Everglades; Borderlands; Wolves; Owls; Jumping Mice; Extinct Woodpeckers;
Invasive Species; Wilderness; Hunting and Fishing Constrictions; Ginseng;
Animal Welfare; Federal Heritage Areas; Federal Absorption of State
Authorities; Federal "String-Tightening" on Federal Funds;
Environmental and
Animal Rights Alliances and Agendas; Merger of State and Federal
Bureaucracies; Animal Registration; Animal Non-Control, Predators;
Wildlands; Corridors; Federal and State Land Closures and Non-Management;
Bureaucratic Arrogance; Historical Parallels; Government and Radical
Organization Propagandizing of the Young and Urban Elites; Media Complicity
in Environmental Agendas; Silent "Partnering" Between Federal
Bureaucrats,
Radical Organizations, and the UN; Endangered Species; Marine Mammals; The
War on Logging, Ranching, and Rural Residents; Animal Ownership; and The
Changes To Our Society and Laws and Traditions and Culture as a result of
all these things are but a few of the things I write about.
Readers and friends routinely say I am wasting my time. "You can't
change
things" and "what do you have to show for all your time" are
two common
refrains. I must admit they have something. Things appear to
simply
accumulate and the total impact is an ever-expanding list of evils and
harms.
I try to give advice about why we need alliances; who is behind what
scandal; why the US Senate needs to be changed back to election by State
Legislatures and how to do it; how bureaucrats cover up for themselves and
politicians and radicals; why State bureaucrats and "our conservation
outfits" are less and less in evidence; how money and power are
perverting
our society; and what must be done before it gets any further out of hand
and still there seems to be no relief. Why?
Like most writers I avoid two topics as much as possible, those two topics
are politics and religion. That has been a mistake. Like reform of
the US
Senate, it has taken me years of writing and speaking and thinking to
realize the importance of these two elements in the things we are concerned
about. If I lose readers so be it. These topics are truly the 800
lb.
gorilla in so many of these matters and it is unfair to ignore them because
if we fail to view the entire issue, solutions elude us.
This discovery is the result of a recent task that I agreed to assume. A
South American Veterinary Journal asked me to write a paper on Animal
Welfare and in trying to write so as to engage South American veterinarians,
the usual clichés and government descriptions became meaningless. As I
struggled with finding the proper medium, the importance and commonality of
political and moral dimensions to the problems became as apparent as a swan
in the decoys.
Don't get me wrong. It is not my intention to encourage you to vote for
Joe
or not to vote for those bums. It is not my intention to encourage any
particular religion or religious practice. It is my intention to mention
the things we don't speak about because we are afraid of offending someone
or being perceived as this or that so relevant facts are never mentioned as
we dialogue about what we are facing.
For instance, I attended a contentious Republican District Chairman election
(my first ever) last week at the request of a friend. I was amazed to
find
a table full of environmental and animal propaganda as I entered. It
belonged on a table at an Animal Rights Conference as it called for more
laws, more government land acquisition, more Federal power, more land
closure, more Federal Heritage Area Declarations, and more elimination of
human uses of renewable and non-renewable natural resources. The point
here
isn't that many Republicans support these things, the point is that the
majority of radicals and bureaucrats and politicians behind these campaigns
are Democrats and have the support of the Democratic Party. So the
question
we should be asking is "who" or "where" is our side?
The few politicians I
see fighting for sensible laws, like Congressman Pombo Chairman of the House
Resources Committee, are demeaned and attacked in the primary by other
Republicans and targeted by National radical groups like the Defenders of
Wildlife. We need to talk and think about how we organize "our
side" like
the groups that have been savaging us (everyone from hunters and fishermen
to property owners and rodeos). It can't be done without mentioning
politics.
Religion and Morality: what topic is a better sneer-getter? Ever read
why
we "need" "more" Wilderness or why we "must"
eradicate Invasive Species and
"restore" Native Ecosystems? Next time read it carefully.
It isn't just
romantic drivel or biological nonsense from a cartoon or uplifting captions
on beautiful photographs: it is all these things PLUS a quasi-religious call
to action that makes you a bad person if you question or ignore it.
Think about this appeal and why it is so effective. Sure it makes
millions
for radicals and it is steroids to bureaucrats but to many young people it
is much more. Why? I believe it is because we are LOSING OUR MORAL
AGREEMENT that has underpinned our nation for 200 plus years. Consider
the
loss of weekly church attendance, the slackening of doctrinal positions, and
the "secularizing" of society or the growth of "humanism"
and even "atheism".
Like Western Europe (another hotbed of environmental and animal wackiness
and religious laxity), as we more and more believe "nothing", the
more we
will believe "anything". If there was an influx of Chinese
peasants
tomorrow that believed that baby girls shouldn't be allowed to live and they
generated the money and power like the environmentalists have and could get
votes, care to bet on their success despite what the Declaration of
Independence and Constitution say? I believe the moral vacuum in
our
society is ipso facto a fertile seed-bed for all the science and nature
worship that is being used to implement radical agendas and ruin this
nation.
So mention them I will. If you hear someone say they "used" to
read me or
they think I have "gone over the edge", at least you will know why.
Jim Beers
26 May 2006
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