ANIMALS, SOCIALISTS & GOVERNMENT

By Jim Beers

American wildlife and the American citizenry have simply become Socialist guinea pigs for achieving all manner of Socialist agendas. While we argue and bemoan about wolves being "Delisted" under the Endangered Species Act and we ask about the new Administration in Washington "don't they realize that increasing (fill-in-the-blank) taxes and massive government spending will discourage investment, depress employment, and diminish businesses even more?" we are either told lies or we are ignored. The continuing destruction of the Constitutional bedrock principle of property, the overwhelming growth of central government size and power, and the insertion of central government power into every aspect of American society from business, education and states' rights to rural land clearances and parental rights are all merely facets of the establishment of a Socialist Oligarchy. This agenda has progressed from "'Wilsonian' Democracy" through FDR's "New Deal", JFK's "New Frontier", LBJ's "Great Society", and then expanded sporadically by the alternating naiveté and activism of Nixon, Carter, the Bushes, and Clinton. The Socialist Oligarchy envisioned by these Socialists and Neo-Socialists is best imagined as a national ruling class unfettered by a Constitution similar to the combined political patrimony of Chicago, the entrenched radicalism of San Francisco, and the simple one-party rule of Milwaukee for the past century. Periodically promising the moon to an electorate increasingly dependent on a government that is chronically broke and that rules every aspect of daily life is only sustainable when the "rich" from elsewhere or a "State" economy can shore it up by enforced government mandates. Otherwise, it has always been a recipe for disaster.
Current wildlife issues are a kaleidoscope of Socialist lies and hidden agendas that are intended to fulfill larger Socialist objectives:
- Salmon in the Pacific Northwest are in a constant state of emergency as everyone professes concern for their future. Environmentalists and "their" representatives blame dams, irrigators, hatchery fish, recreational fishermen, "non-native" fish, loggers, farmers, dredgers, and commercial fishermen both foreign and domestic. Their "concern" and that of the politicians, bureaucrats and lawyers that represent them is touching. Were they and the central government really concerned, we would see more hatchery fish introductions and elimination of the out-of-control seals and sea lions devastating salmon returning to spawn as well as research and management concerned with reducing the impact of ocean predator fish on the high seas and the impact of bird and fish depredations on young salmon going out to sea. The fact that minimizing such impacts would significantly increase salmon numbers is denied because the goal is not to increase salmon stocks but to destroy fishing, dams, irrigation, power generation, logging, dredging, (see above) and establish a governmental rule like Wilderness or Marine Sanctuaries that will contribute to further rural land clearances as well as reduce the non-urban vote.
- Recently a wild cougar was "sedated" in a northern Wisconsin town. The state bureaucrats then tagged it and released it with the admonition that cougars were "protected" and that anyone seeing one should report it to the government. This is on the heels of decades of reports of cougars in Wisconsin and Minnesota and Iowa by hunters, birdwatchers, and loggers. Always, the reports were denied as unverified by state bureaucrats. One cougar was even killed in Chicago suburbs. Iowa, Minnesota, and Wisconsin maintain the legal fiction that cougars are "native" or "rare" or "part of the ecosystem" and are therefore "protected". Cougars kill children and adults; they kill pets and livestock from sheep and llamas to goats, calves, and pigs; they also kill deer. When government "protects" cougars in populated places like Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, and Illinois they are abusing the primary government responsibility and mandate to "insure domestic Tranquility". Urban voters (as in California three decades ago) that support subjecting their rural cousins to unmanaged cougars are akin to rural voters that (if they had the numbers) would vote for a maximum security prison and halfway house in Central Park or on Lakeshore Drive along the northern Chicago Lakefront. Neither the urban supporters or wildlife bureaucrat "experts" "protecting the cougars" will have any responsibility when your grandchild is killed on a hike or a girl scout disappears at a summer camp or a farmer goes broke or your pet dog is killed in your yard by cougars. No; the retiree, the farmer, the woodcutter trying to raise his family, the camper, the pet owner, the hiker, and even hunters will all be increasingly reluctant to live in or recreate in places where disappearances and killings occur (especially as gun ownership and carrying are restricted). As with those "concerned" about salmon, rural land clearances and gun control (of an increasingly urban citizenry) and government power growth are facilitated.
- Recent reports of wolves being taken off the Endangered Species "List" and returned to "State management" everywhere but Wyoming are prominently reported. What a fiction; what a lie! Putting aside the unending legal challenges that extend to the horizon, states can only "manage" as much and however the central government allows. Killing large numbers of wolves as large numbers either depredate or kill people will not be tolerated and excluding wolves from certain areas as their impacts on big game (they have decimated elk and moose and deer although the states manipulate and distort and obfuscate the information) or livestock changes with weather and learned behaviors will also be impossible. So the scenario is that wolves "belong" (per government mandate and despite centuries of evidence as to their danger and harm in our history or the current history of carnage and death from wolves in Russia ) and therefore they are more important than your children, your neighbor, your rural economy, the safety of campers, pets, livestock, or "domestic Tranquility". The romance of a howling wolf degenerates into sheer horror when a child is killed or some old man is torn to bits; rural recreation in America will be like it was in Nazi Germany or under European royalty or Communist Russia, simply a pastime for the rich and powerful. As with salmon and cougars, Socialist Oligarchs increase their power and bring more and more Americans under their un-Constitutional sway by professing a need for wolves.
- Recently a suburban housewife here in Eagan, Minnesota had "two coyotes surround and attack her miniature-breed dog which was later euthanized". Today's paper reported, "They (sic Animal Control) hope to track the number of coyotes entering the city and are asking residents to call Animal Control". Our faux wildlife manager "Animal Control Officer Karen Grimm" says, "coyotes are naturally curious but timid when challenged and a loud noise should be enough to scare one away". This tinker belle phony tells us coyotes are "timid when challenged"? Tell that to the Cape Cod mom that had to fight one tooth and nail to get it to let go of her toddler in her backyard. Also that a "loud noise should scare one away" and that they are "naturally curious"? So what? What is this "CONTROL OFFICER" doing about it other than "hoping" (like many recent voters) "to track the number of coyotes entering the city"? What do we pay government for in this instance, to lecture us about animal fantasies? If a "CONTROL OFFICER" only "CONTROLS" us, call her a cop. This lady like so many current veterinarians and wildlife biologists and wildlife officers and environmental/animal bureaucrats are immature zealots bent on establishing a fairy land where no animal is owned or used or hurt or eaten or certainly never killed: only man is the problem and either man "learns to get along" (i.e. loud noises, not looking into eyes, wearing bells, etc.) or too bad for whatever happens, guess who's fault it is? Aside from the lies and disinformation, man and his rights and property are fast becoming more and more like the unwanted fetus or the disabled child, or the helpless and hopelessly imperfect among us - simply worthy of disposal in some manner where others need not be concerned. Do you not see the connection?
- Lastly, my Minnesota paper reports that an Oregon Indian tribe is exploring releasing condors on "their" (meaning not in Oregon) lands. The meetings with government "officials" are "closed to the public". Like the Idaho Indian tribe that disabled Idaho resistance to central government wolf blandishments by making itself an "island" for wolves in Idaho to the delight of central government bureaucrats, the Oregon tribe will be making itself an island in Oregon. This will be very problematic for rural Oregonians because (as both the tribes and the "wildlife" bureaucrats know) there are all manner of "scientific" assertions that condors are "endangered" by "eating" lead bullets. The evidence of this "threat" is specious although it has been accepted by courts at the insistence of expensive lawyers. So the condors are meant to introduce laws and programs in Oregon to outlaw lead rifle (pistol?, shotgun?,) bullets and slugs and buckshot. Costs will rise, efficiency will suffer from less dense substitutes, and availability of ammunition will be limited: all of which will further decrease rural recreation, rural economies, rural residences, and rural livelihoods. Sound familiar? Care to guess what else will result? Care to guess about the impacts on ammunition and guns in both rural and urban Oregon? Care to argue about the precedents it will set and how other states will hear the argument about how "they should too"?
Current national politics mirror these deceptions and obfuscations:
- We are told it is urgent to "wean ourselves off foreign oil". Yet we can't drill in ANWR or offshore where large oil deposits exist. We can't expand refineries or their capacities to reduce gas/oil/energy/heating/electricity prices nor can we build nuclear power generators or deposit nuclear waste at the Yucca Mountain site in Nevada. We can't transmit electricity from a coal-powered plant because central bureaucrats deny "permits" for transmission lines. We are told that "wind" mills are an answer even though numerous reports of bird population disappearances (in the past 3 weeks a Californian, an Arizonan, and a Minnesotan have so remarked to me) are never connected to massive windmill farms (from Abilene, TX to Rockford, IL) that are scientifically located exactly where birds migrate (yet we hear no "peeps" from the erstwhile environmental and animal rights crowds that are otherwise so "concerned" about salmon and cougars and wolves et al). So the government stops production of SUV's and Pickups and "big" cars to be replaced with "little" cars and cars that must be "plugged in" and vehicles that are unsafe and far less appropriate for rural lifestyles or cold northern climates. Hmmm, move to an urban apartment anyone? Don't read the "Stimulus"; prattle about Executive pay and Company entertainment; but whatever happens hope that "more" government spending and "more" government control will "bail us out". The "crisis" that the White House "chief" correctly reminded us is "too good to waste" is simply a cover for all of these Socialist daydreams that could not otherwise stand the light of day even with a couple of Socialist superstars ramrodding the House of Representatives and the Senate.
- We are told that we will "lead" other nations by signing a Global "Warming" TREATY at the next world government soiree in Denmark. In spite of no defensible science or reason to justify either that the world is warming or cooling in some overarching manner and particularly in light of the fact that neither the presence or absence of Carbon dioxide (CO2) does or could influence "climate" "change" we will sign a TREATY (thereby per the Constitution becoming "the supreme Law of the Land") to tax CO2 and further impede economic recovery, capitalism, and freedom. These latter are the "real" Socialist goals of all this "climate" hubbub. The fact that government will reap Trillions as it destroys remaining vestiges of free enterprise or Constitutional property rights is merely an interim bonus. As an Australian scientist observed, "if the US and China went to zero CO2 emissions tomorrow, it wouldn't make ANY difference to climate. The way to manage climate changes is to prepare for wet and dry, hot and cold, and storms of varying magnitude."
- Every day, expanded government interventions (bailouts, stimulus, stock purchases, laws governing pay, elimination of a secret vote regarding unionization, specifying what cars to build and not to build, etc.) in every facet of American life proceed apace. Each of us hopes it doesn't touch us ("our" mortgage interest deduction, what vehicles we will be "allowed" to buy, the price of oil for heating and transportation and electricity, the "new" electrical plant that is supposed to "reduce" costs, etc.) while we simultaneously ask "what is in the (Stimulus, Omnibus, proposal, etc.) for me?" The goal of a Socialist Oligarchy becomes clearer each day.
- Government race and sex categorization rapidly approaches the chronic status of Zimbabwe as Robert Reich and Charlie Rangel openly discuss at a Congressional hearing how to "keep this money (the government largesse all around) FROM GOING TO WHITE MALES". Oh hum, so what? It gains no more than a shrug from Constitutionally illiterate millions that governmental preferences (hiring, contracting, promoting, allocations of government programs, access to government "largesse", etc.) based on race or sex or national origin - just like religious categorizations - are WRONG, ILLEGAL, AND CORROSIVE TO LIBERTY AND FREEDOM. This rotten precedent is even used now to justify the President expressing the policy that religious groups may not "discriminate" as with Catholic institutions having to hire abortion advocates and Jewish organizations having to hire anti-Jewish Moslems. In addition to setting us against each other, this divisiveness allows the Socialists, just like Nazis and Communists, to promise us things separately with the fiction that they are merely "redistributing" "it" as if Freedom or wealth for that matter were finite amounts instead of growing values that are the continuing product of a Free Society where government protects Rights instead of destroying and then parceling them out.
- Government erosion of Constitutional State's Rights is almost complete. Ever since Woodrow Wilson succeeded in Amending the Constitution to establish a federal income tax AND to make US Senators into pampered Lords elected by and in service to national and international interests as opposed to the State they formerly "represented", the disappearance of State authority (as with wolves where federal overseers dictate but states "manage") and the parallel growth of a supreme central government has continued. No better example exists than the recent bragging by the Los Angeles Mayor that since "the state" (i.e. California) has other priorities (like going broke largely because of the cities like Los Angeles) the mayor "has been to Washington and received assurances" that much of the current Socialist government largesse will "come directly to the city". Hear that Chicago, Boston, NYC, Philadelphia, Seattle, et al? Lest we forget, remember those Red/Blue maps of the 2000 and 2004 Presidential election. Where will those urban masses look for "support"? Who will they vote for? What are the implications for gun control, Wilderness, Endangered Species, a "Climate" Treaty, Socialized/Nationalized medicine, etc., etc.?
Last but certainly not least, there is Life (human that is). The President and his curiously Catholic enablers like Richardson and Daschle and now Sebelius all proclaim how we "need" for government to take over all medical treatment for the poor and the sick and those that "can't afford it". Simultaneously, they (in this time of fiscal "crisis?"):
1. Initiate funding for abortions in foreign lands.
2. Expand and will pay for stem cell research involving the creation and destruction (excuse me, "harvesting") of human embryos
3. Initiate federal funding for abortions nationwide.
4. Begin legislation to force ALL doctors and hospitals to perform abortions or lose accreditation (thereby assuring the destruction of Catholic hospitals, Christian doctors and nurses of conscience in this matter, and soon even the right to protest against abortion - a "legal" right - as in other Socialist states like Norway.)
While I am aware of the President's wish not to have his daughters "punished with a baby", spare me the empty rhetoric about "concern" for the poor and minorities et al and the nonsense about nationalizing medicine being important to "recovering the economy". One or two of us are actually not that stupid. Our lives, from conception to natural death mean no more to you than they did to Nazis or Communists. We are as cheap as those animals you are "concerned" about. We are merely a means to your end and will be discarded when we are no longer needed to serve your purposes or pay enough taxes. Destroying religious-based charities, organizations, hospitals, and schools is necessary to your replacing them with YOUR substitutes that like Communist or Nazi substitutes are merely means of maintaining power, period!
I for one am not surprised, only desperately mad. The President's wife told us she "was never proud of America" while the President clearly communicated (in a closed San Francisco meeting) what he thinks of guys like me ("clinging to guns and religion"); so what else could I expect? As a former veteran and police officer, anyone associating with and utilizing the likes of Tony Rezko, Bill Ayres, Jeremiah Wright, and the Chicago political machine (I was born there and raised nearby) only generates disgust in my mind.
The Congress and White House are firmly in the hands of Socialists that are determined to take it the final step - destruction of any shred of Constitutional law and establishment of a Socialist Oligarchy. Even foreign relations are being perverted to prove quickly that old adage that "Democrats get us into wars". We slight our oldest allies like Britain while bending over backwards to find and "dialogue" with "Moderate?" Taliban? We can't even produce a proper Russian translation on a stupid and childish "gift" to Russian rulers while we ignore North Korean threats and manipulations. We offer no alternative to Iranian nukes and the promise to use them on Israel (and?) while we "visit" Chinese officials that then turn around and order harassment of a USNS ship in International Waters. One is reminded of the perception of similar Carter ploys that bred first humorous contempt and then open defiance by enemies bent on destroying American interests in the world.
So no more "don't they know" feces. They know exactly what they are doing and why they are "doing it". They have no scruples about lying or dissembling. Whether it is the "environmentalist" lying about wolves or salmon; or the Health and Human Services "Catholic' lying about her concern for "the poor"; or the President lying about how health care "reform" is "necessary" to "recover the economy": they are all about establishing their own Oligarchy of rule. They may or may not believe that it will stop with them and their ideas (like Chavez's early supporters or Mugabe's early supporters also believed) but that is irrelevant: either we reclaim the Constitutional freedoms we have so Cavalierly failed to defend in the mistaken assumption that they would take care of themselves or we can look to Venezuela or Cuba or Rhodesia/Zimbabwe to imagine what awaits our children and grandchildren.
I will conclude with a few simple truisms and a hopeful suggestion:
- Massive spending and massive debt whether national or personal is more dangerous the greater it becomes.
- Government at the lowest level and guaranteed rights are the foundation of free men.
- Other than protecting the commerce between states and defending the interests of the United States internationally, the only important function of the central government is to PRESERVE THE CONSTITUTION.
- As Constitutional government dissolves, radical replacements emerge such as the total "protection" of renewable natural resources and the elimination of the benefits, management, and wise use of animals, plants, minerals, and energy resources. The degree to which these things are eliminated is a rough barometer of the growing strength of an all-powerful central government.
- The degree to which we cherish and protect all human life from conception to natural death is the measure of the protection we can each expect from our government under all circumstances.
- There are many factions in the world that want the United States to disappear from communists and socialists to radical Moslems and governments that want to rule people that cannot even imagine, much less expect or demand, the freedoms and rights enjoyed by Americans for 200 plus years.
Socialists HATE (the correct word) various things:
- Environmentalists HATE farmers, ranchers, loggers, road builders, private property rights, managers of plants and animals, energy development, dams, irrigators, accessible and usable public lands, rural towns and residences, etc.
- Animal rights radicals HATE hunters, trappers, fur owners, fishermen, meat eaters, pet "owners", private property, local governments (they might allow bullfights or cockfights or horse slaughter plants, etc.), ranchers, poultry farmers, etc., etc.
- Jeremiah Wright's crowd HATES whites.
- The Planned Parenthood women in The White House and Departments HATE men and housewives and religions wherein women can't be what THEY want them to be.
- Descendants of victims of brutal businesses like miners and farmers that were abused by businessmen or bankers HATE capitalists and big business.
- People dependent on the forced support of others HATE those that have "more".
- Politicians and bureaucrats determined to control and rule others HATE the Constitution and all the stumbling blocks placed in their path.
- Scientists HATE the "ignorant" (of what the scientist "believes") and all those that would presume to do anything that the scientist opposes for whatever reason.
- Teachers and professors HATE the parents and religions that presume to inculcate the young with values and beliefs with which the state-salaried "teacher" disagrees.
- Same-sex advocates HATE anyone questioning their lifestyle or resisting their demands for "marriage" or indoctrinating young persons.
- "Victims" HATE those they believe have victimized them.
These hatreds have grown particularly intense and public in recent years from hatred for individual Presidents to hatred of particular religions. Just as the child that was tolerated for stealing from his Mother's purse and then for stealing lunch money from classmates doesn't just suddenly start strong-arming old people and then sticking up 7-11's; so too did these Socialists not suddenly just pop up in one election. Their gradual successes have bred a belief that their triumph is inevitable. Like the youngster gradually taking more and believing himself invincible, so too have Socialists come to believe that the Constitution can be violated without consequence and that rules and rights are convertible into government legal tender that can be doled out as appropriate for government's purposes. Maybe the first step in turning this around lies in admitting the existence of lying by our leaders and then in understanding what is going on and why. Whether it is too late to begin turning this around and reclaim our Constitutional liberties and guarantees only time will tell.
Jim Beers