DISCOMBOBULATING THE PROPAGANDIZERS
Explaining the misinformation and hidden agendas behind so much that passes for environmental and animal rights “progress” today is like criticizing public education or bureaucracy. That is to say you are easily pigeonholed as “old-fashioned”, “ignorant”, “dangerous”, or simply a liar. There is no end of numerous, wealthy, respected and powerful factions ready to marginalize you. These groups tend to be the ones with a stake in the matter at hand and they always try to dismiss you on a personal basis, thereby avoiding either answering or publicizing your point.
For 35 years government bureaucrats (at first federal but now State and federal), academics, politicians, and powerful Non-Government Organizations have steered public opinion, legislation, and federal government growth based on environmental and animal rights propaganda. They are all, to one extent or the other, propagandizers. The word “discombobulate” means to “confuse, upset, or frustrate” and that is exactly what I strive to do to these propagandizers that are growing the government and destroying our freedoms and liberties for their own gain. A few examples of the difficulties this involves might be useful to mention.
1. Individuals and clubs that “Rescue” dogs or cats or birds or exotic pets are to be commended. Their “humanitarian” concern for animals is something to admire. When they lobby Local or State governments for assistance in their pursuits they are exercising an American freedom that we are all proud of. But when, as often happens, the individuals or clubs begin to advocate legal restrictions, permits, licensing, health requirements, space requirements, specific law enforcement authorities, and their “own” enforcement officers with un-Constitutional authorities, and other such things to RESTRICT THE RIGHTS OF ANIMAL OWNERS: then the “Rescue” advocacy moves from a commendable activity to something to be opposed.
“Rescue” is but one of many of the facets of the animal “rights” movement that should concern all Americans. “Rescue” groups are prominent at Animal Rights Conferences. They, like other animal rights advocacy groups, do what they do FOR (THE?) (THEIR SPECIAL?) ANIMAL. From “saving” housecats to “saving” beached whales, the mantra is that they are to be saved for their “own” sake, that is to say because the animal has a “right” that supercedes either human ownership or human decisions to limit them in any way.
Consider that these “Rescue” groups at the Animal Rights Conferences support the Animal Rights Agenda items to spread wolves everywhere and to “protect” bears and cougars from hunters. Think about how the Rescue folks want to dictate everything I can or cannot do with MY dog, yet they are perfectly happy to support or just remain silent about wolves and bears and cougars THAT ARE KILLING AND HORRIBLY MAIMING THOUSANDS OF DOGS AND CATS EACH YEAR. If it is OK for these wild animals to kill and maim dogs and cats (why else would they not object to spreading and protecting the wild animals causing the carnage?) then the REAL PURPOSE for all this animal “rights” and animal “protection” legislation must not be “for the animal” it must only be “to deny animal owners and users their rights and their traditional activities”. What other conclusion can you draw?
For saying things like this I am characterized as “insensitive to animal welfare” and “against Rescue”. Veterinarians, students, and other activists say very nasty and vile things about me and work very hard to stop me from gaining any audience. That is to say the work to discombobulate my attempts at discombobulating their agenda.
Wolves and cougars and bears kill humans, kill livestock, depress big game herds to where there are insufficient numbers left to hunt, kill pets and working dogs, endanger old people and young people especially, endanger hunters and every sort of outdoor activity participant: all of this and more where their numbers and distribution are not managed consistent with the desires of local communities. Where these large predators enjoy freedom from any human harassment, they grow bolder, more dangerous, and more destructive. More so than any other wildlife from deer to foxes to turtles, decisions about whether to have such animals consistently in or near LOCAL COMMUNITIES; whether they should be allowed at all; in what numbers they should be maintained; and what persons can or should do when encountering them when they are threatening or doing damage to property: SHOULD BE PRIMARILY LOCAL DECISIONS SUPPORTED BY STATE GOVERNMENTS. FEDERAL INTERVENTION SHOULD BE MINIMAL, IF AT ALL AND VOLUNTARILY ACCEPTED OR DECLINED.
For reiterating these principles of our heritage as citizens of this great nation regarding this very serious matter that affects growing community numbers nationwide; I am characterized as “right-wing and anti-government” or “ignorant regarding modern ecosystem thinking” or someone “who only wants to kill things” or as a “friend” of “North Carolina pig farmers” (why that is since I live in Virginia has always mystified me). So any challenge to the damage to rural America and to hunting and ranching and rural lifestyles from these harmful animals goes largely unmentioned. Facts and the dangers of precedents are dismissed, based on the faulty character of the objector.
(NOTE: I had planned to describe two other examples but something has just come to my attention that must be mentioned.)
Each of us feels squeamish about killing animals to one degree or another. That is why so few people go into butchering as a career these days. The growing acceptance of imposing our “feelings” about animals on others is something that dare not be mentioned without being readily characterized as “cruel” and “insensitive”. I was reminded of this recently as I spoke with my Pastor. He is Irish but he has lived in the US for many years.
He asked me what I was writing about lately and I told him about animal uses and laws and government. He observed that he had once gone to a bullfight and found it very cruel and barbaric. He added that it should be done away with. I asked him if he thought it immoral? He thought a moment and answered no, it wasn’t immoral. I then asked him if he thought there should be national laws against it when there are people that for many different reasons want to continue its availability? Again he thought a moment and said no, I suppose not. Then I said that while it was right and admirable to discourage animal uses we don’t agree with and to encourage others to do the same, it is not right to use the coercive power of government to deny rights and traditions to fellow citizens. He thought again and said that was right. He concluded by observing the ironic dichotomy in America today wherein we elevate the status of animals on the basis of purporting that they have rights while denigrating the right to life of unborn, aged, infirm, and depressed humans.
What just came across my desk was this:
Legislation has just been passed in Virginia making it a misdemeanor (1 yr. in jail and up to $2500 fine) for simply attending a cockfight and a felony (1 yr. in prison and $2500 fine plus loss of voting rights and 2nd Amendment rights) for participating in a cockfight. or “permitting a minor to become involved” in a cockfight. This legislation was fast-tracked through the Virginia Legislature on the heels of the Michael Vick case. The Governor signed and nearly all legislators voted for its passage. The Attorney General (who is running as a “Conservative Republican” for Governor) was especially active in pushing this legislation through the Assembly. This is reminiscent of New Mexico Governor Richardson who did the same thing in New Mexico (where there is a large number of families with this tradition of cockfighting going back generations) right before he announced his candidacy for President. Like the current infinitesimal differences between the Presidential candidates and national political Parties on environmental and animal issues: State politicians like their federal cousins readily sell out minority animal owner and user groups to gain support from the “feelings” of majorities.
I have never been to a cockfight and I have no desire to go to one. I have spoken to groups and individuals that do breed, raise, train, and yes, fight THEIR OWN roosters or cocks or chickens or gamefowl or whatever you want to call them. Some can speak for hours about the genetic lines and traits that have fascinated them and their great-great grandfathers for centuries. Others speak fondly of family members that raised and fought gamefowl and then fought in the Revolutionary War or the Civil War. Some of their family histories go back to Vermont, others to Georgia and yet others to European homelands that their ancestors fled for America. A Philippino steward on a cruise ship told me of two fighting cocks he bought in California and had sent to his wife and family north of Manila. Hispanic immigrants from Central and South America have a widespread and ancient tradition of cockfighting. South Asian and Oceania are likewise hotbeds of cockfighting, especially the Asian jungles from which cockfighting emerged eons ago. In sum, the cockfighters I have met are family men and women from all walks and strata of American life. They seem to be, without exception, proud retainers of family and cultural traditions that were once highly honored by American society from University mascots to symbols for brave fighting groups.
If you hunt or fish or trap or “attend” rodeos or wear fur or eat meat; you should consider what is being done here with chickens. If it can be claimed that government at any level can “intervene on behalf OF THE ANIMAL”, the precedent is established that government can withdraw any property right or any animal use right FOR ANY REASON. Deer or ducks are wounded and escape to die a “cruel” death, why not eliminate any hunting or right to hunt? Fish suffer from being hooked and put on a stringer: why not eliminate fishing? Trapped animals suffer from restraint: why not make trapping illegal not only for trappers but for “attending” (i.e. using fur)? Rodeo riders are accused of “hurting” animals: why not make rodeos illegal? Livestock suffers from artificial diets and from the trauma of butchering: why not make butchering livestock illegal and even using meat illegal? If you think any of this is farfetched I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you. Ask the American horse owners that just saw Federal legislation pass making the slaughter of horses illegal and now there is a call to ban horse export since some of them may be slaughtered! If Bill Richardson and the Virginia Attorney General can serve as gophers for the Humane Society of the United States’ agenda in order to get a popular vote; what minority group of animal users or rural lifestyles won’t they sell out? Which of you believes you are immune? That they will never “come after your animals or your animal use”?
How do you get through to Americans that this country is eating its freedoms and liberties when it considers it acceptable to ask our politicians to take away the rights of other Americans because we will “feel”? This is simply dictatorship of the majority. This is something we should all rightly fear.
Cockfighting is a matter for Local Government. It is NOT something that the federal government should regulate at the behest of national majorities. It is NOT something that State governments should run roughshod over to cater to urban population centers or areas of anti-animal use voters. Cockfighting is a primary example of an activity that is a matter for Local Governments to permit or not and to regulate or not in line with community values. The birds are private property and their use and disposition are under the purview of the owners. The State has no more business dictating about the presence of a minor at a cockfight than it has to be giving them condoms or taking them for abortions without parental consent. Regulate the noise, regulate the gambling, regulate the disposition of birds, regulate treatment of birds, regulate the locations, license locations, require police presence, assure that drugs are not available when the community (Town, County, or whatever) has sufficient interest in allowing the activity to take place.
This last example is perhaps the best one to point out how difficult it is to try and discombobulate the propagandizers. We have become so accepting that “certain” animal uses “must” be made illegal nationally that we don’t think ahead. The precedents that are set, the goals, the hidden agendas: all go more and more unmentioned. Remember the “Rescue” model that “saves” dogs from you and me but encourages their horrific deaths from predators. Think about the horse slaughter ban. Ask yourself what difference there is between cockfighting and bullfighting and hunting and fishing and trapping. Look at what these animal rights groups and environmental groups have wrought in 35 years. Don’t forget how bureaucrats and politicians have benefited from all this and then look at the alliances between all three Presidential candidates and these very environmental and animal rights NGO’s.
Criticizing “Rescue” efforts does not make me anti-animal welfare. Calling for management of all predators to make rural residents safe in their environs; to maintain big game herds; and to preserve livestock and commercial fisheries (from whales and seals) and domestic pets does not make me someone that just wants to kill things. And explaining the dangers of federal and State intervention in the ownership and use of animals because of either the “feelings of a majority of voters or the purported “rights” of animals themselves does not make me a bad person. When good works become an excuse to regulate others and force them to adhere to your beliefs, they must be shown to be merely excuse for oppression. Discombobulating the propagandizers behind this oppression is a difficult task but a task that must be done.
Jim Beers
15 April 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.
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Same arguement Jim is talking about was recently used by the Defenders of Wildlife to effectively close the best fishing areas in North Carolina.
Please note that the Defenders of Wildlife were invited to participate in negotiated rule making for beach access for all parties but rather than ever participate inthe meetings they went straigt to a lawsuit where some very suspect counts on birds were used. Please read below to see the details
The parties to a lawsuit over ORV use on the Cape Hatteras National Seashore filed a settlement today in U.S. District Court in Raleigh.
The 23-page settlement was filed in the form of a consent decree that now goes before U.S. District Court Judge Terrence W. Boyle, who must approve the terms of the agreement.
The end result of the settlement is that management of seashore resources is now in the hands of Judge Boyle and the private, special-interest groups that negotiated the terms of the settlement without input from the public. The role of the National Park Service will be to enforce the terms of the settlement until there is a long-term ORV regulation, perhaps in three years.
The settlement resolves all issues in the case that began last October when Defenders of Wildlife and the National Audubon Society, represented by the Southern Environmental Law Center, filed suit against the National Park Service over its Interim Protected Species Management Plan that is to regulate ORV use and species management until a long-term rule is developed through negotiated rulemaking and an Environmental Impact Statement.
The plaintiffs in this lawsuit are environmental groups, which claim that ORV use on the seashore is illegal, since the Park Service does not have a special rule to regulate it, as has been required since 1972. Also, the lawsuit claims that the interim plan does not go far enough to protect wildlife in the park, especially shorebirds and sea turtles. In addition, the plaintiffs asked Boyle in February for a temporary injunction to prohibit ORV use until the suit is settled on six popular areas of the seashore – Bodie Island spit, Cape Point and parts of the South Beach, Hatteras Inlet, and the north and south points of Ocracoke.
The defendants are the National Park Service, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and others, including the director of the National Park Service and the superintendent of the Cape Hatteras National Seashore.
In December, Boyle allowed Dare and Hyde counties and the Cape Hatteras Access Preservation Alliance to become defendant/intervenors in the lawsuit to represent the interests of the public.
The settlement filed today is a compromise among the parties that settles both the lawsuit and the request for an injunction and that the parties have been working on for at least several weeks.
The Interim Protected Species Management Plan will remain in effect at the seashore, though, in cases of conflict, the settlement will prevail.
The headlines in the settlement are that buffers for nests and unfledged chicks are more precisely spelled out and larger in the case of unfledged piping plovers and that there will be a prohibition on night driving from May 1 until Nov. 15.
Some of the details of the settlement include:
• A deadline for a final ORV management plan and special rule. NPS must complete the long-term plan by Dec. 31, 2010, and publish the final rule by April 1, 2011.
• Buffers for breeding and nesting shorebirds and for unfledged chicks will be spelled out in more detail and, in the case of unfledged plover chicks, will be more restrictive.
• In the case of piping plovers, a threatened species, buffers for pre-nesting and nesting will remain the same in the settlement as in the interim plan – 164 feet. Once the chicks hatch, the buffer zone for ORVs will be 1,000 meters or 3,281 feet – about the length of 11 football fields – in each direction from the nest. The pedestrian buffer zone will be 984 feet – or a little more than three football fields. When the 1,000 meter buffer zone is in effect, pedestrians will have limited access during daylight hours to a narrow strip above the mean high tide line for walking, swimming, and sunning.
• After the nest hatches, the buffer will move with the chicks. Two weeks after the chicks hatch, the Park Service may modify the buffer and allow ORV access within the 3,281-foot buffer on each side of the nest if a 984-foot buffer is maintained between the chicks and ORVs. Whether the buffer can be modified to 984 feet will depend on the movement of the foraging adults and chicks from the nest. Access to areas, such as Cape Point, will depend on the movement of the chicks and the physical topography of the beach -- whether there will be room for an ORV corridor above the high-tide line and at least 984 feet from foraging chicks.
• Unfledged piping plover chicks will be monitored from dawn until dusk, and any modification of the 3,281-foot buffer on each side of the chicks will not be open to ORVs until the location of the chicks is determined by a Park Service monitor each morning and an adequate buffer is assured.
• The provision for modifying the buffer will be eliminated if any plover chick is killed or injured by an ORV within the 3,281-foot buffer.
• ORV use at night will be prohibited from 10 p.m. until 6 a.m. from May 1 until Nov. 15 to increase turtle nesting success. This closure is for potential turtle nesting habitat, and it is not clear if that includes all of the seashore. There also is a provision for permits for night driving between Sept. 16 and Nov. 15. No details are available yet on permits.
• There will be penalties for violations of pre-nesting areas and buffers. If the Park Service can show that a deliberate act has harassed wildlife or caused damage to fencing or nests, the buffers will be expanded with each violation.
• Various reports on nesting success will be provided by the Park Service to the courts, the plaintiffs, and the intervenors, who will allowed to comment each year on proposed pre-nesting areas.
• The Park Service will provide education about protected species at access points and in the beach driving brochure and will provide a 24-hour phone line for citizens to report violations.
• The court can modify the settlement for good cause shown by any party, and the court retains jurisdiction to settle disputes.
• The settlement does not preclude any party from filing future legal action.
• The settlement is not a precedent and should not be considered binding or establish any requirements that will influence the negotiated rulemaking process. However, the terms of the agreement can be discussed by any party in the negotiation process.
• The environmental groups are entitled to “reasonable attorneys’ fees and costs” to be paid by the federal defendants.
Representatives of the intervenors – Dare, Hyde, and CHAPA – have not pretended to be happy about the terms of the settlement. However, all felt that they had no other option, given that the Park Service has clearly violated the law by not having a long-term rule on ORVs.
The environmental groups say that ORV use is illegal without that long-term rule. And, in fact, Judge Boyle ruled that ORV use on the seashore was illegal last summer in the case of a visitor with a minor ORV infraction.
In addition, the federal government was clearly not enthusiastic about defending ORV use under the interim plan, and in its response to the injunction request, just agreed that ORVs were operating illegally on seashore beaches.
It’s clear that these parties would not have been in Judge Boyle’s courtroom under these circumstances, if the National Park Service had done what it was required to do 35 or so years ago. In fairness, the environmental groups that sued have noted every chance they’ve had that they would not have gone to court if the federal government had done its job.
However, that said, it’s also true that a lot of time and federal money has been spent on developing the interim plan, and members of the public invested their time and effort to give their feedback during public comment periods.
The interim plan was a plan developed by a process, in the open, with public input.
The settlement agreed upon today was decided behind closed doors.
That’s not the way it should have been.
The National Park Service will have to enforce the terms of the settlement – no doubt at a great cost to taxpayers – but they will no longer be deciding policy in the next three or so years.
The beaches will be managed by Judge Terrence Boyle and the special interest groups that brought this legal action.
The best hope for the future of beach access now is that negotiated rulemaking manages to survive this divisive lawsuit, and that a final plan on ORV use on the seashore is one that is devised with input from all the people – on and off the islands – who have stake in the future of the park.