An Answer for Ed’s Listener
17 August 2007 12:28 pm by Taylor Marsh
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| Nice catch, Ed! |
Listening in my car this morning, close to the end of Ed Schultz’s radio show, he got
a call from a guy who asked a very important question for Democrats, understanding that his premise was wrong. The guy asked why all
of the groups who are trying to take the rights away from hunters and fishermen, according to this guy, all belong to the Democratic Party. Ed’s a big outdoorsman, so no
doubt he’s got a lot of listeners who share his love
of the wilderness, including the sporting that goes along with it. Ed’s retort
was good, paraphrasing it: I guess the Democratic Party just has a much bigger
tent. Then Schultz went on to say that he couldn’t answer the guy’s question
in any detail unless the caller named a group and got specific. The guy
named PETA. Schultz then questioned whether PETA was even in the Democratic
Party. The caller exclaimed that the animal rights organization certainly wasn’t
conservative. Does Ann Coulter speak for all conservatives? asked Ed.
First, the caller is wrong about Democrats wanting to take away any hunting
and fishing rights. It’s nonsense. It’s also a wingnut talking point that has
been drilled into radio listeners heads, as well as cable viewers, ad nauseam, so it’s not surprising people
regurgitate it at will.
Secondly, the caller also suggested that if Democrats give some on the abortion
issue maybe Republicans would give some on the gun issue. More proof that right-wing
talking points work even when they’re loony. The observation of putting abortion
in the Democratic camp while putting guns in the Republican camp speaks for
itself, so I won’t offer a dissection of this drivel.
However, Schultz missed a prime opportunity to name the one thing threatening hunting
and fishing more than any perceived or concocted boogeyman wrongly hoisted up on the Democratic ledger.
Republican policies have a horrendous affect on the environment, including
habitat, rivers, streams and space needed to keep hunting and fishing alive, as well as the beautiful landscape bikers, hikers and bird watchers love so much. That is unless you want to turn these sports into canned activities like Deadeye
Dick enjoys, where your prey is maimed to make an easier target and you don’t even
have to walk to your kill.
Schultz isn’t the only outdoor loving Democrat who forgets
the obvious when talking about hunting and fishing during attacks that make us all sound like a bunch of snobs from the gloved tea set. The decline and wiping out of habit is a real issue out here in the west
that is making even some Republicans wake up and walk away from Bush-Cheney and the extreme
environmental dismantling that represents the Republican Party platform.
People who love the outdoors, myself included, along with people who hunt (my
husband used to all the time), including fishermen and women as well, all have
an interest in protecting the environment we love to enjoy.
Guns are safe, as are people’s right to hunt and fish and enjoy the sport of
the great outdoors, which for me is hiking, biking and bird watching (though we are a gun owning family), with my
husband a muscular dirt bike enthusiast.
One thing that isn’t safe is the environment that makes our outdoor enjoyment
possible. It’s something we should talk about a lot more than we do, because most people seem to forget that if we don’t protect the environment and the wild life habitat in this country we lose our rights to enjoy it, too.
