Government By Illusion  

The US Congress has vowed to not renew the Federal tax cuts that expire in
2-3 years.  Although this will increase everyone's (that pays taxes) tax
bill we are told that it is not a tax increase.  What do you call a
statement that is neither true nor a lie?

A half million people (kids?, urban elites?, anti-hunters?, students as an
assignment?, socialists?, all of the above?) have written into the US
Department of the Interior asking that the US Fish and Wildlife Service List
the polar bear under the Endangered Species Act because of global warming
threats to it's habitat.  The Interior Department and the US Fish and
Wildlife Service in particular need little encouragement to set this legal
hammer in place for every lawyer from "Hades to breakfast" to pick up and go
into US Courts to seek "redress" to stop roads, the auto industry, land
development, animal husbandry, and the US Economy.  The Democrat politicians
would have done this long ago if they could have; the Republican politicians
have moved in this direction a bit more gradually but are headed toward the
same end; and both political parties are now vying to see which one can get
the next movie award for telling the scariest global warming tale (Bride of
Global Warming?, Global Warming II?, The Return of Global Warming?).  The
point is that both political parties are buying into Global Warming and
skeptics are derided as "deniers" as in "desertification deniers" and
"global cooling deniers" of recent vintage.  It goes without saying that
every bureaucrat and professor that can belly up to the plate is pitching
for the polar bear listing while dollar signs whirl through their eyes like
those old Scrooge McDuck cartoons.  All of this mind you while movie stars
are embarking on global warming college tours in the midst of the coldest US
April on record.

But let's set aside my skepticism and for a moment accept what all of the
above global warming advocates say is happening.  If everything is warming
up, that raises an interesting wildlife question.  Why is the US government
and the State of Colorado setting loose hundreds of lynx in Colorado ?  You
remember the lynx, don't you?  The Northern cat that has historically come
and gone in Northern US states with cold weather and snowshoe hares (their
main food) since time immemorial and has been "researched" by Federal
bureaucrats that want to "list" it anyway they can.  "Anyway they can"
included falsifying "sightings" of the cats by Federal bureaucrats by
placing fur from mounted lynx on government scent posts. Ski resorts were
torched by environmental radicals claiming they were on "habitat" critical
to lynx and Federal bureaucrats claimed the lynx were also "vulnerable" to
auto traffic so closing roads would also be necessary to "save" them; all in
all they were a "utility" species like polar bears that had all sorts of
potential.  In truth the lynx, like the snowshoe hare are in a low cycle due
in large part to a cessation of logging (the hares need brush and twigs to
survive and that disappears as forests age) and they are no more vulnerable
to traffic than any other predator.  Colorado , in even the best years for
lynx is the extreme Southern edge of their range and they have never been as
abundant there as in more Northern states, even with Colorado 's high country
elevations.  The lynx set loose in Colorado are disappearing like passenger
pigeons and they occasionally pop up hiking over the Great Plains states
(looking for hares?), a fate in all seriousness as reprehensible as
releasing an alligator in Hudson Bay or kicking loose a caribou in Panama .

So, why is the Federal government and Colorado subjecting these lynx to this
fate when the world (and Colorado ?) is supposed to be WARMING UP?  If
Colorado is on the Southern edge of lynx habitat in the best (i.e. coldest
and years of high snowshoe hare abundance) of times how come the same guys
beating the global warming drums are dumping lynx in Colorado ?  The answer
may lie in Georgia .

The hunters in Georgia probably think they have a great DNR.  They aren't
like those poor bums in New Jersey where the state worships black bears or
those poor guys in Massachusetts where the state bans trapping or the poor
guys in Illinois where the conquest of the State government by Chicago
politicians is strangling hunting by gun control and urban values forced on
the rural parts of the state.  No sirree, Georgia is the South and hunting
is part of the culture and the state "guys" work for the hunters.  Note the
following from Georgia Outdoor News:

"Opposition by the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) to a
specialty license plate that would raise money for SEEDS, a program that
promotes hunting and fishing to kids, resulted in the SEEDS fundraiser being
cut.

Volunteers who have been organizing kids hunts and youth conservation
work days through the SEEDS program expressed shock.

 GON is still confirming exactly who all was involved in lobbying
against the SEEDS license plate, but what has been confirmed is that the DNR
leadership, including DNR Commissioner Noel Holcomb, spoke to key
legislators to get the SEEDS fundraiser cut from HB 485. None of the other
13 new specialty license plates included in HB 485 were cut."

The reason?  "it was in direct conflict with a major source of funds
for existing DNR programs, meaning the Bobwhite Quail Initiative (BQI) and
the Nongame program,"

What is going on here is something I am especially disliked by state
and Federal bureaucrats for mentioning.  All of the State fish and wildlife
agencies are being run more and more from Washington and specifically from
the US Fish and Wildlife Service.  It is not just the Endangered Species Act
or the kind of employees hired or the sort of students turned out of the
Universities today, although these do contribute to the problem.  The real
reason is MONEY.  When you see the words "Nongame", "Native Species",
"Native Ecosystems", "Invasive Species", "Species of Concern", "Keystone
Species", or really any of a dozen other terms of budget art; be aware that
they are merely words used to justify giving Federal tax dollars to the
United States Fish and Wildlife Service to pass through (with "overhead"
withheld of course and "instructions" called "strings") to State fish and
wildlife agencies to do everything except hunting and fishing programs.
State bureaucrats and politicians love this "free" money.  The state
bureaucrats think hunting and fishing are going to be wiped out anyway and
this not only replaces and increases their "budget" it opens up a whole new
world like the Feds have of immeasurable programs that always need "more" as
far as the eye can see.  The State politicians are content to measure their
bureaucrats like Highway Department Administrators on how quickly and how
much federal money is obtained.  I hope some of you aren't crushed by this
exposure of Santa, the Easter Bunny, and now "our state fish and wildlife
agencies" real role.  As I have said in numerous articles over the past two
years, Congress authorized the US Fish and Wildlife Service to use $80
Million to have the states put together wish lists of all the things they
would "need" to do to their state what the US Fish and Wildlife Service is
doing to the US.  State politicians didn't pay attention and now these
gargantuan wish lists have been rolled up in Washington and Congress is only
too eager to start the money flow for all those things "to keep all of these
'nongame' species from becoming Endangered" (to "save the Federal government
money" don't you know).  The amount is over $100 Million per year already
and it will climb every year that Federal politicians want you to love them.

To say it will approach and then exceed a Billion soon would be no
exaggeration.

Yesterday I spoke with a retired US Fish and Wildlife Service employee
that laughingly told me I should have "stuck around".  My old Division (the
one that give the hunting and fishing excise taxes to state fish and
wildlife agencies for hunting and fishing programs) is "growing by leaps and
bounds".  "They are reorganizing it to make 'more 15's' (a high supervisor
job paying $115,000 + per year plus bonuses) because of all the growth in
'state programs'".  Translation, the "nongame" funding program will soon
surpass and then replace the hunting and fishing programs.  They will hire
more anti-hunters and while building the nongame funding flow from Congress,
they will loosen the rules for hunting and fishing programs till they slowly
disappear as is happening with other Federal efforts nationwide.  By the
way, the reason the Georgia Director is so worried about his "nongame" funds
from license plates is that they have to come up with a modest (10-15%)
match of state funds to get the Federal funds (to make it look good).  Where
do you get the money?  The "Nongame" advocates don't buy licenses, they don't
support rural economies; in fact they are the ones destroying ranching and
logging and big game hunting as you are reading this.  Care to bet about
"Peter (hunting and fishing) being robbed to pay Paul ("Ecosystem
tinkering")?

So there you have it.  When is a tax increase not a tax increase?  Why
does both State and Federal governments propagandize Global Warming and
school kids implore the government to list the polar bear because of global
warming while the same governments are dumping hundreds of lynx in the most
extreme southern part of their always changing range when we are all
supposed to believe that Colorado will soon look and feel like Costa Rica
and be home to jaguars?  And finally, why would a State (southern at that)
DNR oppose a money-generating license plate for kids and hunting and
fishing?

The answers are not really answers at all.  There is only one answer.

These things are happening because each of us refuses to stop it.  We each
prefer to give our state politician a pass when he gets other things and we
all want to believe that our state bureaucrats still work for us.  We think
our trade or recreation organization is standing up for us when they are
merely angling for the next job. We are comforted by Federal politicians
mentioning "tools in the toolbox" as possible helps while Federal
bureaucrats lie with impunity and are rewarded for bamboozling rural
Americans.  So the Federal politician gets reelected, the Federal bureaucrat
gets a "15", the state politician gets credit for getting "more" and the
state bureaucrat gets a big bonus for getting so much, so quick.  Meanwhile
we send money to the people lying to us about everything from temperature
change and polar bears to wolves.

Illusion or conspiracy, I leave it to you.

      Jim Beers
      11 April 2007

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      - This article and other recent articles by Jim Beers can be found at
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       - Jim Beers is available for consulting or to speak.  Contact:
      jimbeers7@verizon.net

      - Jim Beers is a retired US Fish & Wildlife Service Wildlife
Biologist, Special Agent, Refuge Manager, Wetlands Biologist, and
Congressional Fellow.  He was stationed in North Dakota , Minnesota ,
Nebraska , New York City , and Washington DC .  He also served as a US Navy
Line Officer in the western Pacific and on Adak , Alaska in the Aleutian
Islands .  He has worked for the Utah Fish & Game, Minneapolis Police
Department, and as a Security Supervisor in Washington , DC .  He testified
three times before Congress; twice regarding the theft by the US Fish &
Wildlife Service of $45 to 60 Million from State fish and wildlife funds and
once in opposition to expanding Federal Invasive Species authority.  He
resides in Centreville , Virginia with his wife of many decades.