What’s evil is the manner oF distortion———–the LIES!

It seems to me that today everyone is required to take a side. You must be a red state or a blue state, a Republican or a Democrat, for or against. Whatever happened to debating the issue on its merits, seeing the value of some of the ideas from each side and then making a decision. Why does it seem to be required that you must pick a side.

I think a great deal of damage has been done by this “pick a side” mentality. First, it creates a “them” and an “us”. Second it makes it easy to assume all the “thems” believe the same thing. In my opinion, it’s the differences and the discussions that make things interesting.

I think the world does not always cleave neatly into left and right, right and wrong. Good people can disagree about outcomes and even about facts, since what they see depends on where they stand (this is true on the mountain and in life).

People on all sides of all debates are convinced that not only are they right, but that they are good moral people. You can take the most evil person in history, and he will tell you that he was only doing what was right.

All of this is to say the business of lobbying for a cause is, at some level, the business of understanding where people are coming from and then showing them to YOUR destination via THEIR road. An example: If you want a Muslim to be a Christian, you cannot get them there by yelling at them (or bombing them). A good place to start is with the first sura of the Koran which says Jesus and Moses were also prophets. Now the nice Muslim men and women you want to convert are no longer traitors if they listen to a few Bible stories while you fix them a really nice lunch

The same is true when talking about wildlife and “extractive” industries like timber and mining. Let’s assume — whether you are right or left — that no one wants to rip, rob and rape the forests anymore than anyone wants to lock them all up for the titled gentry (which in the U.S. are the folks with trust accounts and gold cards). Let’s assume “the other side” is not evil. Let’s assume that they are as they imagine themselves to be — good people.

Can we find common goals, even if we cannot find common values? More often than not, I think the answer is “yes”.

I LIKE the fact that there are people on the “left” who hug trees, and I LIKE the fact there are people on the “right” who know the value of timber in terms of board feet. Ditto for the schisms we see in the world of hunting and fishing, farm production, etc.

Sure there are liars and morons on boths sides of every wildlife and wild lands debate, but in general the outcome of the tension in world views (and the fierce debates that follow) is that we have more bear, more wolves, more alligators, more turkey, more deer, more coyote, more duck, more geese, more raccoon, more manatee, more whales, more eagles, more bison, more fox, and more elk than we have ever had in my lifetime, or yours … or our fathers and grandfathers to boot.

And, as a consequence, we have more hunting opportunities too.

In the end, these political and world-perspective fights are as ugly as sausage-making, but what comes out in the end is a pretty fine thing most of the time. I am not for “management by majority,” but thanks to the Fish and Wildlife Service, we do not have that most of the time; both good and ill can come from that, but in balace we seem to be doing a lot right whem you see where we were 100 years ago, and where we are now.

P.

http://www.terrierman.com