I. Introduction.
Ever since the political and social turmoil of the late 1960's, the United
States and indeed most of the "developed" or "western"
nations of the world
and the United Nations bureaucracy itself have been greatly affected by the
power and activities of the environmental and animal rights movement. You
will note that I refer to "environmental and animal rights" as a
single
"movement". Having dealt with, written about, and observed the
spectrum of
this alliance of what at first glance appears to be a disparate amalgam of
unrelated "movements" it is my firm belief that they are and should be
viewed as one entity with many facets.
I have had glimpses of this unified entity only rarely. When I attended an
Animal Rights Conference in 2001 it became apparent to me that the
environmental and animal rights groups from the innocent-sounding to the
radical and deadly fringe groups were not only cooperating with each other
but also integrated into Federal government agencies and Congressional
staffs as well as women's groups and groups that protest everything from
world trade to social policies. In spite of six previous years confronting
anti-hunting, anti-trapping, anti-fur, and anti-natural resource use and
management organizations I was dumbstruck at that Conference by the radical
hidden agendas intertwined behind all of the environmental and animal rights
campaigns and organizations. This common radical agenda is something I
have
strived to describe and explain in my writings and speeches for over 7 years
now. It is my belief that only when a sufficient number of those being
adversely affects by these agendas and a critical mass of the general public
understand the nature of this common agenda will there begin to be hope that
a dialogue about evaluating changes (legislative, social, traditions,
Constitutional, etc.) to date and decisions regarding future proposals can
be fairly made in an informed fashion.
Environmental and animal rights battles of the past 35 years can best be
described as fighting a series of forest fires. Environmentalists and
animal rights groups propose a thing and those opposed fight back and lose.
Laws and UN Resolutions are passed, the Federal government buys and controls
more property, State' Constitutional jurisdictions dwindle while Federal
authorities grow, one species after another and one land unit after another
is "protected" and closed to human use and management, farming and
ranching
and pets are limited and increasingly proscribed, human activities like
hunting and fishing and trapping and rodeos and circuses and logging are
constricted and eliminated, "protected" species and deadly predators
are
spread by government fiat and the commercial and recreational uses of
desirable species disappears, and rural country sides are vacated as forest
fires and ruined economies force rural residents into constrained urban
densities. Examples of environmental and animal rights mayhem (though
hardly exhaustive) would include elimination of elephant ivory use,
protection of all marine mammals (whales, seals, etc.) from management and
harvest, a "Puppy Protection Act", Wilderness designations, Roadless
Areas,
"Wildlands", Wildlife "Corridors", "Critical
Habitat'" designations without
payment to owners, Animal Welfare Act power far exceeding Federal
jurisdiction, a Federal ban on the "slaughter" of horses, outlawing
all
trapping (NJ & MA), Federal "Invasive Species" authority, and
increasingly
higher percentages of Federal funding of State fish and wildlife agencies
with concomitant Federal power over State bureaucracies.
Each of these actions has affected a narrow slice of the citizenry at
various times. More often than not those affected try to fight to maintain
their rights but the combined political and financial power of the national
and international environmental and animal rights movement always prevails.
Add in the desire of Federal politicians to tap into the appeal that
supporting "puppies" or "wilderness", etc. generates from
urban and suburban
voters busy with other things and the fact that there is no downside for
such "sensitivity" and you have a recipe for continued success.
Incredibly, most citizens continually see themselves as unaffected such that
hunters remain silent when elephant and whale protection are enacted or
trapping is proscribed and pet owners are nowhere to be found when horses
are designated "American icons" (to enact a Federal ban on owners
selling
their property for slaughter) or "puppy mills" are eliminated by
Federal
authority invention regarding licensing and inspection. Private property
owners likewise remain silent when the Federal government introduces and
protects wolves that kill livestock and dogs, property for which owners are
not compensated while pouring billions into land acquisition, land control
(easements) and tax-support for "non-profits" that act as surrogates
for
government agencies and the environmental and animal rights agenda. Thus
the Federal laws are passed and expanded (by regulations and Court
decisions) more often than not by collusion between the environmental and
animal rights movement and bureaucrats that hope to profit (budget-wise,
salary-wise, power-wise, and retirement-wise) by such federal growth.
Cooperative State agencies and UN bureaucracies reinforce this growth both
by silence and active cooperation to share in future power and funding.
So what is this business about the "religious" nature of this
movement?
I submit that this movement has achieved unprecedented power and caused
dramatic losses of our rights and traditions in a short period because we
perceive it as and treat it as an ideology and not as a religious (or
quasi-religious) movement.
For instance, when gun control groups began to threaten gun owners; gun
owners formed a National Rifle Association and a Gun Owners of America and
State gun associations. Most gun owners threw their money in the pot.
Lawsuits or new laws were challenged in court and argued openly. Books and
articles abound: Japan "proves" gun control works, Australia and
England
"prove" it doesn't, Hitler confiscated registered guns to begin his
oppression, the UN wants to control all guns, history shows that gun control
only expands once it is begun, concealed weapons have helped to decrease
crime, and so goes our national discussion. We may disagree about
"facts"
but "facts" they are and each of us is entitled to interpret them.
Keeping
or losing our guns depends on argument and commitment and determination. The
gun control movement is a classic ideology based on personal beliefs.
On the other hand, the "sacredness" of wilderness, the
"iconic" nature of
the American horse, the "abomination" of trapping or wearing fur, the
urgency of "restoring" "native" species or eradicating
"Invasive Species",
the "fact" that no one has the "right" to "own"
and animal, the "fact" that
we should not raise or eat meat, the "fact" that hunting and fishing
(i.e.
hunters and fishermen) should be eliminated, the belief that people are "in
their (i.e. wildlife) habitat" or that people killed or injured by
unmanaged
and protected wildlife are at fault, and many other such assertions of the
environmental and animal rights movement are seemingly irrefutable. Why?
Because they emanate from religious beliefs about God and Man and the earth
and all that is in it or on it and not from interpretable facts as in other
ideologies.
Saying that all the various facets of the environmental and animal rights
movement have the same basic beliefs is far more accurate than it would be
to say the same thing for all the gun control groups. The basis for all the
"sacredness" and "iconic" nature of certain (a growing list
but soon all)
plants and animals and the rationale why humans must be controlled and their
activities proscribed by environmental and animal rights power brokers is
implied as coming from "science" or "reverence" for nature
or "humane"
concepts or "advanced" thinking or ancient pagan worship of natural
phenomena. In any case, they are based on unquestionable beliefs as
interpreted by "experts". Like ancient pagan priests, they make
assertions
that may not be questioned and indeed are assumed to be unintelligible to
most of the populace. It is the need for absolute adherence to these
beliefs that justifies the erosion of private property, the growth of
Federal power, the elimination of rights and traditions, and the control of
the publics' place and method of living, employment, and transportation.
It is my intention to attempt to dissect the origin and nature of these
environmental and animal rights beliefs in a series of Essays. This is
important in my view to rethink how we address these matters in the future.
Even in this period of political obsession with Terror and Immigration, the
need to understand and deal with the continuing power and growth of the
environmental and animal rights agenda was never greater. Either we
reevaluate the rate of growth of Federal power and Federal bureaucracies and
the loss of our liberties and property to this movement or soon this nation
and American citizens will be unrecognizable to us or to our children.
Jim Beers
19 September 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.
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.