Mongol horse race - guaranteed to kill horses
The largest non-sanctioned endurance race ever attempted is set to be run this summer in Mongolia. Nearly a thousand under-sized native horses have been drafted into an effort which deliberately flaunts international endurance racing rules. Worse, none of the 25 amateur riders have any previous endurance riding experience and all will be riding Mongolian ponies they have never met before. No safety arrangements are provided by the promoter, no water or food for the ponies, inadequate numbers or no veterinarians - how many of the 800 equines will be dead before they reach the 1000 km line, how many more will die afterwards as a result of the abuse they will receive?
More at http://lifstrand.blogspot.com/
Monday, June 29, 2009
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Common Sense Uncommonly Rare
For millennia human beings survived and thrived because they used common sense. Those who didn’t enabled their own removal from the gene pool (they died). Maybe its just me, but it sure seems that the gene pool is getting a wee bit murky these days as whatever has contributed since the dawn of history to common sense is somehow fading away.
The disappearance of common sense from everyday life is a scary thing, if you ask me, because common sense is really the basis for the success of democracy. The founders of the USA were a pretty brilliant bunch, but they didn’t expect that everyone who was going to have a vote was going to be brilliant. In fact, democracy doesn’t require brilliance to succeed; it just needs good old common sense to keep it going and healthy.
The point of voting is to let everyone who is ruled by our government have a say in how that ruling is going to happen. This was a very bold, exciting concept back in the day, and it still is. Our brilliant founders knew that extremists would be moderated by the overwhelming mass of people who didn’t need brilliance or higher education to see the right thing to do. That’s because people then, who had to rely on common sense applied in their daily lives to survive, would apply that same common sense to identifying what was the right thing to do.
Thing is, it doesn’t take common sense any more to make it in our daily lives. With the mass withdrawal from fundamental interaction with nature (growing our own food, building our own houses, being responsible for our own safety) that has resulted from mechanization, technological innovation and the internet, we have lost the need for exercising our common sense. Industrial farming and the importing of so much of our food and other commodities means that fewer and fewer people in this country are connected to the real world. Fed by the fantasy world of TV, movies and video games, spending all day long indoors, has created a gap between what is real and possible, and what is desired - and the gap is growing faster and faster.
Simply put, most people just aren’t practicing the use of common sense any more because they don’t have to. So, like any other faculty that doesn’t get used, common sense is just dying out. Unfortunately, what we’re losing is what is needed to vote in something approaching a rational manner in order to maintain a living, healthy democracy. Without common sense, it all falls apart.
Today, our health, our well being, our communities, our society and our country are all going away so rapidly that it’s hard to see how things can be brought back to equilibrium again. We’re all being fed information that has so little connection to reality that it’s stunning. There is so little common sense being used that sometimes I wonder if we’ve been taken over by alien beings from another dimension. Such irrational behavior isn’t all that surprising, since that’s pretty much what has happened - just substitute media, government and political correctness for alien beings.
Really, coming up with a solution is tough, but it seems to me that a first step would be to return power to the people via local governments, because it’s obvious that locals know best about local issues. This means that locals should be the ones who implement federal and state programs in the places that they’re meant to be implemented. It’s only common sense that locals would do a good job of it as they have throughout history - because they’d be the ones who’d suffer if they screwed up.
You can’t force people to use their common sense, and you can’t expect people to suddenly begin using any faculty when it has become atrophied. Still, things have a way of balancing out over time. I’m hoping people wake up and shake themselves up on their own before too long, though, because as bad as it’s become, those who will be paying for the folly of this and past generations will be our children, their children and beyond. That’s not a legacy I’m happy about leaving for them.
The disappearance of common sense from everyday life is a scary thing, if you ask me, because common sense is really the basis for the success of democracy. The founders of the USA were a pretty brilliant bunch, but they didn’t expect that everyone who was going to have a vote was going to be brilliant. In fact, democracy doesn’t require brilliance to succeed; it just needs good old common sense to keep it going and healthy.
The point of voting is to let everyone who is ruled by our government have a say in how that ruling is going to happen. This was a very bold, exciting concept back in the day, and it still is. Our brilliant founders knew that extremists would be moderated by the overwhelming mass of people who didn’t need brilliance or higher education to see the right thing to do. That’s because people then, who had to rely on common sense applied in their daily lives to survive, would apply that same common sense to identifying what was the right thing to do.
Thing is, it doesn’t take common sense any more to make it in our daily lives. With the mass withdrawal from fundamental interaction with nature (growing our own food, building our own houses, being responsible for our own safety) that has resulted from mechanization, technological innovation and the internet, we have lost the need for exercising our common sense. Industrial farming and the importing of so much of our food and other commodities means that fewer and fewer people in this country are connected to the real world. Fed by the fantasy world of TV, movies and video games, spending all day long indoors, has created a gap between what is real and possible, and what is desired - and the gap is growing faster and faster.
Simply put, most people just aren’t practicing the use of common sense any more because they don’t have to. So, like any other faculty that doesn’t get used, common sense is just dying out. Unfortunately, what we’re losing is what is needed to vote in something approaching a rational manner in order to maintain a living, healthy democracy. Without common sense, it all falls apart.
Today, our health, our well being, our communities, our society and our country are all going away so rapidly that it’s hard to see how things can be brought back to equilibrium again. We’re all being fed information that has so little connection to reality that it’s stunning. There is so little common sense being used that sometimes I wonder if we’ve been taken over by alien beings from another dimension. Such irrational behavior isn’t all that surprising, since that’s pretty much what has happened - just substitute media, government and political correctness for alien beings.
Really, coming up with a solution is tough, but it seems to me that a first step would be to return power to the people via local governments, because it’s obvious that locals know best about local issues. This means that locals should be the ones who implement federal and state programs in the places that they’re meant to be implemented. It’s only common sense that locals would do a good job of it as they have throughout history - because they’d be the ones who’d suffer if they screwed up.
You can’t force people to use their common sense, and you can’t expect people to suddenly begin using any faculty when it has become atrophied. Still, things have a way of balancing out over time. I’m hoping people wake up and shake themselves up on their own before too long, though, because as bad as it’s become, those who will be paying for the folly of this and past generations will be our children, their children and beyond. That’s not a legacy I’m happy about leaving for them.
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Gila Sustainable Community News
My last post was about having my rebuttal of some statements by Nancy Kaminski rejected and my thoughts about bias, propaganda and censorship. I just wanted to say that I received an email about "problems with the software" and eventually my comments did wind up on that forum.
I tell you, you have to watch everyone and everything all the time. It would be easy to get into conspiracy mode, but sometimes accidents do happen.
I tell you, you have to watch everyone and everything all the time. It would be easy to get into conspiracy mode, but sometimes accidents do happen.
Friday, June 5, 2009
Bias, propaganda and censorship
Using them says more about the user than about what is being said
Copyright © CR Edmunds
www.onestillfree.com
I received a copy of a post to the Gila Sustainable Community News, Calendar and Forum about the Mexican wolf. Because I wanted to rebut some of the statements by the author, Ms Nancy Kaminski, I properly joined the forum. After being accepted as a member, my rebuttal post was rejected.
Bias, propaganda and censorship are tools for those who cannot stand the light of truth. Those who resort to such do so because they have no truth to convey. Ms Kaminski’s forum post is chock full of inaccuracies and downright misinformation – is that all that pro-Mexican wolf people have in their arsenals?
What bias, propaganda and censorship say is that the message is suspect. What Ms Kaminski’s post and the Gila Forum are saying about themselves is the truth be damned - they want what they want and they’ll stoop to whatever it takes to get it. But heck – that’s what we have blogs for – I can say what I want to say anyway, right here.
So, here’s the reply I tried to submit:
In the interests of truth and accuracy, I would like to provide corrections and comments regarding Ms. Kaminski’s article about Mexican wolves.
“We brought these beautiful wolves to the very brink of extinction.”
I have asked many people – including those with the Mexican wolf program - to tell me how many Mexican wolves are in Mexico. No one has answered. I wonder if anyone knows? Without knowing, can anyone say truthfully that Mexican wolves were brought to the brink of extinction?
“There may have been thousands of them when we first drove cattle across the plains and into what would become New Mexico and Arizona.”
There may have been, but that is unlikely, given that the local wolves were Mogollon wolves. The Mexican wolf program will tell you, if directly asked, that the Mexican wolf recovery area is actually the extreme limit of the possible hunting (not denning) range of Mexican wolves (there is no definitive scientific evidence of Mexican wolf presence in the area). It is hard to imagine Mogollon wolves not protecting their territory. It’s more likely that there were occasional Mexican wolves here, and you bet they were being very, very careful about it.
“A trapper named McBride was sent to Mexico to find wolves there [in Mexico]. After several months he found only six, one pregnant female and five males”.
I have always thought how awful this history is for the Mexican wolf. Trapped and kidnapped from the place where they were born and lived wild, transported and kept in captivity in a non-native area, some dying, others bred and rebred in captivity (from one female!) so that their gene pool is extremely limited - how frightening for the original wolves. How miserable they must have been in captivity. What a horrible experience for those wolves and a shameful beginning for the Mexican wolf program.
“With these and others in zoos and wildlife centers across the US, which were genetically tested to be sure they were pure Mexican wolves, the captive breeding project began.”
Actually, from the information available on the Mexican wolf site and it would seem from Ms. Kaminski’s assertions just above, the original Mexican wolves captured in Mexico were the only Mexican wolves. There were none at that time in zoos and wildlife centers. Therefore, all Mexican wolves in captive breeding programs around the US are descended from the original prisoners. If I am incorrect about this, I would appreciate a link to documentation for such.
“Currently fifty-two of these roam freely in the Blue Range Wolf Recovery Area which is nearly 7000 square miles of public lands in Arizona and New Mexico. Every Mexican wolf alive today is in a stud book.”
Actually 52 collared wolves roam the area, and an unknown number of uncollared wolves are out there, too. The 7000 square miles of land includes private land as well, a fact that is conveniently overlooked so much of the time. Further, most of the uncollared wolves, if not all, are not in any stud book.
But heck, don’t believe me. Do the research yourself – just go to the source, don’t believe those Mexican wolf program supporters, who can’t be bothered with the truth.
Copyright © CR Edmunds
www.onestillfree.com
I received a copy of a post to the Gila Sustainable Community News, Calendar and Forum about the Mexican wolf. Because I wanted to rebut some of the statements by the author, Ms Nancy Kaminski, I properly joined the forum. After being accepted as a member, my rebuttal post was rejected.
Bias, propaganda and censorship are tools for those who cannot stand the light of truth. Those who resort to such do so because they have no truth to convey. Ms Kaminski’s forum post is chock full of inaccuracies and downright misinformation – is that all that pro-Mexican wolf people have in their arsenals?
What bias, propaganda and censorship say is that the message is suspect. What Ms Kaminski’s post and the Gila Forum are saying about themselves is the truth be damned - they want what they want and they’ll stoop to whatever it takes to get it. But heck – that’s what we have blogs for – I can say what I want to say anyway, right here.
So, here’s the reply I tried to submit:
In the interests of truth and accuracy, I would like to provide corrections and comments regarding Ms. Kaminski’s article about Mexican wolves.
“We brought these beautiful wolves to the very brink of extinction.”
I have asked many people – including those with the Mexican wolf program - to tell me how many Mexican wolves are in Mexico. No one has answered. I wonder if anyone knows? Without knowing, can anyone say truthfully that Mexican wolves were brought to the brink of extinction?
“There may have been thousands of them when we first drove cattle across the plains and into what would become New Mexico and Arizona.”
There may have been, but that is unlikely, given that the local wolves were Mogollon wolves. The Mexican wolf program will tell you, if directly asked, that the Mexican wolf recovery area is actually the extreme limit of the possible hunting (not denning) range of Mexican wolves (there is no definitive scientific evidence of Mexican wolf presence in the area). It is hard to imagine Mogollon wolves not protecting their territory. It’s more likely that there were occasional Mexican wolves here, and you bet they were being very, very careful about it.
“A trapper named McBride was sent to Mexico to find wolves there [in Mexico]. After several months he found only six, one pregnant female and five males”.
I have always thought how awful this history is for the Mexican wolf. Trapped and kidnapped from the place where they were born and lived wild, transported and kept in captivity in a non-native area, some dying, others bred and rebred in captivity (from one female!) so that their gene pool is extremely limited - how frightening for the original wolves. How miserable they must have been in captivity. What a horrible experience for those wolves and a shameful beginning for the Mexican wolf program.
“With these and others in zoos and wildlife centers across the US, which were genetically tested to be sure they were pure Mexican wolves, the captive breeding project began.”
Actually, from the information available on the Mexican wolf site and it would seem from Ms. Kaminski’s assertions just above, the original Mexican wolves captured in Mexico were the only Mexican wolves. There were none at that time in zoos and wildlife centers. Therefore, all Mexican wolves in captive breeding programs around the US are descended from the original prisoners. If I am incorrect about this, I would appreciate a link to documentation for such.
“Currently fifty-two of these roam freely in the Blue Range Wolf Recovery Area which is nearly 7000 square miles of public lands in Arizona and New Mexico. Every Mexican wolf alive today is in a stud book.”
Actually 52 collared wolves roam the area, and an unknown number of uncollared wolves are out there, too. The 7000 square miles of land includes private land as well, a fact that is conveniently overlooked so much of the time. Further, most of the uncollared wolves, if not all, are not in any stud book.
But heck, don’t believe me. Do the research yourself – just go to the source, don’t believe those Mexican wolf program supporters, who can’t be bothered with the truth.
Sunday, May 31, 2009
Lawsuits Are Not Environmentalism
The truth about Center for Biological Diversity
Copyright © 2009 CR Edmunds
When the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) asks for donations, most people likely think they’re contributing to projects that will improve the environment. But it just ain’t so. CBD has become a money-making litigation machine. They aren’t out there with shovels and seeds, working on the environment, they’re paying lawyers, sneaking onto private property to spy on conditions and – if they don’t find the conditions sufficiently bad to claim the property owner is ruining the environment- they’re publishing phony photos of "environmental devastation". No actual environmental work going on that CBD is doing - just about everything they do these days is rather to support litigation.
Yeah, it may seem like CBD’s litigation is for the good of endangered plants and animals, but when you start looking at the results of what they do you start noticing the real cost to humans and environment alike. This is because CBD activities, particularly litigation, are not environment-driven, but rather CBD agenda-driven. They’re not shy about their plans to evict private property owners from their own land, to create Gardens of Eden in their Sky Islands. No matter that some of the species in the areas being touted as endangered aren’t endangered (or never even lived in the place – look at the weird Mexican wolf situation). No matter that so much of the litigation results in grinding the US Constitution into the dirt. When they win note that someone else always has to bear the burden of environmentalism – never CBD. No, CBD lawyers and CBD personnel are all living nice, safe, well-funded lives, while the rest of us pay and pay and pay – either by losing property, losing our rights, or by being scammed for the donations CBD says it needs to “protect the environment”. All that money, effort, suffering by property owners – and none of it for actual environmental work, just lawsuits. Paperwork, that’s all it is – but it’s not solving problems, it’s causing more.
Humans are a legitimate species on this planet, too – a fact that CBD and other radical, terrorist environmental groups ignore. None of their projects, their agendas or their litigation truly take into account the human right to live and thrive on this planet.
God created the Garden of Eden to have people in it. It was Satan who caused people to have to leave that Garden. Kinda makes you think about CBD, doesn’t it?
---
Here’s a list of articles about recent litigation by CBD. I might add to it over time – I can only look at this information for so long before it makes me sick. Not that the critters involved don’t need protecting, but CBD is doing nothing for them, only filing lawsuits. Lawsuits are not environmentalism!
Loggerhead turtles lawsuit with Oceana Inc. and Turtle Island Restoration Environmental Law360 - http://environmental.law360.com/
Two ocean species of turtles lawsuit with Oceana and the Turtle Island Restoration Network Twilight Earth - http://www.twilightearth.com/
Ocean acidification impacts lawsuit Switchboard, from NRDC - http://switchboard.nrdc.org/
Desert Lizard lawsuit http://www.yumasun.com/news/lizard-50356-habitat-yuma.html
Global warming impacts lawsuit against six (6) federal agencies. Global warming is a THEORY, people! http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/news/press_releases/2009/global-warming-01-15-2009.html
Coal-Fired Power Plants lawsuit www.commondreams.org/newswire/2009/05/13-4
Improper jaguar killing lawsuit www.biologicaldiversity.org/news/press_releases/2009/jaguar-05-12-2009.html
Stop beach driving lawsuit www.rzrforums.net/public-lands-advocacy/11153-center-biological-diversity-lawsuit-oceano-dunes.html
Desert tortoise lawsuit with the Sierra Club, and the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility www.globalclimatelaw.com/tags/center-for-biological-diversit/
Force the DOI consider listing the American pika as threatened or endangered lawsuit http://greenoptions.com/tag/center-for-biological-diversity
Snowy Plover http://bit.ly/pJWb1
California red-legged frogs and San Francisco garter snakes; notice of intent to sue. http://www.ewire.com/display.cfm/Wire_ID/5035
Nevada water project lawsuit. http://www.lvrj.com/news/39421007.html
Protect wildlife and roadless areas in CA, with 6 other environmental groups. http://tinyurl.com/nodgau
Block thinning of trees in AZ lawsuit (note that because the thinning was stopped, the result was one of the largest forest fires in the US) http://www.forphoto.com/issues_info/local/thinning_lawsuit.php
North Fork Eel River lawsuit http://www.wildcalifornia.org/pressreleases/number-20
Raptor habitat (as compensation for wind turbine kills) lawsuit https://www.earthislandprojects.org/news/new_news.cfm?newsID=649
Bighorns lawsuit http://www.mydesert.com/article/20090325/NEWS01/903250314/1144/news01
Ely NV travel management appeal http://tinyurl.com/ccwdop
Freshwater turtle harvest lawsuit http://tinyurl.com/naorbl
Not enough land designated “critical habitat” lawsuit http://tinyurl.com/n4th92
Enough! I can’t stand to look at more of these.
Copyright © 2009 CR Edmunds
When the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) asks for donations, most people likely think they’re contributing to projects that will improve the environment. But it just ain’t so. CBD has become a money-making litigation machine. They aren’t out there with shovels and seeds, working on the environment, they’re paying lawyers, sneaking onto private property to spy on conditions and – if they don’t find the conditions sufficiently bad to claim the property owner is ruining the environment- they’re publishing phony photos of "environmental devastation". No actual environmental work going on that CBD is doing - just about everything they do these days is rather to support litigation.
Yeah, it may seem like CBD’s litigation is for the good of endangered plants and animals, but when you start looking at the results of what they do you start noticing the real cost to humans and environment alike. This is because CBD activities, particularly litigation, are not environment-driven, but rather CBD agenda-driven. They’re not shy about their plans to evict private property owners from their own land, to create Gardens of Eden in their Sky Islands. No matter that some of the species in the areas being touted as endangered aren’t endangered (or never even lived in the place – look at the weird Mexican wolf situation). No matter that so much of the litigation results in grinding the US Constitution into the dirt. When they win note that someone else always has to bear the burden of environmentalism – never CBD. No, CBD lawyers and CBD personnel are all living nice, safe, well-funded lives, while the rest of us pay and pay and pay – either by losing property, losing our rights, or by being scammed for the donations CBD says it needs to “protect the environment”. All that money, effort, suffering by property owners – and none of it for actual environmental work, just lawsuits. Paperwork, that’s all it is – but it’s not solving problems, it’s causing more.
Humans are a legitimate species on this planet, too – a fact that CBD and other radical, terrorist environmental groups ignore. None of their projects, their agendas or their litigation truly take into account the human right to live and thrive on this planet.
God created the Garden of Eden to have people in it. It was Satan who caused people to have to leave that Garden. Kinda makes you think about CBD, doesn’t it?
---
Here’s a list of articles about recent litigation by CBD. I might add to it over time – I can only look at this information for so long before it makes me sick. Not that the critters involved don’t need protecting, but CBD is doing nothing for them, only filing lawsuits. Lawsuits are not environmentalism!
Loggerhead turtles lawsuit with Oceana Inc. and Turtle Island Restoration Environmental Law360 - http://environmental.law360.com/
Two ocean species of turtles lawsuit with Oceana and the Turtle Island Restoration Network Twilight Earth - http://www.twilightearth.com/
Ocean acidification impacts lawsuit Switchboard, from NRDC - http://switchboard.nrdc.org/
Desert Lizard lawsuit http://www.yumasun.com/news/lizard-50356-habitat-yuma.html
Global warming impacts lawsuit against six (6) federal agencies. Global warming is a THEORY, people! http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/news/press_releases/2009/global-warming-01-15-2009.html
Coal-Fired Power Plants lawsuit www.commondreams.org/newswire/2009/05/13-4
Improper jaguar killing lawsuit www.biologicaldiversity.org/news/press_releases/2009/jaguar-05-12-2009.html
Stop beach driving lawsuit www.rzrforums.net/public-lands-advocacy/11153-center-biological-diversity-lawsuit-oceano-dunes.html
Desert tortoise lawsuit with the Sierra Club, and the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility www.globalclimatelaw.com/tags/center-for-biological-diversit/
Force the DOI consider listing the American pika as threatened or endangered lawsuit http://greenoptions.com/tag/center-for-biological-diversity
Snowy Plover http://bit.ly/pJWb1
California red-legged frogs and San Francisco garter snakes; notice of intent to sue. http://www.ewire.com/display.cfm/Wire_ID/5035
Nevada water project lawsuit. http://www.lvrj.com/news/39421007.html
Protect wildlife and roadless areas in CA, with 6 other environmental groups. http://tinyurl.com/nodgau
Block thinning of trees in AZ lawsuit (note that because the thinning was stopped, the result was one of the largest forest fires in the US) http://www.forphoto.com/issues_info/local/thinning_lawsuit.php
North Fork Eel River lawsuit http://www.wildcalifornia.org/pressreleases/number-20
Raptor habitat (as compensation for wind turbine kills) lawsuit https://www.earthislandprojects.org/news/new_news.cfm?newsID=649
Bighorns lawsuit http://www.mydesert.com/article/20090325/NEWS01/903250314/1144/news01
Ely NV travel management appeal http://tinyurl.com/ccwdop
Freshwater turtle harvest lawsuit http://tinyurl.com/naorbl
Not enough land designated “critical habitat” lawsuit http://tinyurl.com/n4th92
Enough! I can’t stand to look at more of these.
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Defenders of Wildlife... or irresponsible animal dumpers?
News release from Defenders of Wildlife today says: "Raised in South Salem, New York’s Wolf Conservation Center, she [a female Mexican wolf] was released with excitement into her native habitat in Arizona late last year."
Doesn't it occur to anyone at DoW how unfair it is to wolves to raise them among humans, in captivity where they never learn to hunt, in a very different (humid) climate and then release them to act "wild"?
If anyone did that to a dog, it would be a crime that could be prosecuted. What is different between the Mexican Wolf Program and any other irresponsible animal dumper?
Doesn't it occur to anyone at DoW how unfair it is to wolves to raise them among humans, in captivity where they never learn to hunt, in a very different (humid) climate and then release them to act "wild"?
If anyone did that to a dog, it would be a crime that could be prosecuted. What is different between the Mexican Wolf Program and any other irresponsible animal dumper?
Saturday, May 2, 2009
Vulcan Logic and The Good Of The Many
Copyright © 2009 CREdmunds
Mr. Spock, with his pointy ears and his dispassionate logic, said that "the good of the many outweighs the good of the few or the one" at the end of Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Khan. A noble thought indeed, but putting it into practice necessitates having a clear idea of what the “good of the many” actually is.
In the USA, the good of the many is based on the rights of the individual. That is, the “many” is a collection of individuals, the rights of each collectively protected by the Constitution.
Currently in this noble country of ours, we have a situation that threatens our Constitution and our American way of life, and it is based on a warping of the notion of the “the many” to mean a homogenous group of like-thinking people. This new point of view is promoted by special interest groups - in my opinion the most dangerous threat we have to this country today.
What are special interest groups? They would be the well-funded, powerful groups that want each of us to think and act like they want us to - like zombies instead of independently thinking individuals - so that their decision makers (you know, CEOs and such) can afford to live in the lifestyles they have become accustomed to. (Check out my article Global Warming Zombies from November, 2008.) These groups don’t care what damage they do to the rest of the country - or the world - to achieve their ends.
How can you identify a special interest group? Let me count the ways.
First, special interest groups are just that - their interests are unique, and narrow-based interests rather than the interests of the many. Their point of view does not represent the truth for all (and in my opinion may not represent the truth in any shape or form).
Second, special interest groups use fear tactics to achieve their goals. While they say they are working for the betterment of all - which should be enough motivation for people if that was really true - they use the whip of predictions of disastrous results if they aren't supported or don't succeed in their work.
Third, special interest groups put a lot of money into spreading their own version of the truth and dire predictions of disaster. Since most people will not act unless they are personally involved, generally the public just believes the propaganda they read and hear, and pretty soon it's "universal truth". Then the special interest groups get to do whatever they want.
Fourth, special interest groups will file lawsuits at the drop of a hat - even if they don't plan on following through. Since most people avoid lawyers and courts, people figure that if a group is willing to sue, they must be right.
Fifth, special interest groups also seek to implement legislation, usually legislation that involves other people losing their personal and property rights.
Sixth, special interest groups generally don't do any actual on-the-ground work themselves in the field they are supposedly improving.
Finally, and perhaps most tellingly, special interest groups put out that they are working for the betterment of all, but almost always their "truth" requires that other people give up something or change in a fundamental way. In the movie, Mr. Spock was telling Kirk why it was right that he, Spock, should sacrifice himself “for the good of the many”. Special interest groups don’t give up anything for their cause. The sacrifices always come from others.
Isn’t it time that we all used Vulcan logic to look more closely at what special interest groups are doing to - not for - the people of this country, and to our Constitution? Isn’t it time that we all started defending our rights as individuals, a fight that would truly protect the good of the many? I’m pretty sure if we don’t, to paraphrase Spock in Amok Time, that we, the people, may discover that the freedom we are having is not so pleasing a thing, after all, as the freedom we are wanting.
Mr. Spock, with his pointy ears and his dispassionate logic, said that "the good of the many outweighs the good of the few or the one" at the end of Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Khan. A noble thought indeed, but putting it into practice necessitates having a clear idea of what the “good of the many” actually is.
In the USA, the good of the many is based on the rights of the individual. That is, the “many” is a collection of individuals, the rights of each collectively protected by the Constitution.
Currently in this noble country of ours, we have a situation that threatens our Constitution and our American way of life, and it is based on a warping of the notion of the “the many” to mean a homogenous group of like-thinking people. This new point of view is promoted by special interest groups - in my opinion the most dangerous threat we have to this country today.
What are special interest groups? They would be the well-funded, powerful groups that want each of us to think and act like they want us to - like zombies instead of independently thinking individuals - so that their decision makers (you know, CEOs and such) can afford to live in the lifestyles they have become accustomed to. (Check out my article Global Warming Zombies from November, 2008.) These groups don’t care what damage they do to the rest of the country - or the world - to achieve their ends.
How can you identify a special interest group? Let me count the ways.
First, special interest groups are just that - their interests are unique, and narrow-based interests rather than the interests of the many. Their point of view does not represent the truth for all (and in my opinion may not represent the truth in any shape or form).
Second, special interest groups use fear tactics to achieve their goals. While they say they are working for the betterment of all - which should be enough motivation for people if that was really true - they use the whip of predictions of disastrous results if they aren't supported or don't succeed in their work.
Third, special interest groups put a lot of money into spreading their own version of the truth and dire predictions of disaster. Since most people will not act unless they are personally involved, generally the public just believes the propaganda they read and hear, and pretty soon it's "universal truth". Then the special interest groups get to do whatever they want.
Fourth, special interest groups will file lawsuits at the drop of a hat - even if they don't plan on following through. Since most people avoid lawyers and courts, people figure that if a group is willing to sue, they must be right.
Fifth, special interest groups also seek to implement legislation, usually legislation that involves other people losing their personal and property rights.
Sixth, special interest groups generally don't do any actual on-the-ground work themselves in the field they are supposedly improving.
Finally, and perhaps most tellingly, special interest groups put out that they are working for the betterment of all, but almost always their "truth" requires that other people give up something or change in a fundamental way. In the movie, Mr. Spock was telling Kirk why it was right that he, Spock, should sacrifice himself “for the good of the many”. Special interest groups don’t give up anything for their cause. The sacrifices always come from others.
Isn’t it time that we all used Vulcan logic to look more closely at what special interest groups are doing to - not for - the people of this country, and to our Constitution? Isn’t it time that we all started defending our rights as individuals, a fight that would truly protect the good of the many? I’m pretty sure if we don’t, to paraphrase Spock in Amok Time, that we, the people, may discover that the freedom we are having is not so pleasing a thing, after all, as the freedom we are wanting.
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