FIGHTING FIRE WITH FIRE

 

NOTE: This is a radical recommendation for all those Americans that understand or have been harmed by the environmental and animal “rights” movement of the past four decades.  Domestic animal property rights of owners, wild animal use, the control and management of wild animals and plants, rural existence, and the very fiber of the freedoms and liberties provided in the United States Constitution are all being diminished and will disappear entirely if some reversals are not soon begun.  The following is a proposal for change. – Jim Beers

 

 

For many years now I have been disturbed by the apparent anti-Catholic activities of many (now most) Catholic Universities.  Feminist clubs advocating abortion, same-sex advocate groups demonstrating for gay marriage, “biologists” advocating fetal/embryo destruction, population “experts” advocating birth control and euthanasia, and the presentation of pornographic productions like the “V..” Monologues.  Two Catholic Universities (DePaul in Chicago and Georgetown in Washington, DC) have Law Schools that are “leading” legal advocates for animal “rights” and leading receptors of grants and subsidies from the most radical animal rights and environmental organizations.

 

Now abortion; same-sex sexual activity; birth control; destruction of human life be it embryonic, old, disabled, expensive, or inconvenient; pornography; the equation of animals and humans (by inventing “equal” “rights”); and the subjugation of human life to environmental claims of any sort are all intrinsic moral evils (i.e. “serious” sins) according to Catholic doctrine.  How, oh how, can so many Catholic Universities today publicly and scandalously allow and support such anti-Catholic activities?

 

Recently I listened to a lecture on this topic by a knowledgeable reformer intent on re-establishing Catholic teaching in Catholic Universities.  His insights were well worth considering.

 

It seems that “30 or 40 years ago” (remember that timeframe) for various social reasons of the times, many Catholic Universities turned over “administration” of the University to a Board of Governors or some such “Board”.  Whether intended or not, this effectively took the control of the University away from the Catholic Bishop of that Diocese and placed it in “civilian” or secular hands.  The lecturer characterized it as an illegal transfer of property (ownership and control) of the University from the Church to these “Boards”.  The results were a steady course away from Church teachings to outright hostility toward and opposition to the Catholic Church by “Catholic” Universities.

 

His solution was simple and straightforward.  Years of trying to “reform” these recalcitrant institutions have not shown progress and may have even hastened the growth of anti-Catholicism on such campuses.  Therefore, he suggested continued correction of anti-Catholicism from these campuses, increased support for Catholic Universities that are upholding Catholic doctrines, establishment of new Universities where parents can send their children for a Catholic education, and lastly to publicly condemn those Universities that give a patina of Catholic teaching to their anti-Catholic teachings by publicly denouncing the use of “Catholic” in their title or advertising.

 

Isn’t this a little like what has happened with public schools in this country?  Mathematic proficiency has been downgraded by test “averaging.  History lessons have become propaganda lessons that invent things while dropping facts of importance.  English competence has been replaced by other languages (my Virginia County has more languages in the grade schools than the UN translator section) and even unrecognized languages like “ebonics”.  Science competency and scores shrink annually as home schooled, Asian, and Asian American students surge ahead of others.  Children are “taught” how to put condoms on cucumbers and “forced” to accept and tolerate immoral practices (same-sex activities, sex changes, abortion, embryo destruction, euthanasia, birth control, human rights equality with animals, and submission to environmental claims) that their parents strongly oppose.  Teachers (of both sexes) having sex with students (of both sexes) have become common place in many Districts.  Teachers unions, like the tenured professors hired for their anti-Catholicism by anti-Catholic “Catholic” Universities, oppose any challenge to their power and work tirelessly with Non-Government Organizations to lobby on their behalf to bestow more funds from grants to salaries and retirement benefits.  Test scores slip (until “normalized” by easing tests and grades) as graduates increasingly advocate destruction of American values that they are ignorant of just like Catholic graduates that know little of Catholic teaching advocate destruction of Catholicism as they go out into the world.  The result is meant to be the destruction of the United States as we know them and the reformation of the Catholic Church in America into some sort of social club where anything goes. 

 

The “answer” for parents with school age children is either home schooling or private schools under parental control.  Both options are opposed and fought by teachers unions and government bureaucrats but parents fight back too for the sake of their children and their future.  Like the Catholic University reformer looking to strengthen true Catholic Universities by founding new ones while leaving behind the bad ones masquerading as “Catholic”: wise and concerned parents look to new institutions under their control to assure their children’s future.

 

So what does all this have to do with a “radical” proposal to reverse the growth of “radical” environmentalism and animal “rights”?  I would say, quite a bit.

 

Consider just a few things that have been wrought in the United States by these two radical movements in the past “30 or 40 years”:

 

- Energy development destroyed.

- Logging destroyed and lumber availability restricted.

- Grazing and ranching diminished.

- Big game hunting diminished by predator protection and lack of management.

- Increasing lists of Protected (from any management and control) animals and plants.

- Private property now available for government taking for non-public use and without compensation.

- Enormous growth in federal bureaucracies and the land and human activities subject to their control.

- Increasing dependence on and support for federal funding and federal bureaucracies by state and local governments.

- The steady disappearance of both domestic animal ownership rights and the management of wild plants and animals for human benefit and protection.

- Medical testing on animals given to Chinese and Indian laboratories.

 

I could go on for pages here but space is limited.

 

All of this is the result of federal politicians supporting the growth of federal controls (at the expense of state, local, and citizen rights) to assure their re-election with all manner of support from radicals.  Implicit in this “30 to 40 year” morality play is the natural human tendency of federal bureaucrats to “play” with both the radicals and the politicians seeking re-election (and all that implies like power and self aggrandizement) for their own benefit (promotions, bonuses, power, retirement, etc.). 

 

One need look no further than recent testimony before Congress regarding “carrying guns in National Parks” to see clearly how far this Nation has fallen to federal bureaucratic arrogance.  Testifying AGAINST the right of citizens to carry firearms in accordance with state laws on National Parks were several “ex-National Park Service Directors” and three or four “retired Park Service employee organizations”.  Consider these despicable (the precise term) citizens that were paid with our taxes and are retired on our taxes lobbying to make the citizen right to bear arms as contained in the 2^nd Amendment NOT BE VALID on lands purchased with our taxes!  These are the same boys and girls that lobby for entrance fees on land we purchased and the authors of legislation (a dirty little secret) and regulations to keep the rest of us out of “their” lands while they ask for funds to control “non-native plants” in the midst of unmanaged deer and elk denuding the Park of nearly every plant. (Pardon me Sir, here put your snuff on my hand to sniff it: no sense in dirtying your worship’s hand!)

 

This NPS example can be reproduced with US Forest Service employees regarding the forest lands they control, US Fish and Wildlife Service employees regarding Refuge lands and any private property they can grasp as “Critical Habitat”, and even Bureau of Land Management employees regarding the millions of acres they control.  The point being that arguing with federal employees or federal politicians about the growing destructive effevts of “radical” policies is like arguing with the public school teachers or the academics at certain “Catholic” Universities.  They, like supporters of Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe or Putin (what is he now, President or Prime Minister or just Dictator) in Russia, see any challenge as merely something to be suppressed as a threat to their own future which they see as identical with the future of their country.

 

The primary hope for reform and preservation of American liberty is the election of federal politicians that will not pass new laws, will reform or repeal all the bad laws of the “past 30 or 40 years”, and will protect the property rights of citizens and the management of wild plants and animals FOR HUMAN BENEFIT.  But alas, the future in this regard is as dark as at any time in my long life.  Obama, Clinton, and McCain are all supporters of these radical agendas from Wilderness to abjuring oil development, to “protecting” more and more animals and plants.  The two political parties are joined at the hip nationally in support of these topics.  Like the Indian Casino lobbying millions purposely exempted from the Campaign Finance “Reform” Law, the radical’s millions in lobbying money and cutesy advocacy publicity in the media is like heroin “mainlined” by federal politicians and federal bureaucrats.  The occasional reformer like former Congressman Pombo of California is destroyed by the radicals, the bureaucrats, and politicians angered by anyone “rocking the boat”.

 

So what hope is there?  Where do we look?  What can we do?

 

The only answer left is strong State government that opposes federal interventions at the expense of Constitutional state responsibilities and the rights of state residents.  Like concerned parents and Catholic University reformers; new institutions and new approaches are called for.  However, state fish and wildlife agencies like many state transportation agencies and state education departments and police departments have become so addicted to federal funding and the “strings” of federal bureaucracies that they are no longer truly state employees representing the interests of their state.  Rather they are federal subcontractors explaining to their political bosses and state residents what they “must” do in order to get every available federal dollar as soon as possible.  More and more state politicians simply view this charade as a way to get “more” funding without the tough task of increasing taxes or saying “no” to certain citizen’s demands.

 

The state fish and wildlife agencies have become just like their federal cousins for the most part.  They are “protect everything” radicals masquerading as “biologists”. They are more and more unsupportive of predator control, nuisance animal control, hunting, trapping, fishing, grazing, logging, roads, and resource management. 

 

Wild plants and animals were long known as “Renewable Natural Resources”. “Renewable” because they replaced or increased their numbers and range as desired by managers trying to meet human needs and benefits.  (Non-renewable natural resources are things such as oil and gas and coal because they do not reproduce and replace that which man removes.) “Natural” because they existed “naturally” whether by accident or introduction in the habitats created by human settlements and developments.  “Resource” means they were objects that were useful to men as means to wealth (grazing for fodder, timber for lumber, fish as food, mammals as food or fur, camping areas, tax generators for local economies and governments, etc.) or as objects of desire such as game trophies, fish to mount on walls, or as focal points for trained dogs or hunting, fishing, etc.  Increasingly state fish and wildlife employees think of “thu environment” or “native species” or “thu ecosystem” as their focal point and the management of plants and animals as “Renewable Natural Resources” as merely a quaint historical footnote to be purged from human memory.

 

They are backed up in these New Age philosophies by Universities that are likewise addicted to justifying federal growth as prerequisites to gaining access to federal funding and federal power.  These recent state fish and wildlife employees began appearing “30 or 40 years ago” as adjuncts to established state fish and wildlife offices and programs.  Political clamor for “more” women and minorities increased the migration of both inexperienced and anti-management employees into the state programs designed to manage “Renewable Natural Resources”.  As federal funding was increased and support (both financial and political) from radicals materialized, the “new” employees eagerly sought the redirection of state fish and wildlife agencies from management to the empty programs of closed lands and non-management animal and environment worship so prevalent in federal programs today.  The result is that there is nowhere and no one in state government to inform the public about the truth about things such as large predators or unmanaged woodlands and fire or insect outbreaks.  Like the public schools and Catholic Universities, a new model is needed.

 

I propose that we consider the formation of state agencies designed to represent the interests of domestic animal property owners and the management and use of wild plants and animals.  Since most state fish and wildlife agencies were spawned by Agriculture departments, the new agency could be located in the state Agriculture or be independent.  The fact that Agriculture departments represent property owners (farmers, ranchers, loggers, etc.) makes this worth considering.

 

Current state fish and wildlife agencies would see the fishing, game management, trapping, animal control, wildlife areas, license revenue, and the federal hunting and fishing excise taxes all moved to the new agency: leaving behind the Endangered Species and “Ecosystem” et al.  There would be a healthy tension develop at once between employees committed to a career future dependent on the management of state “Renewable Natural Resources” and those employees focused on acquiescing to federal demands and federal importunity.  We animal owners, users, and those affected by environmental and animal rights radicals would have somewhere to turn to and someone to represent us to state government, always remembering that un-electing state politicians has always been a more realistic goal than so affecting their federal cousins   State politicians, but far more important, state voters would be exposed to facts concerning and alternatives to the radical agendas of environmentalists, animal “rights” advocates, federal politicians, academics, federal bureaucrats, and the state public servants that would join them in stripping American freedoms for their own gain.

 

So there you have it:

 

1. The answer to restoring Catholic University education is reinforcing strong institutions and founding new ones that operate as truly Catholic Universities.

2. The answer to providing the best education to our children is home-schooling and founding private schools under the authority of the parents whose children they teach.

3. The answer to radical environmental and animal rights agendas in this dismal political atmosphere is reforming state government to place domestic animal private property rights and the management and use of wild plants and animals in one agency: thereby giving state residents an advocate group to keep citizens informed, advise state politicians, and actively oppose the spectrum of harms spread by radical environmental and animal rights activities.

 

These are three very serious problems that have much in common from their timeframe (the ubiquitous “30 to 40 years”) to the manipulation of large institutions (Universities, School Systems, and Government Agencies) for other agendas (attacking the Catholic Church, controlling children for social ends much like communism has done, and the takeover of governmental “Renewable Natural Resource” agencies to eliminate animal ownership and any use or management of any natural resources). The three solutions presented above are the only hope I see at this time for averting the impending disaster that is the goal of the truly radical agendas being fulfilled around us.

 

We seem to be running out of options.  As our politicians betray us, and bureaucrats oppress us, and academics mislead us: either we reform the political processes to regain control or we resign ourselves to tyranny or we do what the Founding Fathers did.  Given the constant accumulation of bad laws and government power in the current discouraging political climate, stopping the approaching acceleration of radical changes, much less reversing the declines in freedom caused to date becomes not only more problematic but also more urgent as any reading of our late colonial history will tell.

 

Jim Beers

21 May 2008

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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.