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Need we Wake-up

OldDog/NewTricks

Well-known member
Doesn't sound like our side 'won' last night... too bad.....


-----Original Message-----
From: Jim Beers [mailto:[email protected]zon.net]
Sent: Thursday, August 23, 2007 1:46 PM
To: Jim Beers
Subject: Point Guards & PETA

HUNTERS BETTER WAKE UP

Last night I just got upset but figured on keeping it to myself.
Watching the O'Reilly Show last night while reading something worthwhile I perked up when they ran a clip of an overly-tattooed point guard for the NY Knicks asking,"what's the difference between fighting dogs and shooting deer?".

This was followed up by a one-on-one interview between an old acquaintance who works for a national sportsmen's organization and Mr. O'Reilly. The interview was a bumbling affair on both ends. O'Reilly knows about as much about rural life and environmental animal issues as I do about Saturn and the "sportsmen's" representative was a prime example of why so many state fish and wildlife employees and retired biologists and foresters believe that hunting (and a lot of other things) will soon be "gone".

The essence of O'Reilly's probing was "what is the difference between dog fighting and hunting?" The theme of "our" (hunters) defender was that it was a funny (as in HA, HA) comparison by this person that dog fighting was a "sport" and that he hunts with his Dad and they eat what they kill so it is different (i.e. a "sport"), oh and PETA was not taken seriously by anyone anyway. Well there you have it!

The only one of the three that had the faintest idea of reality was the
NBA point guard with all the tattoos. He is EXACTLY right. There is NO difference between dog fighting and killing deer. So Vick (ugh!) and this point guard and their friends call dog fighting a sport. Are they less smart or less informed or less able in some other way to consider certain animal use a "sport" than some other folks considering deer hunting a "sport"? According to the hunting defender dog fighting would be a "sport" if family members attended together (some no doubt do) and you ate the dog.

Hello, earth to hunters.
If you aren't starting to realize your stake in defending the rights of gamefowl breeders to fight their birds or horse owners to sell their horse to a slaughter house or even dog owners to
fight their dogs WHERE ALLOWED BY LOCAL COMMUNITIES you better start thinking hard about it. The dogs and the gamefowl and the horses are all PRIVATE PROPERTY, they are not your neighbor's cuddly toys that they can take anytime they want. The deer and the ducks and the pheasants and the beaver and the fox et al are PUBLIC PROPERTY and they are RENEWABLE NATURAL
RESOURCES every bit as much as timber and forage.

So PETA and all their environmental and animal rights allies (not just
other radical organizations but the bureaucrats and academicians and pandering politicians that feed off them) are out to destroy any use of animal private property from dog fighters and cock fighters to hunters and trappers and poultry operators and farmers and ranchers. Do you not see the precedents being set? Do you not understand how the vilification and capitalizing on incidents (like gun control) is the tool of those out to destroy your rights? Do you not understand that you (hunters, trappers, fishermen etal) are exactly like that German in Nazi Germany that opined that
"when they came for the disabled I did not care; when they came for the gypsies I did not care; when they came for the Jews I did not care; and when they came for me, no one was there"?

Now I know I am thought to be fearless and outspoken but I figured last night to just let it pass. The guy on O'Reilly was an old acquaintance (friend?) that, like all my old professional acquaintances, avoid me like the plague and are known to say unkind things when my name is mentioned.

The sportsmen's organization he represents like so many other such organizations characterize me as a nut and has openly discouraged others from inviting me to speak or put on a seminar. What this adds up to is that to criticize their defense of hunting would be blown off as the winnowing of some airbag, has-been. Getting any traction for such criticism would be very difficult and I have much else to do.

Then I cut my hair in the garage after cutting the grass this morning.
A small radio in the garage comes on whenever I turn on the power. The radio came on to the Rush Limbaugh Show and Rush was talking about this point-guard's remarks and then he played a tape of this morning's Today Show and Ingrid Newkirk (the PETA Lady) being asked if there is any difference between dog fighting and hunting. Miss Newkirk (like the Knick's point guard) gets it perfectly. She very sweetly said that while PETA is (merely) opposed to hunting: dog fighting is far worse than a hunter killing a deer with a rifle.

Question to all hunters: why would the "kindly" Miss Newkirk speak so nicely about hunting? If you believe that she believes that or that she means it or that if you just "be nice" she and her ilk (that is not a "big deer") will forget about you when all the dog fighters and cock fighters and horse slaughterers et al are in prison I prescribe more fish dinners to feed your brain.
SHE SAID THAT, BECAUSE SHE DOES NOT WANT HUNTERS STARTING TO DEFEND DOG FIGHTERS OR COCK FIGHTERS OR ANY OTHER GROUP. YOU ARE ALL SUPPOSED TO BE CONQUERED ONE AT A TIME LIKE HITLER'S PLANNEDCONQUEST OF EUROPE OR NAPOLEON'S CONQUESTS OR ROME'S CONQUEST OF THE ANCIENT WORLD.
Miss Newkirk and an NBA point guard get what the rest of us are too lazy or too proud to get. By the time I had cut my hair I knew I had to write this piece.

There is NO DIFFERENCE between killing wild animals from whales and seals and porpoises to elephants and deer and scaup; and killing domestic animals from cattle and poultry and lambs to horses and gamefowl and dogs. A lot of folks have come to believe that they have a right to take away other people's rights in these affairs.


They do not have the right to take away our rights UNLESS WE LET THEM. If my romantic notions about dogs (I do have them) based on pet's I have known gives me carte blanche to dictate how my neighbor uses his dog then we simply validate the "affection" or romantic notions others have used to dictate the destruction of seal management or whale use or protection of deadly predators like cougars and wolves and grizzly bears or the destruction of poultry farming etc. THERE IS NO DIFFERENCE.

Dog fighting, like cock fighting and horse slaughter should NOT be
Federal matters: they were always and should remain (for many reasons beyond those mentioned here) under State and Local jurisdiction. Like so many other such subjects, the overarching control of rural communities by powerful and densely populated urban jurisdictions on State policies (smothering everything from hunting and gun rights to animal use) needs to be addressed in each State.

So, sorry guys. You blew it. I say this not as some nut but as a hunter who does not want hunting destroyed. Unless hunters (forget about "our organizations", they have become merely career centers) see and act on their stake in what is being done to other animal users: we will see it destroyed.

One of my great heroes is Edith Stein. I read a little from her writings almost every morning. Today's line read, "We can lead others only to do that which we ourselves practice." If we cannot practice tolerance for our neighbor's rights nor defend their rights when they are being taken away; how can we expect any one to be there "when they come for me"?

Jim Beers
23 August 2007

- If you found this worthwhile, please share it with others. Thanks.
- This article and other recent articles by Jim Beers can be found at
http://jimbeers.blogster.com (Jim Beers Common Sense)
- Jim Beers is available for consulting or to speak. Contact:
[email protected]

- 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 Centreville, Virginia with his wife of many decades.
 
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