Anyone who has read the newspapers or listened to the news in
recent years
is aware of the "Social Security Crisis". Growing numbers of
retirees,
dwindling numbers of workers, growing numbers of retired voters, retiree
"Associations" exerting political pressure, and a herd of Federal
politicians that talk about the approaching "goes broke" date at
election
time and before select crowds and then become tongue-tied after their
reelection. The result? Actuaries, with mathematical certainty, lay
out
the dates and dollars needed to "rescue" Social Security and everyone
immediately falls into one of four categories.
The retirees and about-to retire buckle up and prepare to go forth and
defend the status quo to the death, so to speak. The middle-aged workers
groaning under current taxes and faced with increasing taxes argue for
shifting to a partial government payment and partial personal savings
approach underwritten by government. Younger workers and those entering
the
workforce laugh and allow as how Social Security won't be there for them
anyway so just chuck it and let people take care of themselves. The
politicians furrow their brows publicly while telling their staff that if
any inquiry or allegation about Social Security gets past them and touches
said "public servant" the responsible staffer will be looking for work
in
the dreaded "private sector"!
It's a lot like this with animals and the environment. Everybody with
their
own narrow axe to grind, a looming catastrophe, and a political myth that
somehow everything will work out: it always does, doesn't it? Only the
approaching environmental disaster (no, not "global warming" or
"pollution"
or "too many people" or any of the current fad philosophies planted by
radicals and socialists), unlike the "Social Security Crisis", may not
be
amenable to resolution without a complete makeover of government.
Let us take the actuarial approach and examine the environmental and animal
rights "accomplishments" of the past 35 years and then consider
current
developments and try to calibrate and describe what things will be like in,
say, 35 years (the drop dead date for Social Security).
1.) Central Government Growth in the "pollution"
bureaucracy (EPA et al)
and the "conservation" bureaucracies (USFS, BLM, USACoE, FWS, NPS,
BuRec,
NMFS, et al) will be spectacular. They will "have to have" MORE
money and
bureaucrats and authority as more land and animals and human activities are
placed under their control. The steady passage of "vote-getting"
laws by
"caring" politicians will assure this. Costs for all this will
increase
dramatically while rural business and sustainable use of natural resources
disappear along with the government funding support they used to generate.
2.) Wilderness, Roadless, and Marine Sanctuary Designations
will continue
to proliferate. "Wildlands", Wildlife 'Corridors'",
"Highlands",
"Borderlands", etc. are terms of art that will succeed each other in
justifying "new" programs of acquisition and control every so many
years.
It will matter not whether under the Left (as with Clinton and his notorious
"Executive Orders") or the Right (as with Bush's Hawaiian Marine
Sanctuary).
These are, and will be more openly understood to be, not the purported
attempts to "save" anything but the raw exercise of power (never
intended or
authorized by our Constitution) to squeeze hunting, fishing, ranching,
logging, and the management and use of all living and inanimate natural
resources until they are no longer available or accessible to society. Not
only the resources themselves from timber and game animals and fish to oil
and forage for domestic animals will disappear from rural economies and
markets, costs for "administering, regulating, enforcing, etc." all
the
"emerging problems" will exceed anything imagined to date. At
the same time
that government costs increase, government income (and citizen uses) will
decrease thereby resulting in the demand for more general taxes in an
economy that is eliminating a significant and renewable source of income.
3.) The Endangered Species Act and the Marine Mammal
Protection Act will
continue to name more and more "species" as coming under perpetual
Federal
authority. Current consideration of dividing overabundant manatees into
some artificial "Subspecies" or "Populations" designations
like the claim of
the status of Louisiana bears or Florida bears as justifying Federal
intervention are thinly disguised steps in the eventual Federal seizure of
all State jurisdictions over any and all animals as a way of controlling
human activities as envisioned by Socialists worldwide. This will further
restrict natural resource uses and management and the income and taxes it
generates while increasing the need for "more" Federal employees and
Federal
budget dollars.
4.) All pets and most livestock will steadily be placed under
Federal
control as the Animal Welfare Act is expanded incrementally (currently it is
doing what supporters said would "never" be done, that is sucking into
its'
control mice and rats and even racing pigeons). Added to this will be the
steady passage of ancillary laws like Nevada Senator Ensign's "Primate
Protection" or Pennsylvania Senator Santorum's "Puppy
Protection". "Great
Ape" deification as having "human rights" as recently proposed in
Spain and
bans on any use of primates for medical tests (as in Britain and New
Zealand) will become "law" given the right political career need of
one or
more politicians and the opportune action of bureaucrats and animal rights
radicals. Animal "ownership" will be eliminated and replaced
first by
"guardianship" that will then be eliminated as a simple but newly
"documented" power that government can grant or withdraw at its
pleasure.
The result will be the diminishment of medical progress and the
disappearance of pets and livestock as breeders and owners and researchers
are eliminated by licensing, regulations, inspections, and enforcement to
"set an example" and justify "more" Federal employees and
"more" budget to
"save more" animals as revenues decline.
5.) Federal authority to eliminate all "Non-Native"
or "Invasive" Species
and "Restore Native Ecosystems" will be a task that bureaucrats will
describe as taking Trillions of dollars and centuries. The new Federal tax
dollars and employees awarded Federal (and State) bureaucracies for these
purposes will dwarf anything undertaken to date. The "necessary
work" will
include the Federal absorption of any remaining allegiance of State agencies
to State government or State residents to be replaced by Federal dollars
"administered" by Federal bureaucrats (much like Highway Funding).
Additionally, the "taking of private property without compensation for
Non-Public Use" will expand from Endangered Species Critical Habitat and
now
The Kelo Decision to condemnation at a set figure for "Native
Ecosystem"
enhancement and "Invasive Species" control. Whether by some new
court
decision (The Beers Decision?) or by some Federal regulation under the new
law, our children will come to view "private property rights" just
like
Russian children did in say 1925.
6.) "Scenic Highways", "Scenic Rivers" and
"National Heritage Areas" will
be supplanted by even more deceitful descriptors of Federal control of State
and local governments and rural residents. Road improvements and sewage
plants and logging and "viewsheds" and watersheds, and aquifers, and
places
claimed to be historically "significant" will all steadily come under
Federal control by this clever use of radical groups fronting for Federal
agencies and their agendas. Federal politicians (I am "under"
many such
here in Virginia) will clip voter coupon after coupon as they use this ploy
to help the radicals while making the "others" think they aren't
taking away
their rights or growing government or making rural America simply an
uninhabitable vacation drive for urban elites when television isn't offering
much. Oh and costs of all this (hidden and apparent) will only increase
while rural tax bases decrease. Ever really stop to think about ALL the
annual costs of operating and maintaining more and more government land?
Current history only confirms that "saving" v. managing or using the
land is
MORE expensive and it generates LESS income.
7.) Predators, the large destructive kind like wolves and
cougars and
grizzly bears, will occur in every State. Yes, once wolves are dropped
into
New England and given the status of (what?, not children or the aged or the
sick to be sure) say whales or seals they will spread even into little Rhode
Island just as they are spreading into Illinois and Indiana farm country as
I write. Human attacks will be very common and we will have abandoned the
"they NEVER attack" silliness for the newer "they BELONG here and
this is
how we must live" feces of the moment. Rural dogs will be gone but
still
used as convenient scapegoats. Most game animals will be scarce to
non-existent as we are told that is how "it was" or how "Mother
Nature"
dictates (everyone light a candle). Government will still cover-up attacks
("dogs did it", "no real proof", "they probably
wandered off", "Professor
Blowhard says they NEVER do that", etc.). "Live trapping"
and "relocation
will still be believed as a solution. "Marking some animals (a tiny
portion) will be touted as "evidence", as any use or management is
forbidden
either as "cruel" as a federal judge recently ruled about sea lion
research
or as forbidden by some regulation under any of a number of new laws. Even
when a horrendous attack occurs (and they will) like wolves in a day care
center yard or a bear in a scout group campground the public will discover
that there are few control methods that work and that public land
restrictions and private ownerships by predator loving rich folks or
"government-partner" organizations preclude any effective control.
Besides,
the Universities no longer teach such things and employees are reluctant to
do something like Kill an animal.
8.) Wildfires will be more extensive and more frequent.
As logging is
barred, areas of low fire hazard (recently logged) turn into high hazard
areas. As roads disappear, containing or cutting off fires becomes all but
impossible and much more expensive as the only limit on a fire's size and
harm is weather. As undergrowth proliferates due to less domestic grazing
and fewer big game animals (remember all those predators) fire fuel
increases in area and density. Higher costs for more and more expensive
fire fighting are coupled with less taxes and less income available to and
from rural communities and rural governments and the bureaucracies that own
the land. Who will "pick up the tab"?
9.) Hunting and fishing and trapping are to be eliminated
whenever and
wherever possible. Disappearance of revenue to government agencies from
hunting and fishing (the backbone of "conservation for over a century) is
gleefully anticipated by State and federal bureaucrats anticipating the
unleashing of Federal funding to switch from natural resource management and
use to "saving" and "caring for" an indefinable and
un-measurable
environment. This will be enabled by the drive for a UN Gun Treaty to gut
the 2nd Amendment and the final elimination of any education of the young in
firearms or trapping or even fishing.
10.) Easements (wetlands, historic, conservation,
land-use, etc.)
financed by tax breaks and multi-Billion dollar "Conservancies" and
"Societies" will be merged with the government lands in management
"partnerships" that will serve as conduits for restricting ammunition
or
hooks and then hunting and fishing and trapping and then access to all but
favored and influential people. Like Admission Fees on public lands today
that keep out the riffraff, the revenue will provide little in funding but
will largely control the public as more and more employees and budgets are
required from Congress. Justifications like those for wetlands (really
developed in the 1950's to save duck habitat for maintaining hunting
populations and then adopted by environmentalists and bureaucrats to gain
control of all waters) will be adapted to new theories about the need for
certain watershed controls in order to reestablish a plant or the need for
contiguous untouched woodlands for an imaginary woodpecker, etc. Everyone,
especially the young will come to believe that this Socialists' Dream is the
way it always was and the way it SHOULD be.
11.) State fish and wildlife agencies will be like
State Highway
Departments. Their role, first and foremost, will be to get every nickel
due the State (from the Federal government) at the earliest moment.
Rewards
will be based on this. Federal mandates from what plants can be used along
roads to what plant or animal is to receive attention with what funds will
be determined by Federal bureaucrats or better yet by Federal politicians
(think Highway Bill Projects every couple of years, you know "The Bridge To
Nowhere", etc.). Talk about a vote-getter!
12.) The loss of domestic timber (i.e. lumber)
will continue to drive
up prices as wildfires rage and loggers follow blacksmiths and buggy whip
manufacturers into history. The high price of oil will drive the prices of
lumber even higher as substitute faux wood (plastic) need oil refinery
byproducts (olefins) that will be taxed and regulated even more to "teach
the oil companies a lesson" and require a new blend every month to counter
either global warming or cooling depending on the politics of the day. We
will continue to argue that the Canadians should sell us their lumber for
less while we refuse to harvest and allow our timber to burn up at great
cost. (This is akin to our anger at the oil companies for world oil prices
as we refuse to utilize our own oil resources or build new refineries, or
our opposition to coal burning and hydroelectric power as we ignore nuclear
power and tout bird-killing and inefficient windmills.) Like all the
foregoing, more employees and more Federal budget will be "necessary".
(The
best example of this phenomenon was last week when a news item mentioned a
proposed Arizona law to fly a US flag in every Arizona classroom and some U
of Arizona bureaucrat saying they would "need more money" if the law
passed!)