Suing Bureaucrats

 A GREAT QUESTION

 

Recently I wrote about how Large Predators; specifically wolves, cougars, and grizzly bears; do not belong where they are a threat to human lives.  Additionally, their total numbers and their range (where they occur) should be managed so that the destruction of private property such as livestock and dogs, and adverse effects on big game populations and livestock are minimized.

 

Since local governments (Townships, Counties, cities, and towns) rule local communities under our Constitution, the acceptance and occurrence of large predators in any community should ultimately be a matter for local communities and their government to decide.  State governments exist to protect and guarantee the rights, cultures, traditions, and freedoms of the local communities within their bounds.  The federal government exists to defend the nation and regulate interstate and foreign commerce.  Consult the US Constitution.

 

Currently, state governments are increasingly dictating standards of behavior and daily life to all local communities; the federal government is writing laws and imposing national and international standards of behavior and daily life on state and local governments.  The results of all this (i.e. banning horse slaughter; denying local option for cockfights; elimination of the management of whales and seals; destruction of animal testing for human health needs; closure of public lands to management of renewable natural resources like timber, forage, hunting, and even access; etc.) has given rise to 1. rapidly growing and increasingly disdainful federal bureaucracies, 2. kowtowing (for federal dollars) state bureaucracies, 3. bewildered local governments that feel increasingly powerless, and 4. bevies of interest groups, academics, and social activists that profit from and influence this phenomenon. There is perhaps no better example of the abuses that have developed in this milieu than the introduction, spread, and protection of deadly and harmful large predators.  While the media and bureaucrats downplay and obfuscate the resulting loss of human lives and the destruction of private and public property from these activities, the toll is real and the toll is increasing, and the toll is the result of government in the United States doing the exact opposite of what it was formed to do.

 

In my 8 July article on large predators (Rottwolves & Pitlions) I recommended suing state and federal bureaucrats that are responsible for these harms to the citizenry.  I recommended charging those bureaucrats perpetrating the causes of such harms with charges up to and including manslaughter.  I recommended the “OJ” precedent of taking the responsible bureaucrats into Civil Court and suing for damages. 

 

In the midst of the hate mail I received as a result, the following GOOD QUESTION came to my attention:

 

Jim I have a question:
Can these people that are getting hurt by these animals can they sue the gov. for the release of these animals?
What I mean is the gov. is responsible in releasing the animals....

 

ANSWER: 

1.      Yes, people can sue “the gov.” (your term) for “the release of these animals”.

2.      Yes, “the gov. is responsible in releasing the animals”.

 

The federal government was founded by the ratification of the US Constitution.  The first 21 words of that document state clearly that ‘We the People of the United States” were forming a government “in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility”.

 

There is nothing in those words authorizing the governments (federal or state) to destroy “domestic Tranquility” which is exactly what a cougar does when it kills your child.  There is nothing in those words that authorizes our governments to destroy the establishment and preservation of “Justice” by placing grizzly bears in western states and not in other states.  There is nothing in those words that authorizes government to destroy “a more perfect Union” by using these deadly and destructive predators to set rural people against urban people; natural resource users against those opposed to the use of plants and animals; or to destroy western ranches while subsidizing eastern and southern farms.

 

Now when I suggested suing bureaucrats; some bureaucrats laughed, some sneered at my ignorant audacity, and some just yawned and went back to sleep.  I did not write this as levity or as some meaningless gesture.  I am deadly serious.  There are pictures of them releasing these predators and all sorts of written material justifying the releases.  There are regulations forbidding any human action on these animals and even prohibiting the carrying of a gun where they occur.  “Responsibility” is not a problem to demonstrate; it is only a problem to establish in a legal world rampant with precedents gleaned from European monarchies where the “King” and his “men” were always exempt (up to a point, see the Sheriff of Nottingham and “King John” upon the return of “King Richard”).  Absent a wandering King or a band of Merry Men in the forest: dislodging the despotic rulers and their despotic laws and their despotic enforcers is up to you and me.

 

For the past 40 years the number of politicians opposed to all this tyrannical dictating from Washington has been reduced to where they are no longer measurable.  More such laws can be expected from Democrats or Republicans, in The House or in The Senate, or under the state domes.  I used to think that tough-minded politicians could reverse what their weak-kneed predecessors got started – but no more.  The current crop of politicians offers no hope of reform or repeal of unjust laws like those used to impose these large, deadly, and destructive predators.  Therefore, that age-old defense of the “bumbling” bureaucrat, that they are “only implementing the law and are therefore not ‘responsible’ for anything that results” is assumed by all the “coordinators” and “managers” and “biologists” and “directors” and “administrators” that protect the cougars and spread the wolves and impose grizzly bears on local communities and rural residents.  When the old man or the child or the jogger is killed by the “protected” cougar; aside from all the meaningless twaddle to “explain” the incident, NO ONE TAKES RESPONSIBILITY.  When the elk hunting disappears due to the spreading and protected wolves; everything from climate to disease is mentioned but again, NO ONE TAKES RESPONSIBILITY.  When protected grizzly bears kill girls in sleeping bags, the victims are blamed but again, NO ONE TAKES RESPONSIBILITY.

 

I submit that those responsible for protecting and spreading these wolves, cougars, and grizzly bears WHEREVER IT CAN REASONABLY SHOWN THAT THEIR PRESENCE WOULD ENDANGER “DOMESTIC TRANQUILITY” OR UNJUSTLY AFFECT AMERICAN CITIZENS OR WEAKEN OUR “UNION” -  That those persons (the bureaucrats) are not operating under just or Constitutional laws.  Therefore they are not protected by the precedent of implementing proper laws.

 

The point here is that since we cannot get at these unjust laws through our elected representatives anymore, we must go around to the back door.  Take every one of the responsible bureaucrats into court with lawsuits and charges and damages every time a family member is injured or your property (public or private; animal, vegetable, or mineral) is damaged.  When the district attorney or the judge says, “you can’t do this cuz they were just doing their job” challenge the legality under the Constitution of what the law authorizes them to do.  Can the law authorize them to put rattlesnakes in city parks because “they once occurred there”?  Could Congress or some state legislature put scorpions or tarantulas in urban gardens because “they ‘balance’ urban ‘nature’”?  All of these things destroy “domestic Tranquility” and are unjust, and would only further divide rural and urban; eastern and western portions of these “United” States.

 

Somebody will get the right lawyer with the right case in the right court and then fight it on up.  If it can get to the US Supreme Court before it is converted into a mini-legislature: we may stand a chance. Break the Constitutional aura of one of these laws gleaned from some Zimbabwe Law School and the rest will tumble behind like a deck of cards.  If we wait until the next Washington or Lincoln comes along, it may well be too late.

 

Jim Beers

11 July 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.