
telling them what they MUST do.  For too long we have all been too busy with
other things.  More than a few things today are just PLAIN WRONG!

Jim Beers
2 April 2005

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Jim Beers is available for consulting or to speak.  Contact:
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