Chicken & Polar Bears
Jim Beers answers reader comments:
I recently received a copy of some comments on my piece about polar bears. I have tried to answer it though I am not a member of the group that posted it. Here, for your information are the comments and my response.
The Readers comments ...
OK folks, show of hands. Who among you thinks we should be defending the "property rights" of those who want to "legally have cockfights", and feel that we as dog owners have a "stake" in the "denial of rights to cockfighters"? This is where I am still drawing the line. If I'm wrong, someone please jump in to show me where!!!! (IMO, only a tiny jump from organized "cockfights" to organized "dog fighting". Both, by the way, are heavily associated with other crimes, such as weapons, drugs, and gambling.)
Signed XXXXXXXX
PS. This guy (Beers) is usually on very shakey scientific ground regarding native/invasive and endangered species - I and several others have several long posts on this general topic from back in December. However, Al Gore is not a scientist either, and the scientific jury really is still out regarding "global warming" and "polar bears" - so in this case Beers may prove at least partially correct.
Jim Beers response:
Dear XXXXXXXX,
Someone forwarded me your comments re: a polar bear piece I authored. Please consider the following:
1.) Cockfighters own their chickens just as you own your pet. If it is OK to deny them their rights" to fight their chickens" because it is "only a tiny jump from organized "cockfights" to organized "dog fighting" then it is similarly justifiable to deny you the right to train your pet or house your pet or have to pass a "test" to simply use your pet as you will since others assert that what you do "leads to other things". This business about it "leads to crime, gambling, etc." may be valid in some communities and it is certainly reasonable for those communities to restrict or prohibit cockfights for such reasons BUT this is NOT why cockfights are being barred.
2.) Cockfights are called "inhumane", "cruel", "barbaric", etc. by those who do not go to them (I never have for your information). It is the TREATMENT of the animal, i.e. private property, based on other person's standards being given the force of law. As this stands, no one's property rights in any animal is safe and will eventually be destroyed as we reach the natural end-point that "animals are NOT property but merely a privilege granted or prohibited by government". Are all you folks with your hands in your lap happy with that? Do you really believe that there will eventually be anything like a "pet" for anyone except the favorites of government? Perhaps you do have a "dog in this fight". As we sanctify everything from whales and porpoises to elephants and wolves, a Texan once told me, "Beers we're talking about chickens here". I couldn't have said it better.
3.) Tell me what is the difference between fighting cocks and shooting ducks with a shotgun or shooting a deer with a rifle? Degree of suffering? Time of suffering? Principle? There really is no difference in the eyes of the folks doing this.
4.) What's to be "shakey" about native/invasive species? They are clearly definable. To argue as I do that the Federal government should have no role or responsibilities based on these concepts is "shakey"? Really. Let the Federal government confine itself to supporting state initiatives to control or eradicate HARMFUL SPECIES. Is that scientific enough? I try to explain this without footnotes and in plain language in order for the majority of readers to understand the issue, not to create a peer-reviewed publication or obtain a graduate teaching position,
5.) Endangered Species' "scientific ground" is quicksand. The money and power it has spawned and spread over the past 35 years has no more been based on or created "science" than Prohibition created a sober nation in the 1920's. Give me some examples of my "shakey ground science" and I will do my best to answer your points.
6.) So in answer to the business about raising hands, "Ask not for whom the bells toll lest (and because) they toll for thee" dog owners, hunters, et al.
Jim Beers
21 March 2007