Sizing Up the Problem
The issues facing rural America are national in scope. It is not just megafires in Idaho, wolves in New Mexico, or elk in Yellowstone. Megafires are happening in every state in the West (and last spring in Georgia as well). Wolves, bears, and lions are attacking livestock and people across the country. Populations of elk, deer, and other large herbivores are crashing everywhere. And everywhere government agencies large and small are laying waste to the landscape, lifeways, the economy, and the culture.
A kind of madness has infected America. Our institutions of higher learning have devolved into political conspiracy making and science has been abandoned. Open inquiry has been quashed in favor of political correctness, adherence to a brand of politics that cannot withstand open scrutiny or debate. Our elected leaders cower in silence or pay obeisance to superstition and eco-hysteria. We live in fear of the next disaster to be perpetrated upon us by our own government.
Perhaps madness is the wrong word. A better word might be fatheadedness, the deliberate dumbing down of individuals, whether through TV, public schools, the Mass Media, or simple personal choice.
Examples abound. After devastating fires in San Diego in 2003, absolutely nothing was done to alleviate the hazard. Then this year the fires returned. In the aftermath of the 2007 fires, nothing will again be done. And megafires will return again, soon, as a consequence. Millions of people are at risk, yet their own democratic governments are hamstrung and can only spout excuses and place blame on the victims.
Since 1988 megafires have ravaged forests in every state in West. Yet absolutely nothing has been done to address the problems, and megafires continue to destroy millions upon millions of acres of forests every year, each year worse than the last. Rather than attempt to save our public forests by providing rational stewardship thereof, the US Forest Service response has been to embrace megafires.
Predator populations are exploding across the West. Game species populations are crashing. Human beings live in fear as deadly predators stalk and attack rural and urban citizens in our yards and even in our homes! The response from wildlife agencies has been to steal hunting and fishing tag revenues to line the pockets of radical human-haters. Governors and politicians of every stripe are more concerned with pumping up wolf numbers than with the human and animal victims of wolves.
The Crisis of Fatheadedness strains the social fabric. Everywhere citizens are estranged from their own communities and institutions. An undercurrent of animosity and disgust flows through America.
Websites like this one and those we link to are prime examples of American citizens fighting back. It is horrible to be forced to defend our homes and lifeways against our own governments. That is not what America is supposed to be. Yet the situation exists, and fight back we must.
There is no easy cure for Fatheadedness. The learning curve is steep and rocky. In each and every case, the good people fighting back are struggling against seemingly impossible odds. Bitter frustration is a daily challenge.
Yet there is no other worthy course of action other than to struggle daily with dark forces that seek our destruction. The fight is life or death. It is not merely an intellectual conundrum, nor a game, nor a hobby. Ask those whose homes have been destroyed by fire, or who look out their windows and see wolves staring back.
Inch by inch, row by row, we struggle and we persevere. The future looks bleak, but it is always darkest just before the dawn. The good news is that so many across this great country are engaged in the battle against Fatheadedness. Visit the sites linked to in the sidebar. See for yourself. Our movement is growing, and the stalwarts involved are absolutely the best people, the most caring people, the wisest people.
The problems we face are enormous, no doubt. But the strength of character and size of the hearts involved give me personally great courage and confidence that we will win, eventually. Defeat is not an option, and we will not be defeated.
