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Pro 2A Rally and…Nobody Participated

Today was the annual pro-Second Amendment rally in Harrisburg at the Pennsylvania Capitol. For twenty years this rally has been held outside at both ends of the Capitol complex, and inside the Rotunda, and is always jam packed with legislators, activists, and interested citizens. Over the previous two years a handful of federal agents have showed up, laughably posing as self-styled camouflage-clad “militia” men straight out of a Hollywood script of what “right wing militia” people are supposed to look like. These real sneaky guys with their neon-bright law enforcement demeanors behind improbable masks and wraparound shades are a huge waste of my taxpayer money, but hey, these hip Gestapo guys have to have someone to pick on, and so they dutifully show up looking for threats to democracy. We should hand them mirrors next year.

Today, however, hardly anyone showed up to the rally. Including me. In my defense, I was participating in a scary and threatening militia group direct action against a severe clog in our home’s sewage pipe, with the Wizzard Drain Jett guy. Very subversive stuff. But I am told there were more speakers than participants at the 2A rally, and this is not because it finally rained today for the first time since God knows when. The reason the rally was sparsely attended is because patriotic, Constitution-loving Americans are demoralized.

What is the point of a rally in support of your Second Amendment rights when all of the federal government’s taxpayer-paid employees are doing their damnedest to criminalize your Constitutional rights? A protest does not mean much in an authoritarian state, which America is right now. And with the mainstream media serving as a proud arm of one political party and its anti-democracy political establishment, protesting doesn’t mean what it used to mean; nobody is going to hear about your rally, anyhow. Not the truth. Not what you were there to talk about. No, the mainstream media will lie about your rally.

And passionate patriots probably fear being illegally surveilled and tagged by the federal government FBIDHS Stasi Gestapo people…the same people accusing parents who love their children of being “domestic terrorists.” And most Americans have lost faith in the assigned opposition group, the Republican Party. The GOP literally does nothing in opposition to the real domestic terrorists and insurrectionists presently hijacking the federal government and turning America into a police state. The GOP doesn’t even pretend to listen to its base, so what is the point of appealing to them?

Few people came to the annual 2A rally today because they have been backed into a corner by the leftist weirdos, freaks, insurrectionists, and domestic terrorists running the federal government and its media communication arm right now. There is a lot of pent up anger and fear, and a powerful desire for revenge against the election thieves who are a bigger threat to American domestic security than China and Russia combined. Probably a hundred million-plus law abiding, good hearted American citizens are thinking the time for rallies and protests has passed.

That is why we had a party today and no one showed.

 

PGC: Great, Old Agency Unused to Modern Limelight

If there is one take-away from my many years in federal and state government jobs, it is that agency staff cultures change slowly.  In Pennsylvania, a great example of this is one of my favorite agencies, the Pennsylvania Game Commission.  PGC is an agency that is used to doing things the way it wants, often relying on its impressive history as evidence for its present day independence and independent culture.

PGC is presently in the headlines because of a $200,000 payment to its former executive director, Carl Roe, now very recently departed of the agency.

I thought it was an amicable departure; maybe not.  PGC staff say this is a settlement to avoid a possible lawsuit.  Critics of the payment include the governor’s office, the PA Comptroller, the PA attorney general, and many elected officials.  They say this is a sidestep around the state’s prohibition of severance payments, made between a board of directors and an executive director who were actually very cozy with one another.

This is sad, because PGC is a storied agency, a trend-setter in the area of wildlife management, wildlife science, habitat management, and public land acquisition.  Something I like is that PGC has uniformed officers who stand in front of Hunter Trapper Education courses filled with 10-18-year-old kids, and tell them that they have a Second Amendment right to own firearms.  Few states in America have such a wonderful role for their uniformed law enforcement officers.  We are fortunate to have this agency with this culture, and it is for this reason that I oppose merging PGC with DCNR.  Ranger Rick and Smokey Bear are not going to purvey that valuable message.

The flip side of the culture is what is often described as a “bunker mentality” among the agency’s staff, and this payment to Roe probably fits in with that view.

Most agencies are careful to avoid controversy, especially controversy that does not have a strong basis.  This payment does not appear to have a strong basis, so it is an unnecessary controversy that is likely to damage the agency’s standing among lawmakers and executives, as well as the general public and hunters who otherwise happily buy hunting licenses to support their favorite agency.  It comes at a time when the agency is already under the gun from oversight legislation (HB 1576, which does not address actual problems, but rather imagined problems unrelated to PGC and PA Fish & Boat Commission).

Don’t get me wrong, I like Carl Roe, and PGC has also driven me nuts at times.  I clearly recall the day he was brought on to the agency as an intern.  Me, then PGC executive director Vern Ross, PGC biologist Gary Alt, Carl Roe, and senior PGC staffer Joe Neville drove together up to Bellefonte to participate in the swearing-in of a new PGC commissioner.  Carl struck me as a bright, quantitatively-oriented, inquisitive, experienced manager.  Over the years since that day I have had many opportunities to meet with Carl, and he has always impressed me as a stalwart and intelligent promoter of PGC, hunters, trappers, and wildlife conservation.  This huge payment lightning rod situation just does not make sense in that context.

But on second thought, this payment does make sense if the insular agency culture managed to eventually penetrate into Carl’s otherwise solid judgment.  That has been a phenomenon witnessed among other new PGC staff; the broad “something-is-in-their-water” observation that people’s personalities changed dramatically once they joined PGC. Other evidence of an insular culture was recently brought to my attention: Four of the agency’s biologists (all of whom have some or all of the deer program’s oversight) have graduate degrees from the same school and they studied at the same post-graduate field station.  And no, they ain’t from Penn State, or any Pennsylvania university, for that matter, dammit.

I fear for PGC, because at a time when the agency is already under scrutiny from HB 1576, this new payment debate threatens to add fuel to the flames, and add a straw onto the camel’s back.  Part of the culture driving these problems is the same kind of culture that can cause the roof to suddenly come down.  Careful there, boys, careful.

*******UPDATE:

So, as has happened before, these essays get read, and I get phone calls and emails.  People calling me usually do not want to post on the blog, being afraid of attribution, and frankly, what some other people want to post here is not always worth keeping.  So here is the gist of what came over the transom in the past half hour: Things between Carl Roe and the PGC board were not chummy.  The payment to him is seen as a real money-saver.  I am unsure how an at-will employee like an executive director has any real legal recourse, unless he is fired for his religion or political views, things that are a) hard to prove and b) unlikely.  Also, I neglected to mention that Roe had, indeed, given away about $300,000 in agency funds to Hawk Mountain (GREAT PLACE, but not necessarily deserving of big PGC money) and other groups. This unaccountable and unapproved largesse caused real friction between Roe and the board, not to mention the rest of the stakeholders whose donations to and purchases from PGC are expected to be spent in a pecuniary fashion.