Posts Tagged → debate
Charlie Kirk
Gentle Christian thought leader Charlie Kirk was assassinated today, in Utah, where he was debating students on a college campus. I will write a lot more about what his murder means, but suffice it to say it is simply about his political opponents censoring him, silencing him, violencing him, because they are incapable of reasoned debate.
What bothers Charlie’s opponents most was that he skillfully took the national policy debate to college campuses. A place supposedly devoted to learning, teaching, debating, educating, but in reality a place of intolerant ironclad political orthodoxy and Marxist indoctrination. Charlie’s ability to directly challenge that indoctrination in its viper’s nest home enraged leftists.
Looking at online comments and Democrat Party media outlets reveals that his opponents are blaming him, Charlie, first and foremost.
According to these many commenters, Charlie earned being shot in the neck and murdered because his ideas and words were so bad. So, to the Left, “silence is violence” and also “words are violence” simultaneously, but actual bloody violence against conservatives is just the natural consequence of disagreeing with Leftists on politics. So long as Leftists do it, it’s always justified. They say.
Conservatives can’t speak nor can they also be silent; rather, conservatives must be forcefully compelled to agree and nod along with Leftists. Or else.
Charlie’s opponents are also blaming guns, January 6th, President Trump. Anything but the violence and abundant hateful violent rhetoric coming out of Leftist mouths and printing presses that encourages assassination attempts and street murders. Demonizing and encouraging violence against conservatives is normal, to Leftists, but disagreeing with Leftists is also violence.
Conservatives have no place to exist in the world imagined by the Left. Charlie couldn’t even debate students on a college campus. He was un-allowed by the ideological gatekeepers there.
Dunno about the perspective of you, the reader, but when a person or a group of like-minded people constantly call for their political goals to be implemented “by any means necessary,” and they demonize ICE agents and police and concerned school parents and Protestants and Catholics and Jews and conservatives and call for violence about everything a president does, we have a serious problem to fix.
America has been here before, back then also dragged debating and talking into solving Democrat Party violence the hard way. Sorry, Charlie, that you had to be martyred. But Americans will not let your murder go unaddressed.
Booth shooting Lincoln
Leftists are disinterested or incapable of self-reflection, always a one-way flow of invective. It is the same mindset we have previously seen among Democrats, back in 1860…
Censoring climate mockers
Guest post, courtesy of Tom Shepstone:
by Vijay Jayaraj
“We have reached the end of the Olympic summer in Paris, comprising of the Olympics and the Paralympics. Though the U.S. finished at the top in the Olympics and in the top three at Paralympics, much of the world’s attention was on the Olympics’ obscene mockery of Christianity in its opening ceremony at Paris.
It also overshadowed some unprecedented events in the city. A few days prior to the games, French authorities fined the country’s second most popular news channel 20,000 euros for challenging the popular narrative about a purported climate crisis.
CNews, a round-the-clock news operation, was charged by the Regulatory Authority for Audiovisual and Digital Communication (ARCOM) with a broadcast’s failing to adequately challenge views skeptical of the global warming scare.
“This is the first time in France and internationally that ARCOM or a regulatory authority has issued a financial sanction for a breach concerning an environmental subject,” said QuotaClimat, an organization that reportedly has complained in the past about the climate reporting of various media.
The case of CNews raises serious concerns about press freedom – a cornerstone of democratic societies — and the public’s access to diverse perspectives on environmental issues. While the regulator argued that the channel failed to provide sufficient context and counterarguments, critics contend that the decision sets a dangerous precedent, effectively requiring media outlets to adhere to a specific ideological position.
The role of journalism in a democracy is not to parrot official viewpoints or consensus opinions but rather to investigate, question and present different perspectives on important issues. By imposing restrictions on how climate issues can be reported, France undermines this crucial function of the media.
This crackdown on climate reporting exemplifies a broader trend of using authorities backed by official powers to curb the expression of views that challenge a government’s preferred narrative, a concerning development for anybody favoring an open society.
The practice has become far too common in academic research as well. Scientists who challenge the crisis narrative are subjected to witch hunts and termination from their professions.
Many climate scientists, influenced heavily by funding sources, are transforming their discipline into something that hardly qualifies as science. While their work has the appearance of scientific research and is conducted by those with scientific credentials, both its methodologies and findings are heavily shaped by the agendas of special interest groups, political figures and international governing bodies.
Researchers and their organizations, in too many cases, have become harvesters of grants rather than seekers of truth. Such scientists are supplicants of governments and wealthy foundations wanting particular findings and willing to pay for them.
Those who champion genuine scientific inquiry must speak out against deliberate efforts by climate alarmists to discredit sceptics, whose questions are manifestations of critical thinking. Inquiry into popular theories should be welcome, not treated as sedition.
From Galileo’s astronomical discoveries to more recent controversies in fields like genetics and nuclear energy, attempts to protect the popular view have often backfired. slowing scientific progress and technological advancement.
In the case of climate change, this is true too. Restrictive energy policies — justified on the basis of addressing a “climate crisis” — already have impeded economic growth and increased prices. Ideologues seek to reverse decades of advancement in clean-coal power generation, oil and gas development and other technologies.
Scientific understanding of Earth’s climate is not furthered by silencing dissent but through rigorous research, peer review and open debate. By allowing a diversity of voices in the media, including those that challenge the so-called “consensus,” opportunities for truth arise.
Isolated intrusions on press freedom are annoying. But actions like that of the French regulator for reporting on a climate story can be replicated by other governments and for other subjects – a certain eventuality without the intervention of honest citizens
For this is the proverbial slippery slope greased by powerful people’s lust for control or money or both. Left alone, only the most ruthless of the politically connected get to say where it ends. Even they can’t say for sure, but history tells us it ends badly.”
This commentary was first published at yourNews on September 10, 2024.
Vijay Jayaraj is a Research Associate at the CO2 Coalition, Arlington, Virginia. He holds a master’s degree in environmental sciences from the University of East Anglia, U.K., and a postgraduate degree in energy management from Robert Gordon University, U.K.
#France #Climate #Jayaraj #CO2Coalition #FreeSpeech #Censorship
CNN debate shows world Biden is a mindless puppet
Interesting how for the past four years leftists, the mainstream media, some establishment Republicans, and partisan Democrats have strenuously defended Joe Biden’s mental incompetence, his well documented influence peddling/ bribery/ selling out of America with China and Ukraine, the stolen 2020 election that put this mindless puppet in power. And last night, the entire world got to see up close that Joe Biden is indeed a dementia-ridden mindless puppet. The man is not in control of his own mind or his own decisions, and has not been for years.
“I don’t understand what he just said, and he doesn’t know what he just said,” President Donald Trump said to the cameras last night in response to one of Joe Bidens’ humiliating mindless mouthful of marbles gobbledygook.
President Trump easily dominated the debate. So easily, that a lot of people are now wondering if it wasn’t an inside set-up to put Joe Biden in the most public spotlight, so that even the most super partisan silo-dwelling rah-rah Democrats would have to finally be confronted with the uncomfortable truth that their man is a mindless puppet. Once they accept that Biden is a mindless robot, they will more willingly try to find someone else to replace him, is apparently the thinking.
After the CNN/Democrat Party-run “debate” ended last night, “moderated” by two partisan political activists who have spent years badmouthing and lying about President Trump, President Trump confidently strode off stage right, and Jill Biden ran out onto the stage to grab doddering ol’ Joe Biden, who was frozen in place, vacantly staring out into the empty studio (remember CNN’s debate rules that were designed to protect Joe Biden and to undermine President Trump – no props, no pieces of paper, no studio audience, microphones turned off…there was no one for Biden to look at, just darkness).
It is clear to everyone who watched last night that Joe Biden is not his own man. He is doing the bidding of others, because he has not his own thoughts in his head. It is sad, and infuriating, because he was illegally installed in 2020, not elected, going from hiding in his basement to the White House without earning it. Someone else, probably America-hating Barack Hussein Obama, has been actually running the American presidency from behind a curtain.
If the true goal was to out Biden as an incompetent, it worked. Because today the wide open public debate among mainstream media Democrats and the official Democrat Party apparatchiks is who will replace puppet Joe Biden for the 2024 election. He clearly cannot continue on as candidate for president; not if the Democrat Party wants to retain a shred of hope of winning the 2024 election.
Everyone sees that Biden is well beyond an Article 25 removal case. Even worse than a constitutional problem, Biden is the very image of final death for the pro-slavery Democrat Party, that should have died out by shame alone in 1865 after plunging America into the first civil war, and losing.
Biden is now suddenly such a huge liability that he ironically threatens to bring down the whole political party that once fraudulently placed him in power. This stuff is drama of a Biblical scale.
How sweet our freedom will taste in November, after the evildoers are ruined, and by their own hand no less.
What GOP debate tonight?
Apparently there is a debate tonight among about seven Republican candidates for the GOP nomination for president. Primary election in the spring, winner will run against Joe Biden in November 2024. Biggest, most important election of your lifetime, because it determines whether or not America stays a constitutional republic, or if the federal administrative state takes over and with its allies in congress and the judiciary, eliminates the Bill of Rights and turns every American into a serf, a slave, a peasant.
So there is this debate tonight. The candidates are Ron DeSantis, Nikki Haley, Vivek Ramaswamy, Asa Hutchinson, Chris Christie, maybe Mike Pence and then some others I can’t remember. And I don’t need to remember who the other candidates are, because I don’t need to know who any of the candidates are tonight. This debate tonight is useless, pointless, meaningless. Governor Noem of South Dakota said it best a couple months ago: “Why run if you can’t win?”
She meant that all these candidates running is futile, because voter support for President Donald Trump is overwhelming. Trump is ahead of his closest competitor by somewhere between 25-30%. That’s not even close. And the more that Trump is turned into a Jesus martyr figure by the Democrat Party’s persecution, with its RINO helpers, the higher his voter support becomes. No one likes a cheater, and everyone sees that what is happening to Trump is simple cheating the system to try to hurt one guy.
And everyone knows if this lawless persecution can happen to Trump, then it can happen to any of us – you, me, even if we are absolutely innocent. Voters see that we are in a tug-of-war with the federal government and its state allies for who is going to retain power in America – We, The People or them, the lawless, unaccountable bureaucrats, and Trump is the guy in the middle being pulled back and forth. Everything else is a sideshow, maybe not unimportant, but much less important than getting Trump over the finish line in November 2024.
So like how most voters are thinking right now, I just don’t care about these other candidates. Nikki Haley? She’s a career RINO politician, with about as much backbone as a softy Eeyore donkey doll. Chris Christie? Professional politician who has done very little actually useful for Americans, and who is just hanging around to keep his name alive in the public’s mind, trying to be a darling of the Democrat establishment media. Mike Pence? He is hated by the Republican Party base because he sold out America to satisfy the Washington, DC, Beltway bandits in 2021. Ron DeSantis? He is surrounded and funded by the biggest RINOs in America. Yes, DeSantis has done a good job in Florida, but he is a young man in a big hurry to be a career politician like Chris Christie, barf, gag, puke. DeSantis needs to stay in Florida and make sure that the successes for freedom there stay in place. Show Americans he has what it takes to stay on top of the game, not game the political system to try to get artificially quickly to the top. And so on. There are no really impressive candidates talking tonight; even though Vivek Ramaswamy says a lot of good things Americans want to hear, his recent past shows he is very liberal on a lot of issues. We don’t need any more liberal Republicans like him or Hutchinson. Been there, done that, been unhappy with the outcome. We need advocates for America in office, not these ubiquitous get-rich-quick “Slightly Smaller Government Than The Democrats” RINOs.
So yeah, the establishment Republicans are all atwitter amongst themselves about the GOP primary debate tonight. Why wouldn’t they be all excited about it? They are establishment Republicans, RINOs, whose allegiance is to the Uniparty, not to America, or to you or me or the Constitution. Likewise for the establishment media and for the Conservative, Inc. media.
So, want to waste your time watching a bunch of has-been career politicians waste their time and yours on TV tonight? Go ahead and watch the debate tonight. Knock yourself out. Make a bigger deal about it than it really is. There is only one outcome that is likely in the Spring, and that is Donald Trump winning the primary election. My attention now and tonight is focused on President Trump, and getting him into the Oval Office, so that We, The People can have our country back. Anything less is unacceptable.
One other thing about the movie Oppenheimer
One other thought about the movie Oppenheimer: Unlike the current political narrative-driven world of politicized science, where complete lies are said to be scientific truth, or at least they are said to have the strength to displace truth, the movie Oppenheimer accurately depicts real scientific competition.
Remember when science was real? Remember when science was analysis, competitive, discussed, debated, respected, valued, and rewarded? Been a while, I know, I know, but it is true that at one time the real scientific method of discovery and progress involved serious disagreement among scientists. But ever since anti-scientific woke PC narratives took over everything being publicly discussed, including real science, science just has not been real, despite the woke bumper stickers proclaiming “Science Is Real.”
That’s the intriguing thing about “science” these days. Actual real proven science about X and Y chromosomes determining a human’s biological sex is not only forbidden in the classroom, but actually saying it as a science teacher will get you immediately fired from your job. And that phony climate change alarmist thing? If you step up as a scientist with real science that demonstrates what a nonsensical hoax and political hatchet job human-caused “climate change” is, you’ll get fired from your job.
Oppenheimer depicts the real scientific method as humans knew it for about a thousand years, up until the brazen lie that “99% of scientists agree that global warming/ climate change is real.” In the movie, we see scientists aggressively debating the then-new nuclear fission science, which was based on the pioneering scientific and mathematical work of Albert Einstein and which resulted in the atom bomb blowing up American military enemies. The movie has scenes of scientists caustically disagreeing with one another, mocking each other, debating one another, until someone provides sufficient proof of their position. And the scientists’ use of tobacco and alcohol to soothe their frazzled nerves is also real history. This is all uncomfortable but very real scientific process.
This historic competitive situation shown in the movie was especially stark between the “old” Einsteinian relativity scientists and the “new” quantum physics scientists. Both theories of how physics works – relativity and quantum – are mutually exclusive of one another, and yet they coexist simultaneously. Both theories have been conclusively proven, despite canceling each other out, and yet scientists continue today to try to figure out how this apparent contradiction can happen.
In a world of lying political propaganda narratives, including modern gender ideology and “climate change,” such scientific debate and dispute and progress are impossible. This is because scientists who disagree with the established political narrative will have their funding taken away, lose their jobs, have their credentials revoked, and will lose their careers, their homes, their families… everything they worked so hard to create and build over years and decades.
All because these real scientists disagree with political activists who want to control us, control our behavior, our choices, our thinking, our conscience, our food, our daily existence.
To me, the political activists here have no credibility. They are just a bunch of mean, sadistic little fascists, trying to brutally shut up real scientists who inconveniently disprove their pet unscientific political narratives.
When someone in the Oppenheimer movie states “That can’t be true,” you just know someone in the next scene is about to show the disbeliever that in fact, it is true. We see Science! From the long established scientific method! So the movie Oppenheimer is useful for at least showing audiences what real scientific debate and progress used to involve, and what it must involve, if we are to have real science about anything.
Oppenheimer reminds us that there is no such thing as “scientific consensus,” which is a made-up faketoid by the climate change alarmism activists to push their political hoax.
For this rare gem of reality from a business sector that constantly deals in deceit and falseness, I award the educational Hollywood movie Oppenheimer a refreshing A+.
Across America, Democrat candidates refuse to debate
Across America, Democrat Party candidates are refusing to debate their political opponents in the traditional way of testing the quality of one another’s ideas in public. Including here in Pennsylvania. They are literally just hiding in their basements and letting the mainstream media (MSNBC, NPR, CBS, ABC, etc.) promote them, without taking any risks that might expose them to the curious public.
This hiding is a goddamned shame is what it is. It is pathetic, and it demonstrates that across America the only thing standing between a political annihilation of the Democrat Party through the voting process and its basic nail-scraping-up-to-the-cliff-face survival is the Democrat Party’s ownership of the mainstream media. The Democrat media continues to act like it is a propaganda arm of one political party. And that is a disgusting shame, too. And I find it amazing that any American sits and absorbs the toxic bullshit that MSNBC and CNN (both of which I watched recently just to be reminded of how much these channels never say or try to figure out for their viewers) pour down the gullets of their lazy audience.
Here in Pennsylvania senate candidate John Fetterman, a rich playboy who pretends to be a blue collar working guy, who has never held a real job in his entire life, who has destroyed the small Pennsylvania town he served as mayor of in his first adult job, who says he wants to release 30% of the incarcerated violent felons back into our neighborhoods, refuses to debate Dr. Oz, his Republican opponent.
Fetterman is not just a liar and a poser and a faker, he is justifiably afraid of debating Oz. I am no huge fan of Dr. Oz. I was a Kathy Barnette supporter, and remain so. But at least stand up and show people what you are made of, you pussy, Fetterman. Fetterman knows his koo koo ideas cannot withstand the light of day in a public debate. And yes, it is true that Fetterman had a brain seizure and a stroke, rendering him a babbling incoherent mess in public and private. So to an extent we can understand his reluctance to appear publicly.
But if your health is that bad, Fetterman, then step the hell down and stop trying to be the candidate hiding in the basement! Being a US senator is a big deal and it requires the full abilities of the person serving in that capacity.
And what about the registered Democrat voters who are going to vote for basement dweller Fetterman, no matter what, no matter that he is a dysfunctional mess (forget that he is an admitted communist who says he wants to use his position to dismantle America as we have been for over two hundred years)? What the hell is that about? Are you voters really so tribal, so short sighted, so deep into your own partisan trench that you will vote for a candidate this bad?
Really?
In Washington State, Arizona, New York, in addition to Pennsylvania, Democrat candidates refuse to stand up and tell the voters what they believe in. They are relying on a spineless sold-out press to do that for them. And yet America actually still has a large number of voters devoted to this ridiculous political party, who will vote for any thing with a “D” after its name on the ballot.
Believe me, I don’t get the partisan Republican thing either, but at least they are not trying to turn America into a mushroom cloud or a mass of dead middle Americans killed by released felons, like the defund-the-police and release-the- prisoners soft on crime Democrats are. At least the Republican candidates show up, get stabbed by crazed Democrat voters (or run over and killed) (or shot like Rep. Scalise), and keep explaining why they love a constitutional America, with freedom, liberty, safety, and opportunity for all.
Once again, it is shame, shame, shame on registered Democrat voters for being so lazy, uncurious, and careless with their sacred votes. Sorry, folks, gotta say it. And yes, you can change. You do not have to vote for bad people like Fetterman.
Wise words for 2022
One of the positive results of Demedia overreach, lies, dumbing down of “science,” and overt propaganda is the wisening up of Americans. People are catching on to the lies, and they are becoming upset regardless of their political party registration.
Political party used to define many Americans’ identity, and when the political parties once stood for dramatically different ideas and values, that made sense. But today, so many Americans see right through the propaganda emanating from one political party, the current White House, that is aided and abetted by the other political party, and spread by the Demedia. Individuals are hurt by official misinformation and propaganda regardless of what their party registration is, or was. People of all political inclinations want the freedom to choose their health, and to have their health choices be private.
Although YouTube, Google, Fakebook and Snapchat and so many other social media sites have done their best to stomp out debate and dissent about covid, The People are fighting back. If you are interested in seeing what political dissent scratched on a bathroom wall looks like, go to any of the Demedia outlets promoted on YouTube: CNN(LOL), NBC, CBS, MSNBC, NPR, PBS, ABC etc and click on one of their covid videos. Look at the comments below, and marvel at how the wisdom of The People greatly outweighs and outshines that of fraudulent “experts” like Dr. Mengele Fauci. It shows how politicized science is not really science at all; it is just politics, and everyday people know it. They are not fooled.
While it’s a sad truth that YouTube recently removed the “Dislike” button count because The People greatly downvote the Demedia state propaganda, another battle wages right beneath the headline surface. The comments submitted by random, average, everyday people from around America and around the world often take down and pop the leftist propaganda with just a few wise words.
Below are some comments I copied from several Demedia propaganda videos about covid. These are wise words to begin our new year 2022 with, and hopefully the sentiment in these everyday commonsense comments spreads far and wide among general populations. Freedom and liberty depend upon this happening.
“Journalist” Chris Wallace Proves Media are Partisan Activists
If you watched last night’s presidential debate between President Donald Trump and former US senator and Vice President Joe Biden, you got to see exactly why such a huge swath of America believes the media is just a bunch of partisan political activists.
So-called “moderator” Chris Wallace interrupted President Trump so many times I lost count, attacked Trump, questioned Trump, and then also demanded that Trump stop questioning Biden. It was like Wallace was trying to damage Trump and save Biden. He never once interrupted Biden or challenged Biden, like on his family’s well documented official corruption.
First of all, a debate moderator does not interrupt a guest. That is Rule #1. Wallace broke this rule a whole lot of times.
Second of all, a debate moderator does not pick sides. That is Rule #2. Wallace broke this rule a whole lot of times.
Wallace broke both rules last night, repeatedly, openly, and literally everything he said sounded like one of the Democrat Party’s issues or campaign attacks on Trump. Conversely, Wallace treated Biden like a chum, openly laughing with him at Trump, and ganging up on Trump with Biden. At one point it was like watching lions versus hyenas, where a lone male lion is surrounded by a pack of yelling, barking, yipping, screeching hyenas and he has to spin this way and that to defend himself.
Kind of symbolic, like what is happening to America right now, America being the lion.
Yes, Wallace works for Fox News. But Fox News is under new ownership, which are the two very liberal and partisan Democrat Murdoch brothers. The two Murdoch brothers have done all they can to turn Fox News into just one more politically partisan liberal activism center, like almost every other media outlet. And Wallace was there last night to demonstrate how far the organization has drifted.
Liberals complained about Fox News for a long time, because it was the ONLY news outlet that did not march in lockstep with the rest of the liberal media. Well, now they get to see that liberals have taken over yet one more organization from inside, and they have turned it into yet one more liberal mouthpiece and source of political activism.
Fox News is officially Fake News. Chris Wallace is not a “journalist,” he is an activist. We all got to see that last night. Liberals may cheer this, but then they have to admit that Wallace was not a balanced moderator; he favored one debater, and showed it. Liberals cannot blame anyone else for their own loss of credibility.
And so it gave Trump’s supporters great pleasure to watch America’s president whip two debaters simultaneously. Although the truth is, Biden was barely even there last night. He seemed fragile and hollow. Which is why Wallace needed to support him from the beginning. Just like the rest of the media has done.
Last night Chris Wallace proved once and for all that the establishment media is partisan political activism favoring one political party, and this year, one political candidate. The Biden campaign is now officially run by the American media.
A Murder of Crows
My two greatest thrills in the outdoors are native wildflowers, like the trilliums and pink ladyslippers, and native birds, like grouse, turkey, woodcock, wood ducks, and various migratory songbirds.
All of these flowers and birds are under pressure under the best of circumstances, and in many places they are succumbing to that pressure because of artificial factors.
Native wildflowers are naturally browsed by deer, and increasingly collected by people who sell rare plants (and animals). If deer herds are balanced with the carrying capacity of the landscape and surrounding habitat, then the plant colonies can sustain the browsing. The collecting is usually illegal, involving sneaky trespass on private property and violating state law and regulation when done on public land. It is totally unsustainable.
When it comes to my favorite birds, the usual pressures of predation or hunting are hardly a factor in their population success. What is a growing factor is the impact of ground mammals on ground nesting birds, including all of my favorites above and others like more common ducks.
Ground mammals like raccoons, possums, skunks, fox and coyote have a natural place in the natural world, but humans have so greatly altered that natural world that some of these animal populations are disproportionately growing and having disproportionate impacts on other wildlife.
Exhibit A is low density suburban sprawl type residential home development, relatively large home lots in the one to five -acre range.
Low-density suburban sprawl residential development is now the ground zero for artificially high numbers of skunks, possums, and raccoons. Sprawl development provides perfect backyard habitat for these predators to breed and den, but these back yards are too small to hunt or trap effectively or legally. So these burgeoning and unchecked predator populations keep pulsing out into surrounding farmland and forest. In those more stable habitats, these artificially high predator numbers wreak havoc on the other species who live there, notably my favorite birds, which happen to be ground nesters.
Ground nesting birds are highly susceptible to nest disturbance and egg loss when they are surrounded by artificially high populations of skunks, raccoons, and possums. In many areas ground nesting birds are experiencing dramatic population declines because they simply cannot nest long enough to hatch a brood of chicks, or the chicks cannot survive predation long enough to develop flight, so they can escape from otherwise slow moving predators like skunks and possums. Adding to the challenge for ground nesting birds is the dearth of brush and young forest which provide the best places to hide a nest on the ground. Most farms today are devoid of brush, and “select cut” high-grade logging has ruined most private forests, while anti-conservation activists decry aggressive forest management on public lands. Brush and young forests are nearly a rarity today, despite serving as nature’s best habitat.
Yesterday I got into one of those internet debates most normal people avoid. It centered on allegedly real photos of a flying mature eagle with a talon stuck in a foothold trap, posted on Lancaster Online. Lancaster Online is run by politically partisan legacy media staff, and it is a huge source of fake news and alternate facts. So when I saw there the photo of a completely closed foot hold trap, with not even a tiny jaw spread to accommodate the eagle’s foot, it looked like yet more fake news and I posted comments.
As you might imagine, a murder of crows of sorts descended upon the article, and upon me, and upon any other poster who either questioned the facts as presented in the article, or who promoted trapping.
Crows are natural enemies of eagles and other raptors. Crows are huge nest raiders, eating baby bird chicks whole right out of the nest. In the context of the Lancaster Online article, the crows took human form: Animal rights promoters, PETA advocates, anti-trapping and anti-conservation voices.
Like with a surrounding pack of crows (called a “murder”) wildly harassing a lone eagle in a tree, the loudly hysterical anti-trapping commenters immediately invoked emotional appeals, personal attacks, lies, advocacy for trespassing, leash-less dogs, and private property theft and destruction. None of them made any sense. None were based on fact, though it is true that occasionally an animal in a trap gets hurt (never mind that every single one of those hypocritical commenters has a direct hand in wildlife death and destruction).
I responded frequently there, and was answered by a surrounding murder of crows, loudly cawing, squawking, screaming, wildly flapping their wings and leaping from tree to tree. Pretty funny to watch, because not one commenter there debated wildlife biology, habitat, etc. Only emotional appeals mostly based on lies and fake news were presented. Lots of hysteria, not much reasoning.
And that right there is why I trap, dear reader.
There are too damned many cantankerous crows, skunks, possums and raccoons eating all of the really cool, cute, useful little birds I enjoy so much. I haven’t sold a pelt since I was a kid. Instead, today I trap to thin out the populations of the destructive ground predators so that the defenseless animals they eat have at least a sitting chance.
As for the eagle photographed flying around Lancaster County with its talon caught in the foothold trap, I have pledged fifty dollars toward its rehabilitation, if it is caught alive. And I want to personally inspect the trap rig, because what is seen in the photos makes no sense. One commenter, a trapper, noted it appeared to be an illegal trap specifically set to catch a raptor, like the eagle, in which case this subject isn’t about trapping, it is about illegal wildlife poaching.
But you’d never know that from the deafening screaming and cawing and flapping from the uncaring, unthinking, hostile, mob-like murder of crows.
UPDATE: 2/8/17 4:30 pm “Just received a call from PGC Director Matt Hough. Matt informed me that the eagle/trap incident was a true event. Fortunately, PA Game Commission officers were able to capture the eagle and remove the trap. There was no damage to the talon. The eagle was released and flew away with no impairment as a result of the incident. Matt did not have any information as to the individual responsible for the trap,” from an email sent to me this afternoon.
Garden as metaphor, Part 3…or 4
Can anyone think of a better metaphor for life as a human than a garden?
All the planning, selecting, planting, nurturing, stoking, prodding, coaxing, frustration, re-planting, and finally, after all the work and with some luck, the harvesting of fresh food…this is all just like the bigger things in our lives.
Lately it has been difficult to ignore some generational changes afoot that simply cannot bode well for our nation, now or in the future.
Where debate historically involved logic, facts, and reasoning, a great deal of what is represented as debate is simple ridicule, mockery, dismissiveness.
Few things demonstrate the weakness of an argument more than the use of ridicule and mockery, or name-calling. Yet the Internet is full of this waste of time. Because of my own passion for and involvement in tough policy issues, I am really interested to hear separate points of view from people, and spirited debate, give-and-take, is part of that process. This process is what makes Western Civilization so unique and so precious.
Dismissiveness assumes all will be well, no matter what, irrespective of actions or behaviors across the landscape.
In my observation, the younger generations are much more inclined to forgo logic and facts, and are more inclined to leap into name calling and ridicule in their online debates. This just cannot bode well for American democracy, which is based on the use of logic, reason, and facts. How our citizens expect to hold on to their Constitutional rights and liberties, and yet allow debate to be dominated by juvenile behavior is not wild speculation. Already we have witnessed the erosion of individual liberties at the hands of judges who don’t care what the US Constitution says, or what their particular state constitution says; their basis for decisions making is purely personal, or political.
So go grow a garden, fellow citizens. Tending even a small garden helps us work physical and mental muscles that atrophy easily. It builds small but important personal traits that are needed on a much bigger scale. Tending, cultivating, and nurturing all build basic skills necessary for us to function well as individuals and for our civilization to succeed on the whole.
The alternative – relying on everyone else for everything else we need, and ridiculing the rest – is a recipe for disaster.