Do We Fear Exceptionalism?

Where it began, I don’t know. Perhaps we can’t even put a finger on it. Somewhere between here and there America has lost her exceptionalism. Being exceptional sets something or someone apart from all others. Dare we utter the fact that were it not for exceptional people America would not exist today? Why have we grown to fear being exceptional? Why do we now see such blessings from God as amiss?

I’m sure it began long before our obsession with self-esteem. So consumed we became with making sure our kids’ feelings were never hurt, we lost all reason and understanding and began teaching that exceptionalism wasn’t “fair”. (Oh, there’s the four-letter word that should be banned.) Read more

Liberty Is Not Yours Or Mine To Give And To Take

Photo from fOTOGLIF

One of the most difficult things for a human to do is respect the liberty of others when we have a notion to disapprove. My liberty comes from God. Yours does as well, although you may not recognize that fact. Perhaps you even believe your freedom is bestowed upon you by your government. If so, my prayers go out that someday you will gladly receive your liberties from the Almighty Creator and not some man who thinks he knows better.

But liberty comes with responsibility, the restraint of exploiting our rights over those of others. Read more

The Trouble With Treaties

Photo from fOTOGLIF

Editor’s Note: Published by Permission of the author.

By Jim Beers

Jim Beers is a retired US Fish & Wildlife Service Wildlife Biologist, Special Agent, Refuge Manager, Wetlands Biologist, and Congressional Fellow. He was stationed in North Dakota, Minnesota, Nebraska, New York City, and Washington DC. He also served as a US Navy Line Officer in the western Pacific and on Adak, Alaska in the Aleutian Islands. He has worked for the Utah Fish & Game, Minneapolis Police Department, and as a Security Supervisor in Washington, DC. He testified three times before Congress; twice regarding the theft by the US Fish & Wildlife Service of $45 to 60 Million from State fish and wildlife funds and once in opposition to expanding Federal Invasive Species authority. He resides in Eagan, Minnesota with his wife of many decades.

Yesterday, I wrote a piece titled Confessions of a Treatyphobe. In it I discussed the abuse of the Treaty Power in our Constitution and in so doing I mentioned how I would be glad to debate why the Migratory Bird Treaties with Canada, Mexico, Japan, and Russia were in need of modification and how they might be changed. The result is that, thus far, I have been removed from at least four Christmas card lists and have made formerly sound communications with two other readers, tenuous at best in the future. Read more

Confessions Of A Treatyphobe

Photo from fOTOGLIF

Editor’s Note: Reprinted with permission.

By Jim Beers

“My name is Jim Beers and I am a treatyphobe.”

I grew up in the period of wildlife abundance in the 1940’s and 50’s. From the first time I hunted with my Dad, the dream of spending my life managing and preserving the use and cultural heritage provided by US fish and wildlife was always in my mind.

When I studied wildlife management in college and when I worked for the Utah Fish and Game and then the US Fish and Wildlife Service after a stint in the Navy; fish and wildlife management and use, like American freedoms and the American way of life were still intact. Today, fish and wildlife management and use, like American government, American freedoms, American culture and traditions, and American society are in tatters and on the verge of disappearance. Read more

Twenty-Five States Seek “Nullification” Of Federal Gun Control Laws

As of this writing, five states, Montana, Tennessee, Utah, Wyoming and South Dakota, have passed laws through their legislature effectively nullifying the Federal Government’s authority to regulated guns and gun accessories. Two states, Montana and Tennessee, their laws most commonly called Firearms Freedom Acts, have been signed by their governors. The other three are expected to follow suit. In addition to those five states, at least twenty more have introduced similar legislation and another half dozen intend to introduce it. By years end, there could feasibly be well over 30 states making an attempt to tell the Federal Government to butt out of their intrastate gun and gun accessory manufacturing. Read more

Putting Ronald Reagan On Our Fifty Dollar Bills

There is a proposal in the House of Representatives to take Ullysses S. Grant off the fifty-dollar bill and replace it with Ronald Reagan. As one might expect in this hate filled, angry and demented society of ours, some have a problem with that and for various reasons. I read on the Daily Kos where somebody stated that putting Reagan on a fifty was no different than Slobodan Milosevic. Such intelligent thought. I suppose that the same person who wrote this doesn’t take issue with the twenty-dollar bill having Andrew Jackson’s picture on it. Andrew Jackson was a staunch democrat and was well noted from defeating the British in the Battle of New Orleans. But as democratic tradition had it in those days, Jackson was a firm supporter of slavery and was responsible for the destruction and migration of all Indian tribes east of the Mississippi. He demand that all Indians be moved west and put on reservations. Slobodan who? Read more