Save MY Rights, Please

For the past four decades (since the late 1960’s when race riots and “free” love and drugged-up hippies advocating “peace” and the “environment” emerged under a Democrat White House and Democrat-controlled Congress) American history has been dominated by the destruction of “unalienable” and Constitutional Rights with the simultaneous erosion of State and local government authority and the customs, traditions, culture, and freedoms that have been the hallmarks of American society for over 2 centuries.  All of those things that distinguished the United States from all other nations and that were the magnets for immigration levels unmatched in world history are being swept away as we disregard our Constitution, embrace European government models, and become abject before other nations for not having been perfect throughout our existence.  Anyone not recognizing this truth and not concerned about the breathtaking acceleration of these changes at this time (summer 2009) need not read further.

The radical late 1960’s noted above resulted in many destructive trends.  Presidents, Congressmen, and even Supreme Court Justices with but a few exceptions catered, for myriad reasons few of which could be called honorable, to the radicals and their Draconian objectives.  A few examples make the point:

- The Supreme Court fabricated a “right to privacy” out of thin air thereby legitimizing “recreational” sex and set in motion the deterioration of marriage and family life at the expense of the lives of unborn children.  The results also included a growing acceptance of same-sex political demands, debates about killing children now up to two years of age, tolerance for mercy-killing, and consideration of euthanizing the elderly (see current “Health Care” legislative proposals for mandatory “end-of-life” counseling and claims about how “we” (through “our” government) have a right to deny care to the elderly or to force doctors and nurses to perform abortions and euthanize the elderly or disabled (“since we are paying for it”).  The loss of the first and most important “unalienable’ right “endowed by their Creator” as mentioned in The Declaration of Independence, i.e. “Life”, is indisputable for the millions sacrificed with government authority over the past four decades.

- Large cities like Boston, New York City, Chicago, and the Northern New Jersey megalopolis have dominated their State legislatures and forced passage statewide and locally of gun control legislation that clearly “infringes” on the Constitutional “right to bear Arms” that is clearly stated in the US Constitution.  Further the government of the District of Columbia, and federal agencies like The National Park Service and US Fish and Wildlife Service (all composed of bureaucrats ostensibly sworn to uphold the Constitution of the United States and paid for by US tax dollars) have instigated and enforced extreme infringements (i.e. total bans) on the Constitutional “right to bear Arms”.  The Supreme Court, Congress, and several Presidents (again all of whom are sworn to uphold the Constitution while being paid by “We the People”!) have supported this destruction of a Constitutional right of millions.

- Congress passes, and Presidents sign, legislation like The Endangered Species Act, examples of which regarding the elimination of private property rights, State’s rights, and individual rights would fill books.  Congress passes, and Presidents sign, legislation demanding that everyone be classified by race and gender for “preferences” in hiring, contract awards, bonuses, transfers, housing, and on and on: each “preference” given is a right denied another solely on a basis that should be repugnant to anyone believing that “all men are created equal”.

- The current “Health Care”, “Stimulus Funding”, “Buyouts of GMC and Chrysler”, “TARP Funding”, etc. changes all involve losses of rights for doctors, patients, car buyers, investors, the elderly, young children, and so many others.  The rate of passage of recent elimination of rights is staggering and the fact that it is all rushed through as an “emergency” 1.) without public hearings - or 2.) copies made available for public review – or 3.) with Congressional confessions that they have not even read what they pass – or 4.) without any Supreme Court challenges based on enforcement of the US Constitution (the ONLY purpose of a “Supreme” Court), 5.) at the insistence of a President surrounded by radicals of every stripe from abortion expanders to environmental and race extremists to anti-gun and animal rights fanatics.

I have been writing and speaking about this loss of rights for about ten years. My area of interest and expertise tends to be the environment and animal aspects of American society.  I support the management and use of wild plants and animals as public property and the ownership and use of domestic animals as private property.  I have a long track record with and I am opposed to the unnecessarily restrictive use and insufficient management of public lands.  I am opposed to State governments interference with local jurisdiction over domestic animal owners and to federal legislation that goes beyond legitimate “Interstate Commerce” issues.  I am opposed to, and despised by, organizations from PETA and HSUS to The Wilderness Society to The Nature Conservancy (the “nest” from which Treasury Secretary “Hank” “Stimulus” Paulson emerged). 

None of this is to say that PETA members ought not to be able to advocate veganism or HSUS to collect money for “shelters” (which by the way they do not do).  I object when they campaign to stop all hunting or fishing or to force dog breeders out of business or to give “their” animal wardens all manner of un-Constitutional powers.  When they attempt to eliminate the ownership and use of all animals (starting with pets and “smart” animals like whales and seals that are so “cute”) they must be opposed. Likewise TNC and Greenpeace et al are certainly free to buy property or to advocate avoiding whale meat or seal products; it is when TNC and federal agencies form hidden and illegal partnerships to but and control land or when Greenpeace prevents sensible whale management or recovery of commercial fish stocks that I oppose them.  It is when The Wilderness Society and The Sierra Club influence the closure of public lands and the elimination of the management and use of natural resources and when they stack the federal agencies and Universities with fellow travelers that in turn force out resource managers and reinstate pagan worship of nonsense like “Native Ecosystems” and “Wilderness” and “Roadless” and “Electric Motor Only” Areas that they must be opposed.  In all of these instances (and there are many more) the “loss of rights” meaning loss of culture, traditions, property, heritage and other aspects of the lives of American citizens is the thing that is most descriptive of the “problem” for those directly affected.

I was fired 10 years ago after 32 years of federal service for doing my job of protecting the rights of State governments to maintain trapping programs dependent on the sale of furs by American trappers to European fur markets.  I have since tried to help all those being harmed by government programs like wolf introductions and protection.  I have tried to help those threatened by the condemnation of their property by unholy cabals like TNC and Defense bureaucrats.  I have tried to help landowners and resource users threatened by the US Fish and Wildlife Service with the loss of irrigation water or the use of property “designated” as “essential” to some bird flock or fish school.  I have tried to help farmers and urban children exposed to goose concentrations and the health hazards they present or rural communities facing imminent destruction because of government radicals in control of government lands.  I have tried to help dog owners threatened by Nazi-like animal “welfare” laws and animal wardens.  What it almost always boils down to is the question, “how do we get anyone to support us?”

In fact, hunters’ organizations seldom support trapping.  Easterners and urban folks seldom ever consider ranchers and rural people suffering from wolves.  Few people care about government land purchases and control unless they feel threatened themselves.  Unless you irrigate or know someone that does, helping irrigators never crosses your mind.  If you don’t have geese pooping all over the park or schoolyard where your children play or polluting your field such that it will not grow anything in large swaths (from poop) you don’t care.  If you don’t breed dogs, the idea of “no-knock” and even “no-warrant” searches to uncover animal abuse seems justifiable as you gaze at your daughter’s golden retriever, Buffy.  As States are going broke, the erosion of more State’s rights to federal bureaucrats to insure more “Stimulus” or “Bailout” or “Subsidy” money seems like a good bargain (at the moment).  So who will support whom?  What is “the” answer?

I used to try and suggest people and organizations that would help those asking for help as their rights were threatened but alas few cared.  I wrote about the need to help say, gamefowl breeders and cock fighters to remain under the auspices of local jurisdictions (as opposed State or federal authorities) but the hate mail and loss of “readers” was large.  No, there is only “one” answer to how to save and restore our rights.

When one right can be eliminated, the precedent for other rights to be eliminated is established and enlarged. Whenever we accept that, sure they need a gun in rural areas but here in the urban area they should be banned, you have opened a door that jeopardizes every other right.  Until we each understand that you don’t have to own or use guns to grasp the importance of the Right of others to “bear Arms” for instance, that Right remains in jeopardy.  Until we each accept the Right of citizens to own and use animals, that Right is in jeopardy.  Until we each accept that private property can only be “taken” for a public “use” and that the owner must always be compensated, that Right is in jeopardy.  Until we can tolerate that while we may be repelled by uses such as gamefowl owners fighting their birds as generations have done for eons and that we may actively oppose such events and places IN OUR COMMUNITY, if we begin to prohibit such legitimate use of animals by their owners everywhere then not only is that Right in jeopardy; so is hunting, fishing, trapping, and animal husbandry from livestock to poultry.  In sum, “your rights are my rights and my rights are your rights”.

This means speaking out at family gatherings, at lunches, and with neighbors in a positive way about how you may not agree with such and such but others and other communities should CONTINUE TO HAVE THE FREEDOM TO MAINTAIN IT.  This means not electing politicians that are amenable to taking away the rights of American citizens whoever they may be or whatever they may do that bothers others, no matter what they promise you. This means assuring that schoolteachers and University staffs uphold American values (“unalienable” rights, and Constitutional dictates) or replacing them.  This means federal and State agencies that employ bureaucrats that uphold rather that destroy Constitutional principles. This means once again looking at all neighbors as friends and forthrightly correcting and opposing those that would take away the rights of others.

Although there is apparently a significant part of the citizenry amenable to taking away the rights of others, they, like those limited groups they individually target are limited themselves.  Whether you want or oppose some New Mexico town to allow a bullring isn’t the question: the question is should a New Mexico town continue to have the jurisdiction to apply community standards to their own town and its residents?  The question isn’t whether there should be another “Wilderness Declaration”: the question is should the federal government be able to buy and control land that is neither managed, used, nor accessible?  The question isn’t whether I should be able to carry a concealed weapon as authorized by my State government on a federal Park or Refuge in MY State; the question is whether federal bureaucrats sworn to uphold the Constitution can deny me this right by claiming State sovereignty over State land and waters for a purpose unrelated to any national security or other issue? 

If we cannot “hang together”; this Administration, Congress, Supreme Court, and craven State governments are rapidly proving the old maxim about therefore, “hanging separately”.

Jim Beers

24 July 2009