National Hunting & Fishing Day

This excerpt was originally written and orchestrated by Ward Parker, a friend that is a professional in the outdoors/hunting/media industry. He is involved in the publishing/editing of Ted Nugent's new book set to be released this October. He has offered it to his friends and colleagues as a free source essay to be submitted and disseminated free and clear in an initiative to spread, support, and promote hunting, fishing, and as Teddy Roosevelt termed it; The Strenuous Life, thru open editorials and letters to editors of local newspapers across The USA.

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Today is the 36th annual observance of National Hunting and Fishing Day.

Hunting and fishing are an integral part of America's history and culture. Once necessary to survive, hunting and fishing are now two very popular forms of recreation. Today, roughly 18 million hunters and 50 million fishermen enjoy the outdoors and generate roughly $70 billion in revenue each year.

Thanks to hunters dollars generated through licensing fees, habitat stamp fees and direct involvement, America's wildlife and overall conservation programs have never been more vibrant, healthy and strong. Our wildlife management system is envied around the world by other conservationists.

The dollars hunters provide for state wildlife coffers provide for roughly 75% of all funds for state wildlife agencies. Considering that hunters constitute roughly twelve percent of the population, it is abundantly clear that hunters carry the vast majority of the financial burden to ensure America's wildlife thrive.

In addition to game animals, hunters' dollars also provide for habitat and research for non-game species. Wildlife photographers, artists, bikeriders, bird watchers, campers, etc., all ride on the financial coattails of the American outdoorsmen.

There are more duck, turkey, elk, pronghorn antelope and whitetail deer than at any time in our nation's history. This phenomenal success story that dominant media has ignored is because of hunters.

American families spend millions of accident free hours in the great outdoors hunting. Hunting is one of the safest recreational activities in America, not to mention that wild game meat is very healthy.

Whitetail deer are everywhere. In fact, there are too many of them. While many state wildlife departments have begun to address this by providing hunters more tags to kill does, we must do more. Hunting seasons should be expanded and other common sense hunting opportunities must be immediately implemented.

Hunters must demand that state wildlife agencies rescind ignorant laws and regulations that are counterproductive to recruiting new hunters and limit the enjoyment of current hunters. I shake my head in disgust at some of the ignorant regulations foisted upon hunters by static or out of touch bureaucrats who subscribe to "that's the way it's always been" management style.
Hunters deserve better than lazy, status quo bureaucrats. We deserve to be treated with respect, common sense, and dignity. Permitting erroneous, outdated, scientifically unsupported laws and regulations to remain in effect is spitting in the face of conservation.

Clearly the health and welfare of wildlife and habitat must always take precedence in any biodiversity and conservation management decision. All hunters support this. However, if the health and welfare of game or their habitat will not result in a negative consequence, state wildlife management agencies must always make decisions based upon expanding opportunities for hunters.

America's outdoorsmen and private landowners have created the world'smost successful wildlife management system. For that, they should be recognized and applauded today just as they were 36 years ago when President Nixon created this most auspicious date - National Hunting and Fishing Day.

http://www.nhfday.org/

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The nation behaves well if it treats the natural resources as assets which it must turn over to the next generation increased, and not impaired, in value.– Theodore Roosevelt

I wish to preach not the doctrine of ignoble ease, but the doctrine of the strenuous life. – Theodore Roosevelt, speech before the Hamilton Club, Chicago (April 10, 1899)

J.A. McCullough
Pioneer Valley, MA
NRA Life Member
TN-USA Supporting Member

Bail-Out Blues...

I cannot and will not subscribe to the Chicken-Little "They Sky is Falling" mentality that is being fear mongered in direct proportion to the dollar value that was stolen by the thieves of finance and the democrap party elites in congress and high office.

I suspect this bail-out will do nothing more than reinforce the linings of the golden parachutes for those financial corporate manager types with another $700 Billion dollars.

This sales pitch of making money "for the taxpayer" is a laughable marketing ploy. Since when has raising our taxes made money for us? All this grand-standing about how the world will end if we don't do this right now, is by exactly the same greedy self-aggrandized muckity-mucks that were standing at the helm and drove this ship of fools to where we are today.

These charlatans would endeavor to print more money and invest it for themselves just before it became worthless paper with fancy green ink on the face. Funny, how no one in any governmental position of authority is telling them to clean out their desks and hit the road. Nor is any law enforcement authorities slapping the cuffs on these thieves. Instead they get to walk up to the podium and tell us how they need us to give them $700 Billion, to fix the problem they created, immediately...

I'm not buyin' that bill-o'-goods!

Frankly, the best thing that can happen for our country is for the markets and economy to correct itself naturally devoid of all federal government intrusion and interference. The more gridlock we can get out of the Washington carpet-baggers right now, the better off we'll be.

No one knows what is best or right because America and the world has never been here before. All this strategy to fix the problem is abject conjecture and speculation, nothing more. In the midst of a financial collapse caused by the Washington politicos, they want us to hand the reins over to 'em to the tune of the biggest nationalization/socialization of the free-market capitalist economy in the history of mankind. This would be a guarantee toward the surrender of our sovereignty and submission to a global New World Order that has no United States of America as a sovereign free nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Since no-one knows what's right and what's best, we should all have the clear revelation and epiphany about what's worst; the federal government having blanket power and control over free-markets and the American free-enterprise economy via nationalization/socialization interference and intrusion. They are precisely the ones that caused this, by sticking their fingers in the till for themselves under a disturbingly thin veil of doing it for us the taxpayer. It is the government that ran us aground on this rocky reef of tears, giving them more power and more control and especially more money is the very worst thing we could possibly do.

Teddy Roosevelt had some fine things to say about such issues and his words are just as poignant and righteous in our times;

At the risk of repetition let me say again that my plea is not for immunity to, but for the most unsparing exposure of, the politician who betrays his trust, of the big business man who makes or spends his fortune in illegitimate or corrupt ways. There should be a resolute effort to hunt every such man out of the position he has disgraced. Expose the crime, and hunt down the criminal; but remember that even in the case of crime, if it is attacked in sensational, lurid, and untruthful fashion, the attack may do more damage to the public mind than the crime itself.
– Theodore Roosevelt, speech, "The Man With The Muck Rake" (April 15, 1906)

I believe that the officers, and, especially, the directors, of corporations should be held personally responsible when any corporation breaks the law.
– Theodore Roosevelt, speech at Osawatomie, Kansas, "The New Nationalism" (August 31, 1910)

All the resources we need are in the mind.
– Theodore Roosevelt

I implore all Americans to call, write, and email their elected representatives and demand that we NOT follow this road to nowhere of a $700 Billion bail-out of the criminals that got us into this mess by keeping them in the same exact positions they were in to get us here and just handing them more of our money and sovereignty to do away with at will.