*Editors Note* – Following is perhaps one of the best “rants” of all time. I have had my share from time to time and I usually end up making little sense. I received this in an email exchanged and like it enough that I asked the person who wrote it if I could post it. So, here it is.
If you hunt; if you value the management of public lands; if you use and appreciate public lands; if you benefit (restaurants, motels, gas stations, local government, local economies, ranch and farm communities and their supporters, state government and their employees, etc.) from the use of public lands; if you live and work in rural America; if you and your family have cultural and traditional heritages that involve the ownership and use of wild or domestic animals; if you live in rural America; and if you realize that government policies are spreading wolf packs, grizzly bears, and mountain lions that – kill people; spread deadly diseases and infections; kill livestock; kill dogs; decimate big game herds; and diminish rural economies, property values, lifestyles, safety, and families: a taxonomy lesson is necessary to enable you to distinguish harmless snakes from poisonous snakes.
Poisonous snakes:
- Appear as “experts” explaining why deadly and harmful wolves, bears, and cougars belong everywhere.
- Appear as “academics” claiming that wolves, bears, and pumas are not dangerous.
- Appear as “bureaucrats” explaining why the laws they advocated and the regulations they wrote make them helpless pawns of government wolf, bear, and cougar programs run by others.
- Appear as human females pictured petting and feeding the pups, cubs, and kittens of large deadly predators.
- Appear as local veterinarians and animal welfare officers explaining why local animal owners and hunters are all threats to animals while spreading wolves, bears, and mountain lions are either ignored or encouraged.
- Appear as wolf/bear/lion administrators that imprison citizens that kill these predators while remaining silent as gun control groups and politicians work to eliminate guns in the very areas where government (the aforementioned “administrators”) is placing these predators.
- Appear as richly-clothed lawyers from international environmental organizations, carrying expensive briefcases as they roam courtrooms to maintain total protection of deadly predators.
- Appear as nubby-clothed (corduroy trousers, checked shirts, clean hiking shoes, long oily hair, etc.) “activists” explaining why it was dogs that killed the cow and hunting that caused the extinction of elk herds.
- Appear as “government P-R boys and girls” explaining why the dead person “didn’t behave properly” or “was menstruating” or “ran” or “didn’t ball-up” or “didn’t fight” or “was in their (fill-in-the-blank) habitat” or how the — was “sick” or “old” or in need of understanding. They will also never recognize the 2nd Amendment or killing the animal.
- Appear as teachers teaching children to not say “KILLER Whale” but to say “Orca” while they condemn the specieism of the stereotyping of wolves in Little Red Riding Hood and encourage children to do whatever they want sexually.
- Appear as “intellectuals” denying any negative effects from deadly predators and spewing all manner of nonsense like “global warming”, “managed hunting”, “homes”, and rural residents and all their activities as the reasons for what rural people know is due to the presence and activities of deadly and unmanaged predators.
- Appear as taxonomists explaining how there are “Eastern” this and “Northern” that and “Mountain” this and “High Plains” that ad nauseam of these deadly predators that is truly self-serving and “academic” nonsense to those attacked or harmed by the protected presence of these animals in their midst.
- Appear as “biologists” teaching heretofore never-heard-of subspecies, races, populations, distinct populations, and distinct population segments of everything that walks, crawls, flies, grows or swims across the face of the earth.
- Appear as politicians friendly with federal agencies that “protect” and “save” animals or own and grow “public” lands that are closed to resource management, access, and use.
- Appear as journalists claiming that predators “always” do this and “never” do that.
- Appear as “sophisticates” touting UN Treaties; Swiss animal rights laws (government lawyers for fish to accuse fishermen); or Kenyan animal protection laws that result in human deaths, village and crop destruction, and demonization of hunters.
- Appear as the nice Pro-Choice neighbor that condemns those that would kill the Killer Whale that killed the young lady “trainer?” or wants any offending deadly predator (no matter their act) “trapped and released in ‘the wilderness’” (wherever that is?).
- Appear as the “too many people everywhere” advocate that equates reducing rural human populations of (Africa, Wyoming, India, Idaho, China, etc.) by predators that kill, maim, and ultimately intimidate such persons to leave with UN birth control, Chinese 1-child (except for rich Chinese) policies, Swiss and Dutch euthanasia policies, and abortion availability.
- Appear as missionaries for nature and animal worship cults that equate humans with all other animals and plants.
- Appear as lobbyists for government paid-for and enforced “native ecosystems” and “invasive species” (based merely on arbitrary dates and not on any benefit or on the harm they do or threaten to do) programs. NOTE: Ever wonder why the “harm” of zebra mussels, knapweed, kudzu, and snakehead fish et al justify draconian government powers and punishment while the far more serious and deadly “harm” of deadly predator introduction and protection is both ignored and even denied by the same citizens and bureaucrats that “play Chicken Little” about “invasive species”?
- Appear as campaigners for the “protection” of local private property by the formation of powerful federally funded quasi-government “partners” that undercut private property owners at every turn; that advocate the domination of local government and local economies by federal agencies and their “cooperators”; that advocate elimination of natural resource management and the resulting tax-sharing with local government on local public lands; that advocate closing all practical access to local public lands (Roadless Declarations, Wilderness Declarations, and trail closures); and that advocate elimination of all habitat management for species desired for recreational and revenue-generating uses on both public and private property.
- Appear as friendly advocates for all of the above while asking you to not be a “name-caller” or “argumentative” as they try patiently to “explain” science or how currently elected officials have the right to do whatever they want and your only “right” is the “right to submit”.
Harmless Snakes:
Not being a herpetologist or snake fan (I know the poisonous ones only as a matter of survival) I can only describe one harmless snake. That snake is characterized by being abysmally “normal” in appearance and behaving in such a way that he or she respects the Constitutional Rights of others no matter how different or how far away, helps a threatened neighbor, encourages families, and loves the America that is being destroyed by the different poisonous snakes described above.
Think of a large “slither” of the above poisonous snakes tumbling into, on, and over rural America and you have what you are up against when you argue for your rights or for the elk you hunt or for your property rights or your guns. Remember that these poisonous snakes all “den” periodically to share their activities and to plan for their next objectives. If you don’t treat them like the school of sharks they are (that means being neither intimidated by nor hesitant to challenge them) you can only (like a Christian prisoner waiting for your turn in the amphitheater) wait for them to call your name and shove you into the arena for your turn.
