Evaluating the Morality of the Trump Administration
Very few people remain on the fence about Trump, and thus what I’m about to present is extremely unlikely to sway anyone’s position. Yet, in the event that there is a single person who may be looking for a reason to either approve of or despise this administration, I offer the following:
To ingratiate himself to a relatively few trophy hunters, but more importantly, many millions of gun zealots, Trump and his team have lifted the 2015 (read: OBAMA ERA) ban that had been placed on “extreme predatory hunting and trapping techniques” on roughly 20 million acres of federal lands in Alaska, and now has allowed:
- Shooting bear cubs and wolf pups in their dens
- Luring brown and black bears with bait
- Hunting black bears and their cubs using artificial lights
- Using dogs to hunt black bears
- Shooting swimming caribou from motorboats
Our president has scored another much-needed victory in two important dimensions: a) negating one more point of progress towards decency and sustainability that Obama had accomplished, and b) proving to his bloodthirsty supporters that savagery is cool.
I anticipate the normal traffic of comments to the effect that I’m a bleeding heart, that I’m out of touch with humankind’s God-given right to dominion over the natural world, that I don’t understand the swelling demand for bearskin rugs, or whatever other bullcrap defense may be offered to legitimize the wanton cruelty we’re so eagerly salivating to inflict on the animal kingdom.
Craig,
On this issue you are neither a bleeding heart ot out of touch with God’s intentions.
You are a little unfair in laying the blame for this appalling decision solely on the President.
Congress in it’s zeal to preserve the principle of State Rights over Presidential edicts, passed this atrocious bill through both the House and Senate, with some Democrat support.
“Ronald D Young, Republican Congressman for Alaska — argued that it is the state’s right to control predators.
“We have to recognize this is not about the little polar bears, the little grizzly bears or wolves on television, this is about the state’s right to manage — not allowing the federal government to do so,” Mr Young said in testimony in February. “We want to be able to take and manage our fish and game for the sustainable yield — so that our fish and game will be there forever,” opined Congressman Young.
A more ill considered policy of mean minded bastardry it would be hard to conceive !
The Pre3sident was ill advised to sign such a bill, even though curbing federal, and Presidential, power is an issue close to his heart.
How any member of the Senate or the State Of Alaska could contemplate such a law, is beyond comprehension.
Has no one in the Senate read the Poem by another President ?
The Bear Hunt
By Abraham Lincoln
A wild-bear chace, didst never see?
Then hast thou lived in vain.
Thy richest bump of glorious glee,
Lies desert in thy brain.
When first my father settled here,
’Twas then the frontier line:
The panther’s scream, filled night with fear
And bears preyed on the swine.
But woe for Bruin’s short lived fun,
When rose the squealing cry;
Now man and horse, with dog and gun,
For vengeance, at him fly.
A sound of danger strikes his ear;
He gives the breeze a snuff;
Away he bounds, with little fear,
And seeks the tangled rough.
On press his foes, and reach the ground,
Where’s left his half munched meal;
The dogs, in circles, scent around,
And find his fresh made trail.
With instant cry, away they dash,
And men as fast pursue;
O’er logs they leap, through water splash,
And shout the brisk halloo.
Now to elude the eager pack,
Bear shuns the open ground;
Through matted vines, he shapes his track
And runs it, round and round.
The tall fleet cur, with deep-mouthed voice,
Now speeds him, as the wind;
While half-grown pup, and short-legged fice,
Are yelping far behind.
And fresh recruits are dropping in
To join the merry corps:
With yelp and yell,—a mingled din—
The woods are in a roar.
And round, and round the chace now goes,
The world’s alive with fun;
Nick Carter’s horse, his rider throws,
And more, Hill drops his gun.
Now sorely pressed, bear glances back,
And lolls his tired tongue;
When as, to force him from his track,
An ambush on him sprung.
Across the glade he sweeps for flight,
And fully is in view.
The dogs, new-fired, by the sight,
Their cry, and speed, renew.
The foremost ones, now reach his rear,
He turns, they dash away;
And circling now, the wrathful bear,
They have him full at bay.
At top of speed, the horse-men come,
All screaming in a row,
“Whoop! Take him Tiger. Seize him Drum.”
Bang,—bang—the rifles go.
And furious now, the dogs he tears,
And crushes in his ire,
Wheels right and left, and upward rears,
With eyes of burning fire.
But leaden death is at his heart,
Vain all the strength he plies.
And, spouting blood from every part,
He reels, and sinks, and dies.
And now a dinsome clamor rose,
’Bout who should have his skin;
Who first draws blood, each hunter knows,
This prize must always win.
But who did this, and how to trace
What’s true from what’s a lie,
Like lawyers, in a murder case
They stoutly argufy.
Aforesaid fice, of blustering mood,
Behind, and quite forgot,
Just now emerging from the wood,
Arrives upon the spot.
With grinning teeth, and up-turned hair—
Brim full of spunk and wrath,
He growls, and seizes on dead bear,
And shakes for life and death.
And swells as if his skin would tear,
And growls and shakes again;
And swears, as plain as dog can swear,
That he has won the skin.
Conceited whelp! we laugh at thee—
Nor mind, that now a few
Of pompous, two-legged dogs there be,
Conceited quite as you.
But, I do have a solution, very American ! Arm and train the bears in the handling of firearms, equal up the odds in a trophy hunt !
Like all wild predators, bears can over-populate and may even need culling for public safety, but by professional wild life officers, not Billy Bob and his drunken mates !