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 Alvin Alexander Cheyne

January 10, 1921 - June 17, 2005

 

 

 

      

Kindred Concepts


There are remnants of Finnish communities all across the North Central
United States from the Upper Peninsula woodlands of Michigan, through the
Glacial Lake country of Minnesota, and out onto the arid and windy plains of
North Dakota.  Years ago when I worked in those areas I was struck by the
ability of so many European immigrants to America to find and settle into
areas much like their homeland to live and love and raise families and die,
here in their adopted country.

The Finns I have known seemed to almost always share two distinctive
qualities.  First, they are often quite aware of and proud of their
classical music heritage from great Finnish composers.  Second, they are
often practical and knowledgeable outdoorsmen whether fishing for walleyes,
cutting pulp logs in the winter, or working in the taconite mine country of
Northern Minnesota.

So it was with this background that I recently had the pleasure of an
extended phone conversation with a citizen of Finland last week.  This man
is well known here and in Finland for his laser-like devotion to the truth
and history of the interactions between men and wolves in Finland over the
past 300 years.

Our conversation covered a wide range of the aspects of this issue from
biology and history to the concept of nationhood and rights guaranteed in
our individual Constitutions.  Ultimately we wound up discussing the
similarities between our governments and the human activities and beliefs
that are driving this issue of wolf reintroduction and protection here and
in Europe.

As someone that has fought with European Union (EU) bureaucrats driven by
the same international Non-Government Organizations (NGO's) and their
lobbyists that cause so much trouble here in the US and at the UN, some of
what I learned from this man was not surprising.  Some of the things I
mentioned to him about US environmental and animal rights activities seemed
to be helpful to him. Some other things he told me were astounding and
thought-provoking, to say the least.  It is mainly because of the latter
that I am hereby attempting to share with you some of my notes from that
conversation about wolves in Finland, the US, and Russia; and the one
species, Homo sapiens, which they all share in common.  Here are some
highlights from that conversation:

-          An EU Directive that dictates that you may not harm a wolf
actually elevates concern for a wolf above human safety. (How like the US
Federal government mandates about wolves to ranchers, hunters, farmers, and other US rural residents.)

-          People and organizations in European cities and countries without
wolves claim that wolves are not dangerous and that concerns about wolves
killing people or livestock or wildlife populations are merely myths and
fairy tales from an ignorant past.  (How similar to Federal and NGO
propaganda being fed to the media and schools here in the US.)

-          Wolves were purposely (because of human safety and rural
economics) eradicated throughout much of Europein the early part of the last
century (just as in the US) with good reason and not because of any myths or
fairy tales.

-          A Finnish Museum Director that questioned the "scientific" claims
and rationale behind allowing wolves to spread and multiply and become
habituated (by government enforced bans on harassment or killing) found his
life "pestered" so much that he and his family have left the country.  (As
one who has experienced a good deal of "pestering" for questioning
government wildlife and property policies here in the US (although I do not
intend to emigrate) I related personally to this situation and I know many
of you know about others similarly "pestered" in this country.

-          Before 1721 when much of Finland was under the Swedish King
Gustavus III there were few wolf problems because people were free to kill
them when they were causing problems or threatening human life or rural
villages, especially in winter.  After 1721 when Sweden turned this area
over to Russia, the Czar prohibited forestry and eliminated the public right
to hunt or even pick berries or mushrooms but homemade guns and peasant
determination to control wolves were generally ignored and thus wolves were
kept in check.  In 1868, hunting became tied to land ownership complete with
"hunting seasons" (for the rich and powerful) and serious government
restrictions on peasants and wolf control allowed wolves to increase and
increasingly become habituated to people and their communities. Soon enough, CHILDREN BEGAN POPPING UP ON WOLF "MENUS".  Since that date 110 deaths of children, in Church records alone, have been recorded in Finland.  These horrific incidents began 9 years after the bans (1877) when three children were eaten.  A similar upsurge in deaths of children and old people occurred in Russia from the Finnish border to the Pacific shores.  Various Russian authors (Pavlov, Kirov) have written about this phenomenon.  During WWII when Russian men were fighting and many women and children were resettled behind the Urals, wolf attacks made a big upsurge when they moved into parks in large packs like dogs and attacked children and old people at will.


Similarly India has documented the deaths of 40 children from 1989 to 1995
alone.  (What exactly is "it" that wolves "provide" the environment that
might offset the terrible likelihood of children or old people being killed?
How do men, women, children or communities "benefit" from the presence of
wolves?  How can so many American citizens cower in fear of a neighbor with
a pit bull dog or a pack of free-roaming dogs and simultaneously send money
to NGO's and vote for politicians that impose and protect wolf packs on
rural communities and rural residents nationwide?  Why are there,
rightfully, no excuses (legal or otherwise) accepted when MY dog attacks
YOUR dog or a CHILD or Grandmother while simultaneously government imposes wolves on communities and evades ant responsibility for their actions?  How did we come to the point where government tells people to "watch their kids and keep their dogs inside and to not ranch or farm where families have ranched and farmed for generations because the government has decreed that protected wolves are to live there?  Why don't courts accept the argument that the grandmother or child attacked or killed by a privately owned dog didn't "behave properly" or "caused the attack by running" or "didn't belong there" or "the dog was sick or lame" while simultaneously accepting those very arguments for government mandated wolves or grizzly bears that kill or attack people, pets, or livestock? 
 
If I am responsible for my dog, why aren't government bureaucrats and politicians and NGO's that insert and protect wolves responsible for the wolves (or bears) create?  How many children, or adults for that matter, must die before wolves are considered "too expensive"?  Think about the common motivations and similarities between Czars and Kings and Communist Commissars and bureaucrats that serve them compared to our own increasingly centralized government and lifetime politicians and pampered bureaucrats and the servile courts that do not serve the Constitution but only those political agendas they expect to profit from or that they share with the "elites"..)

-          As EU membership has spawned EU mandates that seek to eliminate
things like Finnish wolf control and bear harvest (sound familiar?), Finns
have been forced to question who is in charge and who "looks out for them"?
Since there is no EU Constitution (it has been defeated but like so many bad
ideas in the US it will probably be reintroduced until passed or until some
"High Court" simply mandates it's existence) Finns have been attempting to
motivate their own Finnish government to reassume and maintain the
management of these wildlife species for Finns and their best interests.
(Does this sound familiar?  Like Montanans trying to get their State
government (like Wyoming's) to stand up to the Federal government whose
wolves are ruining big game hunting and ranching?  Or how about Oregonians trying to get their State government to protect rural interests from the
approaching Federal wolves?  Finns understand what Wisconsinites and
Arizonans do not: kowtowing to these interests and their proffered money by
acquiescing to their lies is a fool's errand.  Only when such evil (trading
the lives of children and the old for imaginary environmental chimeras and
specious ecosystem "needs" is evil to be sure) is faced up to and opposed,
like any radical extremism, can the common good - the ONLY true purpose of
government - be achieved.)

-           Reasserting Finnish authority, given EU power growth and claims
as with similar Federal growth in the US, is difficult.  Newspapers, like
here, only mention the environmental propaganda dimension.  A recent
exception was the woman chased into her home by wolves in early October.
Wolfpacks are getting bigger and bolder (i.e. more habituated) and incidents
are rising accordingly.  All this has made appeals to the Finnish government
to enforce the Finnish Constitution RIGHT TO HUMAN SAFETY a potential means to spur government creation of necessary wolf control policies. 
 
However, there is a long way to go due to the fog of years of lies and half-truths swirling about Europe like the US. The Finnish Forestry Ombudsman has been pressured to set some small quotas for taking.  One or two brave politicians have spoken out for the need to protect human safety.  When I asked how wolf taking (killing) was done since this can be very problematic in woodlands and vast open spaces of America: he said wolves are so habituated that one tag (when many more needed to be issued) was filled within an hour as the packs were roaming back yards where people could no longer let children or pets go outside.

-          When he asked if we have a "Right to Human Safety" in our
Constitution, I had to answer no.  In fact, I told him, that while our
Declaration of Independence began with how "All Men are endowed by their
Creator with certain Unalienable Rights and among these are Life, Liberty,
and the pursuit of Happiness" we have large secular factions and legal
organizations like the ACLU that work to deny that those words have any
relevance or authority today.  This, even though the Founding Fathers had
stated and utilized that concept as a given in everything (Constitution,
Bill of Rights, State Constitutions, etc.) that followed.  I mentioned how
abortion was legalized in this country at the same time (35 years ago) that
these laws that authorized wolf introduction and protection were passed. How
during this period, animal protection and introduction of wolves and
authorized sacred status of everything from marine mammals (Marine Mammal Protection Act) to woodlands (Wilderness Act) likewise has increased.
 
So too have these past three decades seen abortion "rights" expanded, partial birth abortions authorized, and consideration of killing young children with disabilities, mercy-killing the aged, and government health system mandates for withholding treatment of the sick and infirm and aged and disabled being proposed and expanded.  Also at the same time we have seen the Constitutional authority over wildlife and forestry and Natural resource management and harvest taken from State and Local authorities to be placed more and more at the Federal level and even at the UN level.  As worship of
and status of animals have increased, human value and status have decreased.

-          He pointed out that the "Right to Human Safety" in Finland means
that it is a Constitutional priority that public powers be directed to
protect humans but that by ignoring the need to defend humans against
wolves, this government responsibility is being generally eroded.  I
mentioned that our 2nd Amendment was similarly being eroded as urban centers like Washington, DC deny gun rights and cities like Boston and New York and Chicago force their State governments to deny gun rights and activist courts and judges ignore the wording in the Constitution to allow this denial of this right. Simultaneously certain Federal politicians try to pass Federal laws to eliminate this Constitutional right.  He observed that the elimination of all guaranteed rights is the objective of every dictatorship. Interestingly, to me, was his observation that Finns are better off in his
mind with the Constitutional right to public safety than we are with our
various rights, including gun rights, that really skirt that issue of
government responsibility for human safety.

-          When I mentioned how the UN Conventions and Treaties are used in
this country (based on our Constitutional language misapplied by courts to
equate true "Treaties" with these UN "agreements" that are at best policy
agreements and NOT TREATIES) to legalize takings and Federal quantum power increases, he saw paralells with Europe.  That these new laws in turn do things like implement "Listing" jumping mice to stop development in places like Colorado: he laughed and quickly mentioned that flying squirrels are
used the same way in Finland.

-          When he mentioned how various laws and government changes had
effected wolf increases and behavioral changes like attacking people and
eating children; I mentioned a Doctorate I read years ago that looked at
historical attacks on people by alligators in the South.  Similarly it was
found that after periods of war (when men were gone and/or very busy) and
after periods of alligator hide market collapses, alligator population
increases and attacks by alligators on children (swimming or playing near
water) and adults bent over (in gardens or performing some task near water)
or old people (too slow to run or sitting low as on a log) became more and
more common as habituated alligators viewed the old and young and slow as
food rather than a threat.

-          We both agreed that there are larger hidden agendas and powerful
forces driving all these things both in Europe and the US.  We also agreed
that the US and European experiences have much in common and that sharing our successes and failures and cooperating where possible is in our mutual interest.  Finally we agreed that there is much to be done and there is a lot of work ahead of all of us.

After I hung up, I was thinking about how much better off the people of
Finland and their natural resources would be under their own control and how
that could still allow for an effective EU that provided mutual defense and
improved their common commercial interests much like the Founding Fathers
originally designed this nation "to provide for the common defense" and "to
regulate interstate commerce".  The challenge then as now was how to
restrain the Federal government from becoming tyrannical or establishing a
dictatorship. 
 
Then I thought about the first time (I was in my 50's then) that I was told that "Methodists" were named that because their founder sought to establish a "methodical" approach.  Though I had seen that name "Methodist" a thousand times, the word "method" had never occurred to me. The same sort of blind familiarity occurs here with us regarding our name "The United States of America".  Think of it, "United" States.  How more and more remote that concept becomes as we build one strong and all-powerful government with state and local governments little more than vassal remnants.  How to balance the advantages of cooperation and common defense with that dictatorial tendency to concentrate power and then wield it over all people for the benefit of the powerful: that is so often the recurring chorus of history.  These environmental and animal rights current concepts are a dangerous juggernaut moving us in a bad direction toward societal disaster.

I hope this has helped you understand more of this very important issue.  I
say "important" because so much more (individual and group rights,
government magnitude, bureaucratic power, local control of communities, and
the gauge of human worth plus things like property rights, rural lifestyles,
rural economies, and the cultures and traditions that make our communities
who they are) than some obscure ecosystem claim is being destroyed or
spawned because of it.  Wolves, like environmental mandates, forest fires,
commercial fisheries, Wilderness, animal rights laws, and the centralization
of power are but a few examples of one thing that springs from the
environmental and animal rights agenda. This must be understood to be
opposed, and must be opposed to be defeated.  This article is hopefully one
helpful step in that direction.

Jim Beers
29 October 2006
(Key West, Florida)

- If you found this worthwhile, please share it with others.  Thanks.

- This article and other recent articles by Jim Beers can be found at

http://jimbeers.blogster.com   (Jim Beers Common Sense)

- Jim Beers is available for consulting or to speak.  Contact:
jimbeers7@verizon.net


- Jim Beers is a retired US Fish & Wildlife Service Wildlife Biologist,
Special Agent, Refuge Manager, Wetlands Biologist, and Congressional Fellow.