P.S.
July 30, 2013
By Julie Kay Smithson, property rights / natural resources researcher
Poster Species. Most of us have heard of one or more of them at some time in the past decade or two. From the "northern spotted owl" to the "Arkansas River Shiner" -- and from the "Preble's Meadow jumping mouse" to the "Indiana bat -- private property owners nationwide have been blitzed by a bewildering array of "endangered," "threatened," "candidate," "keystone," and a plethora of other descriptions employed to make us feel as though, in some mysterious way, we 'humans' have been responsible for the 'precipitous decline' of a vast array of 'species' of plants and animals. The operative word is 'feel' -- the actual facts almost always differ almost 180 degrees from the publicized 'need' to 'save' whatever, wherever, whenever -- and our intellect has been largely paralyzed by mere words, shuffled into what often amounts to total deception, until we come to 'feel' that we are somehow guilty of 'snuffing out' thousands of 'species' of flora and fauna.
Guess what? Most of the 'facts' being trotted out like a Trojan Horse with newly forged shoes, are far from the bedrock basic truth. The truth is that species -- like trees, people and other things -- have a life expectancy.
In order to have "evolution," one must accept the theory that things do not remain static, but rather, that they continue to change, morph, evolve. In other words, there is no frozen moment in time, as we are told to believe -- such as "pre-European settlement" -- when all was nirvana, with no species going extinct for other reasons than at the hand of 'humans.'
People have evolved, too -- look no further than the size of shoes or clothing from a hundred years ago. People were smaller. A better diet, better work environment, and a host of other improvements have yielded quite a bounty. We live longer. Our overall health -- sans our own poor food/drink choices -- has significantly improved. While the mayor of New York City seeks to ban a particular food or drink size, most of us have flourished without his restrictions!
Language deception has long been used to get people to buy things that may be displayed in an eyecatching manner or location, but are not really 'on sale'. "Buy one, get one free" is fifty percent off ... the retail price. Are humans really so bad for 'species' that we must continue to restrict our living/working/traveling until we are free no more?
The "Endangered Species Act" never mentions that people are a species, too, and that we are being removed from "all or part of" our historic range. What to do about all this? Pay attention! Look beyond the touchy-feely words that paralyze our intellect and twang our emotions. What can "The Nature Conservancy" do for land/water that we can't? It can receive gazillions of taxpayer dollars to do what it wants with land and water, including the very things it insists are not being done on private property that it doesn't own or control. It cannot give the personal touch to land/water that a farmer, rancher, homeowner, etc., can and does give.
P.S. - Beware "poster species" that are used to remove private property from people. People are, in fact, good for 'the environment' and all the species within!
