Stephanie Boyles, a wildlife biologist at People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, said, "When they get hooked they feel pain just like a cat or a dog or a duck."
How do you think people feel being pinched by the government everyday for a third of their pay? You're insane if you think anybody but you and your stooges will feel sorry for the fish.
An empty ciggerette pack on a string will catch your limit of kittens, no hook necessary.
Go tell the homeowners in the Ponderosa Pine Forests of east central Arizona they should let nature be! We have 360,000 acres or 562 square miles of the most beautiful lands in the country that are ash.
I, for one, am so pissed, that if an enviro-whacko showed his/her face to me right now, their health would be endangered. Even Jane D (for Dimwit) Hull, our glorious GUV, said that had we been able to clean up natures messes, damage probably would have been lessened.
GAWD I hate those ba**ards!
There's also no such thing as rights FOR fish or any other animals. There is nothing in the Constitution guaranteeing ANYTHING to animals. So there goes their whole argument.
Finally, the projection of persona, spirit, or rights upon anything other than citizens is little more than a twisted democratic power play. It is a claim of an exclusive franchise to represent an artificial constituency. Maybe those plants do need protection; but who gets to decide by what means, and to what end?From Chapter 2 of the Source.A biocentric perspective projects the spirituality of being into everything. To a deep ecologist, a rock would have a rock’s spirit, a rock’s consciousness, and thus deserves civil rights equivalent to human beings, which they alone purport to represent.
This is a debilitating thing to do to one’s own mind, much less to a republic. To claim to represent the rights of rocks is to project a subjective human impression of a rock’s preferences onto rocks. What if they were wrong? Perhaps the rocks might feel more appreciated by a mineral geologist who would want to make aluminum cans out of them? Did anybody ask the rocks? You guess.
When activists of any stripe demand rights for animals, rocks, or plants, what they are really doing is demanding disproportionate representation of their interests as the self-appointed advocates representing those constituents. Unfortunately, to enforce a right requires the police power of government, the only agent so capable. Government acquires this role because it is assumed a disinterested arbiter of competing claims.
History suggests quite the opposite, which is why limiting the number of enforceable rights is as important to liberty as is constituting them as such.
When government gains the power to confer rights to any constituency, it acquires the means to confer power upon itself as an enforcing agent. There is then no limit to the power to dilute the rights of citizens. Civic respect for unalienable rights of citizens then exists not at all.
I agree with the enviro-wackos that there is no such thing as a right to fish. But there is also no provision in the US Constitution that gives Congress/Federal government the power to regulate or mandate no fishing zones. Unless the Federal government is going to move Washington DC into the coasts.
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20020618-95535210.htm
Conservatives angered by environmental provision
By Audrey Hudson and Amy Fagan
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
A tax break for environmental groups is being added to part of President Bush's faith-based initiative, angering some conservatives. The provision gives a 25 percent discount on capital-gains tax to private property owners who sell their land to environmental groups or the government, instead of to other private parties.
Sen. Phil Gramm, Texas Republican, called the environmental tax break a "dangerous concept" that "favors conservationists over churches, schools and orphanages." "It's one thing to encourage charitable giving; it's another thing to distort the marketplace," said Mr. Gramm, who plans to attack the provision today at a Senate Finance Committee meeting.
The tax cut is supported by the Bush administration and sponsored by Max Baucus, Montana Democrat and Finance Committee chairman, and ranking member Charles E. Grassley, Iowa Republican.
Mr. Baucus defended the tax cut, saying "We're trying to protect the value of more open space." Mr. Grassley supports the concept because he says it will benefit farmers.
Private-property-rights groups are fighting the tax cut, which first appeared as a 50 percent break in Mr. Bush's budget. The budget remains deadlocked in the Democratic-controlled Senate, and attaching the tax cut to the popular faith-based initiative makes it difficult to defeat, critics say.
"The administration must be very uncomfortable with the lack of support from their constituency to sneak this land-grab program into the faith-based initiative," said Carol LaGrasse, president of the Property Rights Foundation. "I just can't believe it, Bush is such a disappointment," Mrs. LaGrasse said. "But we are not giving up."
Mr. Gramm will try to remove the provision from the overall package of tax benefits for donations to faith-based or community charities during the bill's consideration today in the Senate Finance Committee. He unsuccessfully tried to do so last week. He warned that if the tax cut remains in the bill, he will offer amendments on the floor to extend the same benefit to "every bleeding heart" group.
Sen. Don Nickles, Oklahoma Republican and assistant minority leader, said the capital-gains tax should be reduced for everyone. "The solution is to reduce the capital-gains tax to 15 percent, period, " Mr. Nickles said.
Mike Hardiman, spokesman for the American Land Rights Association, called the tax cut a "gravy train for wealthy land trusts." "It's so sleazy, so disingenuous. They can't defend this stuff in public, so they are trying to sneak it through in an unrelated bill. This is looney," Mr. Hardiman said. Historically, when "green" groups purchase private land, they sell it to state or federal governments, which takes the property off tax rolls and hurts local economies, as well as costing the government money to sustain the property, Mr. Hardiman said.
The House passed a faith-based initiatives bill last year, but it did not contain the environmental tax cut. "Will wonders never cease?" said Henry Lamb, president of the Environmental Conservation Organization. "That just boils my water."
The underlying charities bill - crafted by Mr. Baucus and Mr. Grassley - is based largely on a bill crafted by Sens. Joseph I. Lieberman, Connecticut Democrat and Rick Santorum, Pennsylvania Republican, along with the White House.
Providing tax incentives to encourage charitable giving is a top priority of Mr. Bush and represents a piece of his larger faith-based initiative.
Among other things, the bill would allow those who do not itemize on their taxes to deduct some of their charitable giving and would allow tax-free donations from Individual Retirement Accounts (IRAs) to charities.
The House-passed bill contains similar provisions, but also contains the hotly debated "charitable choice" component, which would allow religious organizations to compete for a wide array of government grants. The Senate bills do not contain charitable choice.
What about they pain you feel when you get bit by a rattlesnake,or getting mauled by a bear,or getting a limb tore off by a shark,or getting munched by a wolferine.Hell even a fish can sting the hell out of you taking it off the hook.A catfish has to be the worse.Barracudas have big nasty teeth.A school of pirranahs will shred you to pieces.That gotta hurt too.