Watching the news at this time (the "14th day" of
the latest Israel/? War)
brings back recent memories of my visit to Israel. We stayed at a hotel on
the Sea of Galilee in Tiberias that has been largely evacuated. We drove
along the Israel/Lebanon border towns where reporters now talk in flak
jackets and helmets while explaining what the puffs of smoke on the horizon
indicate. We drove across the Golan Heights from which Syrian guns used to
shell Tiberias and surroundings. As we listen to analysts and reporters
and
"experts" speculate and propagandize about terrorism and Iran and
Syria and
Lebanon I am reminded of - "The confrontation between the
environmentalist/animal rights radicals and the rest of us going on in the
United States."
You may think that is a stretch but I submit that the more you think about
it, the more sense it makes and the more we can learn from it.
Terrorists, Islamo-fascists, Islamic fundamentalists, whatever you want to
call them and Iran and Syria and the UN and Hamas and Hezbollah, and the PLO
and Saudi Arabia and all their chums WANT to eradicate Israel and kill every
Jew they can find there. Oh sure some are more open about it than others
and some are our "friends" and some sell us oil but we all know what
they
want to do to Israel and the Jews (and Christians too) therein.
How does that differ from our own homegrown radicals like the Humane Society
of the US and the Wilderness Society and the "Defenders" of Wildlife
and the
National Wildlife Federation and Greenpeace and the Sierra Club and Animal
Protection Institute and PETA and ALF &ELF and SHAC and FARM and The Nature
Conservancy and all their chums? This bunch, like the Terrorists mentioned
above, represents a "spectrum". While each fills a niche
(Hezbollah and
Hamas say what Saudi Arabia and Iraqi Shiites don't) from the suicide bomber
to the smooth talking (in a British accent no less) western protector of
Islamic rights while our radicals get one of their leaders appointed
Treasury Secretary while the PETA lady equates children with rats and ALF
participants in Animal Rights Conferences giggle while telling potential
volunteers to "meet them later in the hall". All of them want
the total and
complete elimination of hunting, logging, fishing, pet ownership, livestock
grazing and ownership, trapping, the use of meat or fur, ranches, rodeos,
farms, rural living, roads, all uses of "public" lands, private
property
(except for theirs), and individual rights.
Let's compare the two conflicts and see if they really are comparable:
1.) - Israel lets Moslems have mosques and practice their faith freely.
Christian Holy Sites are protected and available to pilgrims from all over
the world.
- All Americans, except for the radicals, want others to be free to lead
their lives as they see fit. Animal ownership, animal use, rural living,
ranching, meat eating, trapping fur wearing, rodeoing, gun possession, etc.,
etc. are things to be enjoyed or avoided as each would. Americans want to
deny other Americans their right "to keep and bear Arms" or to force
them to
hunt or eat meat about as much as Israelis want to force Moslems to become
Jews or to deny Moslems the right to pray in their own mosques.
- The Terrorists, on the other hand, want to destroy every Synagogue and
kill or deport every Jew. They want to put everyone under Sharia Law
(Immams) and force every non-Moslem to convert (just as they did when they
first conquered the "Middle East" and North Africa and they do in
Africa and
the Philippines today and as they did when they occupied parts of Europe
centuries ago.)
- Our own radicals want to "own" or control through easement or
government
fiat ALL property in the US. They want to eliminate every hunter,
fisherman, rancher, logger, animal owner, animal eater, farmer, rural
resident, traditions, and "free" American. They are agreed on
this and like
their Terrorist cousins, they each play a role and offer a different
"face"
as required for their incremental march. They want everyone else to behave
and live as they direct.
2.) Israel and America stand for tolerance while their adversaries stand for
intolerance and subjugation. The difference between them is the difference
between freedom and tyranny.
3.) Israeli schools like (less and less all the time) American schools teach
truth. The Terrorists, like the US radicals (many of whom are teachers and
NTA bosses) caricature and lie about history and about other people.
Terrorists teach kids about how Jews are pigs and how Jews drink blood while
our radicals teach about how trapping encourages violence and how hunters
are sexual offenders and how children taught about guns are sure to misuse
them.
4.) Newspapers and TV reporting in the US and Israel may be severely slanted
in individual cases but that only encourages other outlets to capitalize on
being "fair and balanced" or meant to "give the other side".
The Terrorists
have Al Jazeera showing decapitations and ridiculous lies about Israel and
America and the fighting and where the weapons come from. The radicals
have
many of the US newspapers and a slew of magazines trumpeting all the lies
(Ivory-billed Woodpeckers, Lynx fur, Washington DC pollution of the Potomac,
herring and alewife restoration in Connecticut, wolf impacts, endangered
"species", whale and seal status, etc.) necessary to get more
government
funding, bigger and more powerful Federal agencies, more subservient (to the
federal government) State agencies, and continuing judicial support.
5.)While Israel has us, the Terrorists have the UN. The UN
"wants" a
"cease-fire", the UN wants "money for peacekeeping", the UN
will "consider"
the matter if things stop, the UN will enforce disarmament and borders
(while the Terrorists regroup and rearm). The UN will allow China and
Russia to cooperate with and manipulate (who manipulates who?) Iran and
Syria for other agendas. Likewise our own radicals have the Federal
agencies stacked with their sympathizers and former employees. The
agencies
"introduce the wolves" and then "partner" with every
"coalition" and
"council" and fellow travelers like the Ted Turner ranch and the
"Defenders"
of Wildlife (led by the former head of the US Fish and Wildlife Service when
$60 Million was stolen from the State fish and wildlife agencies) to
eliminate elk and deer hunting, ranching and farming, sheep herding and
cattle grazing, dairy farming, dog ownership, horse pasturing, etc. while
all their own "experts" assure everyone that it isn't happening and
much of
the press reports it as truth.
6.) What about suicide bombers you say? Well consider the pre-vet college
girls recruited to release mink from their farm cages in the dead of night.
Think there is any chance of their getting shot in the dark by some
overweight Dad in a flannel nightshirt trying to protect his livelihood for
his family? Think of the propaganda value that would have. What
about the
ALF and ELF arsons and life-threatening activities? What about SHAC
beating
up researchers with baseball bats and putting bricks through their windows
as they eat a meal with their families? What about the PETA folks and
anti-hunters "joking" about killing hunters or mailing razor blades or
bombs
to people who oppose them? They are all characterized as enthusiasts or
"kids" just like the little suicide darlings "last tapes"
run on Al Jazeera.
7.) So Hezbollah is a "front" for Iran and Syria is a "cats
paw" for Iran.
Is that any different than TNC and HSUS and the rest forming local
"cells"
to challenge projects and advocate State and local laws designed by the
national and international organizations? Whether it is manipulating the
Everglades "Restoration" to further constrict outdoor activities and
hunting
and fishing or Idahoans and Montanans ridiculing Wyoming for not bowing down
to federal bureaucrats fronting for wolves and the hidden agendas they
represent, "fronts" and "hidden agendas" are riddled
throughout the
Terrorists and our very own radicals. Whether it is the natural Resources
Defense Council (now what could be bad about such a fine name? Plenty)
"requesting" a court to kill a project or prohibit drilling or some
"Friends
of the Mountain Lion" demanding State legal protection for cougars that are
spreading throughout the Midwest and endangering people, stock, and pets
fronts is no different than the way The Soviets manipulated all those
American communist sympathizers after and during WWII.
8.) Terrorists talk about getting rid of Jews but really they mean
ultimately conquering and then ruling what they conquer. It means
dictatorship with themselves as the dictators. Our own radicals whine
about
woodpeckers and "Native ecosystems" too but again like their Terrorist
cousins they mean eventual submission of everyone else to their control and
direction.
9.) Israel builds a wall and Terrorists tunnel under it and fire rockets
over it. Americans have a Constitution guaranteeing certain rights (guns,
private property, freedom from coercion, local controls, and a proscribed
Federal government among others) and the radicals get courts and spineless
politicians and avaricious bureaucrats to destroy and manipulate these
freedoms every bit as intolerably as Hezbollah capturing and killing Israeli
soldiers on Israeli soil. Just as the Terrorists won't stop until all the
Jews are dead or swimming out into the Mediterranean, our own radicals won't
stop until we are all gone (whether to driving them around in urban cabs or
into "homes" makes no difference to them).
10.) The Terrorists want "land". Give back the Golan, they cry.
Get out of
Gaza. Turn over the West Bank. And then they fire from there and so it
goes. A chorus arises in the UN and Europe and even in America, to wit,
give them "this" and then "that" and everything will be OK.
The
"politician" or "diplomat" that gets the "accord"
or the "UN Order" or the
"Agreement" gets Peace Prizes and adulation and a place in PC History
Books.
Sound familiar? Give us a Wilderness Declaration "here" and a
Marine
Sanctuary "there" and we will be content. Did you know there are
"only X
Million acres of Sanctuary or Wilderness? A President is leaving office so
he "Orders" the tie-up of coal and gas to assure a "legacy",
another
President is low in the polls so a behemoth Marine Sanctuary Declaration
complete with a fishing ban assures a "bump" in the polls. We
"must"
declare this a Roadless Area and the Grizzly bear and the lynx and the
jumping mouse "must" have this and that and all of you must cough up
the
land and money for "us" (just like the Terrorists). The
Terrorists and the
radicals "fight' the same. Ambush, dirty tricks, and no regard for
others
and then when a response occurs we are told not to "over react" or
respond
with more "violence" as though it is some game at that point and not a
deadly and serious confrontation. As if young thugs beating someone with a
baseball bat are being "violated" if they are shot.
I could go on but my time and your attention are limited. So what is the
point of this literary artifice? What does this analogy tell us? In
short
it tells us two very important things that we must never forget.
1.) Compromise means nothing more than making those who want
to kill you
take baby steps. They never give up anything and radicals (just like the
Terrorists) present multi-faceted fronts. We don't "talk" to
Hamas or
Hezbollah or Iran just as we don't talk to PETA or ALF yet Syria keeps on
supplying things just like HSUS and the Doris Day Animal League feed the
local groups information and suggestions for radical changes. Compromise
with ANY of these radicals or their agendas no matter who is pushing it at
the moment is foolhardy and ultimately deadly.
2.) Our future and our salvation lie with the same determined
young men
that began this country. On the "12th Day", Jennifer Griffin on
Fox News
was walking down a dusty road on the Lebanese border. It was lined with
Israeli tanks and three or four soldiers sitting around on the ground beside
each tank. Jennifer was speculating about what they were going to be doing
(a free press in action) and about where they were from. She said, as she
approached one such group of soldiers that they were from "all over
Israel"
and said they may not speak to us as they waited to maybe go into combat.
She put her mike toward them and asked if they would tell us where they were
from. One soldier spoke up and said with a smile "I'm from right
here, I
live here".
It is because of that simple statement that I wrote this article. That
young man was at Valley Forge and he was the dying rebel who when asked by a
Union soldier why they fought so hard when they knew they were beat,
responded "because you're down here". That Israeli soldier was
the militia
our Founding fathers held in such high regard and that our Constitution
mentions in the 2nd Amendment. The same militia that the radicals tell us
is "outmoded" and a "thing of the past". This same
militia that has
Israelis carrying both concealed and open handguns and rifles everywhere
practically all the time with a low crime rate and often a timely response
to a Terror attempt.
Not until we non-radical Americans say we "Live Here" can we begin to
defend
ourselves. That means just as that young Jew is defending Christians and
pilgrims and Holy Sites for whom and which he feels little, so too will the
dog owner have to admit his interest in the freedom of his cockfighting
neighbor and the hunter admit his interest in defending ranchers and loggers
and all of us recognizing out interest in controlling the reach of Federal
bureaucrats and politicians out of control. Either we all fight to keep
our
freedoms, liberties, and traditions just like Israel has done about their
existence to date or we will be driven into the sea just like the Terrorists
will do to all the Jews they can't get their hands on first. Sawmills and
Synagogues will each be a thing of the past if these radicals and Terrorists
get their way.
One difference though disturbs me. That is that while we fret about this
war, no one seems to remember about Iran and her nuclear gamesmanship. Do
they have a Bomb? How soon will they have a Bomb? What will the UN
do?
What will we do? What happens when they announce they have it or use it?
If my analogy is true, which one of our radicals is playing or will play
this role. What Bomb are they developing? What will we do when they
threaten it or use it? It may be an ultimate abolition of private property
or a ruling that certain animals are "entitled to all rights under the
Constitution" or it may be very serious criminalizing of any or certain
interactions with any animal. Sound silly? It is no sillier than
"Iran" or
"North Korea" being considered as a world-conquering challenge by the
rest
of us. Iran conquering Europe or the US is now being thought quietly just
like TNC or The Department of the Interior being "placed" in charge of
all
real property and HSUS and The Animal Welfare Institute being
"appointed" to
represent the "rights" of all animals. These are thoughts that must be
confronted and the sooner the better.
Jim Beers
24 July 2006