Two Americas
by JIM BEERS
Wading through all the symptoms and battlefields of this 40-plus year confrontation between environmental/animal rights zealots and the traditional/freedom-loving Americans reveals much. Consider:
1.) Wilderness Proliferation
2.) Endangered Species Listings and Habitat Claims
3.) Federal Land Controls and Purchases
4.) Increasing Protected-Predator Attacks and Destruction
5.) Native Ecosystems Proliferations
6.) Non-Native Species Eradications
7.) Reduced Timber Management
8.) Reduced Grazing Areas
9.) Big Game Herd Reductions
10.) Expanding Lists of Federally-“Protected” Non-Endangered Animals from Lab Mice and Seals to Chickens and Horses
11.) Reduced Energy (oil, gas, coal, nuclear) Development
12.) Reduction of Animal Property Ownership Rights
13.) Steady Elimination of Fishing, Hunting, and Trapping
14.) Diversion of Crops like Corn to Fuel Supplements
15.) Removal of Dams with Attendant Loss of Power, Irrigation, Recreation, et al
16.) Reduction of Irrigation Pumping
17.)Government-Spread of and Elimination of control of Deadly and Destructive Predators
18.) Government Wetlands and Water Claims and Closures
19.) Federal Human Diet Laws
20.) Climate-Based Lifestyle Laws Affecting Where and How We Live
21.) “Renewable” Energy Boondoggles and Their Exemption from Other Laws
22.) Longer & Longer Government Permitting Processes and Regulations for Everything from Starting a Business to Allowable Residential Conditions to Building (or Not Building) or Repairing Infrastructure
23.) Continuing Federal Campaigns to Destroy Constitutional 2nd Amendment Rights While Making Rural America More and More Perilous for Human Life
24.) Many More Comparable Confrontations Too Numerous to Mention Here.
We should step back and ask ourselves both “why?” and “where is all this leading us?”
We are forced to ask why we continue to do these things to ourselves in times of great national financial difficulties? Why do we increase the size, cost, and power of a federal government (specifically limited in such things by our 200+ year old Constitution) to do these things? Why do we go deeper and deeper into Trillions of dollars of debt to nations that are historic and potential threats to our nation and our values, in order to continue doing these things?
Why do we ignore or deny:
The Total Direct Costs (i.e. Regulations, Enforcement, Prosecution, Grants, Administration, Support, Salaries, Benefits, Legal Costs, Land Purchase and Easement, Education, Training, Equipment, Publicity, Land Management, etc., etc.) not only to Federal Bureaucracies but to State and Local Governments as Well?
The Total Indirect Costs such as:
1. Loss of Timber, Forage, Hunting, Fishing, Trapping, Farming, Ranching, Recreation, Guiding, etc. Income?
2. Loss of Timber, Forage, Hunting, Fishing, Trapping, Farming, Ranching, Recreation, Guiding, etc. Tax Revenue and Revenue Sharing?
3. Loss of Property (of All Sorts) Values and their Attendant Tax Contributions?
4. Loss of Power Availability and Increases in Power and Transportation Costs?
5. Loss of Innovation, Investment, Jobs, and Prosperity Nationwide?
6. Loss and Waste of Renewable Natural Resources?
7. Lock-Up of Needed Energy Resources?
Why do we shrug about:
The Absolute Power Growth of Central Government at the Expense of States and Individuals?
The Loss of Freedom to Buy Things from Food and Autos to Bathroom Fixtures and Light Bulbs?
Government Conspiracies to Disarm American Citizens?
Energy Costs and Living Mandates Forcing Regression to European Standards?
Government Mandates Establishing MORE Rights for Plants, Animals, and Government Preferences (See 1 through 23 above) than for the American Citizen that Founded the Federal Government TO PROTECT HIM and his family and his community?
The answer lies deeper yet.
Today there is a large segment of the US population that has come to believe very strongly that there are many things that must be IMPOSED on all Americans. The preceding paragraphs are but a thumbnail sketch of such things that are currently being imposed by Government on behalf of these people. Because Government has been captured (for over four decades now) by such people: laws are passed, bureaucrats are deployed, State and local Governments are neutered, and citizen rights are being eroded like Utah riverbanks during one of those desert floods.
The peculiar aspect of this confrontation is how one-sided it is.
- The hunter does not want to force anyone to hunt or to deny mountain bikers access to lands while hunting takes place, but the reverse is true.
- The dog owner does not want to force others to own or breed a dog or dogs, but the reverse is true.
- The rancher does not want to force others to raise or eat livestock, but the reverse is true.
- The pickup truck driver could care less what others drive, but the reverse is true.
- Fathers want safe and comfortable homes plus affordable transportation and energy for their families, yet many would deny them this opportunity.
- The poor worldwide need affordable and available food that we make more scarce and expensive by diverting it to fuel, especially when we choose to neither develop our own energy resources nor allow import of Canadian energy.
(NOTE: The following is worded carefully and not intended to be pejorative.)
There are many things we can attribute all this forced change to:
A.) Ignorance of our first 200 years of Constitutional Republican Governance wherein “all men are created equal” and “are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights” , or
B.) Contempt for our first 200 years of Constitutional Republican Governance wherein “all men are created equal” and “are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights”, or
C.) A desire to destroy the heritage of our first 200 years of Constitutional Republican Governance wherein “all men are created equal” and “are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights”, or
D.) Religious zealotry on behalf of the belief that “other” humans are a pestilence on the earth that must be severely controlled or reduced is spreading nationwide, or
E.) A pagan belief that humans are no different than any other animal or plant life and therefore non-human life is equal to or even superior to human life has resurrected itself, or
F.) Ignorant or naïve concepts about animals, plants, or rural life that have spread among those removed from the natural world for some unfathomable reason, or
G.) Urban bigotry against rural residents viewed as ignorant, religious, or simply as enemies of other progressive changes being fomented nationwide.
H.) A simple grasp for power over others for personal gain much like former Russian Communists masquerading today as a “managed democracy”.
In the US today, this citizen/government “partnership” to oppress others is no more exemplary than in the program to spread and protect deadly, dangerous and destructive grizzly bears.
- A black bear hunter recently attacked by a government-grizzly is killed by a gunshot from his partner trying to save his life and zealots are amused and say he deserved it.
- After a government park visitor was recently killed by a grizzly, “Park authorities later decided to let the bear remain free because it had no prior run-ins with humans and was
reacting as might be expected to a surprise encounter.”
- An Idaho father kills one of 3 grizzly bears in his yard where his children are present. He is threatened with imprisonment and an enormous fine even though he reports it immediately. A Native American kills a grizzly in the wild, cuts off and takes the claws, fails to report the killing, denies killing the grizzly to investigators, and is fined less than a speeding ticket.
Despite such increasing incidents, grizzly bear-spreading and oppression of the citizenry extends over greater and greater areas.
These examples are no different than Germans and their government tolerating the murder of Jews or Gypsies, or the enslavement of Eastern Europeans considered “sub-humans” (meaning NOT Aryans, whatever that meant).
These examples are no different than Russian or Chinese or Cambodian Communists and their government tolerating the murder of capitalists or teachers or bankers.
These examples are no different than Middle East Moslems and their government tolerating the murder of isolated Christian congregants.
Whatever else we may say about America today, there is a growing division between those that would oppress others and those that wish to live their lives in peace tolerating their neighbors in line with the rights and responsibilities embodied in our Constitution. Ours is truly a “House Divided”.
On 16 June 1858 Abraham Lincoln gave a famous speech in Springfield, Illinois. He was accepting the Republican Party nomination to run for the office of US Senator from Illinois. In this “House Divided” speech, as it came to be known, Mr. Lincoln said something that is just as applicable to our divisions today as it was regarding the issue of slavery in his day. Consider these words:
“A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure, permanently, half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved — I do not expect the house to fall — but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other. Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction; or its advocates will push it forward, ‘til it shall become alike lawful in all the States, old as well as new — North as well as South.”
Either we “all hang together” and reunite this great nation, or as Ben Franklin put it so aptly, “we will all hang separately”.
Jim Beers
27 Sep. 2011
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This article and other articles written by Jim Beers since January 2009 can
be found at http://jimbeers7.blogster.com (Jim Beers Uncommon Sense)
Articles by Jim Beers written from March 2006 to January 2009 can be found
at http://jimbeers.blogster.com (Jim Beers Common Sense)
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 Eagan, Minnesota with his wife of many decades.
Jim Beers is available to speak or for consulting at jimbeers7@comcast.net