News from the Front #42  

Rally Against Shorelines Guidelines

This is a more or less verbatim transcript of a speech given on the Capitol steps in Olympia, Washington on February 6, 2001:

Lies About Salmon

This spring we're probably going to have the largest run of spring chinook ever measured since they started counting at Bonneville Dam.  Once again, we're going to be able to buy these so-called endangered salmon off the back of a pickup truck for $2 a pound. 

Well I'm going to let you in on a little secret.  There are no endangered salmon species.  Why do these so-called scientists tell us that salmon are endangered?  Well, they have to ignore all the hatchery fish, because they aren't going to go extinct any more than cows are going to go extinct.

Then they pretend that every tiny little river is a different species.  And then they look at the world, with thousands of populations of the same species, chinook salmon, in all these rivers, and they find that out on the edge of all these populations, a few wild runs are in trouble, because they can't keep up with the gillnets.  And so they pretend that the whole species of chinook salmon are going disappear off the face of the earth. 

You've seen these characters before folks, in a children's story.  This is the story of Chicken Little.  Imagine if Noah had tried to build an ark based on these theories.  It would have sunk before he even finished loading the squirrels, with five hundred different sets of the same squirrels.

Hatchery Fish and Wild Fish

Now a few years ago, the bureaucrats here in Olympia were sticking electrodes in the river and electrocuting all the wild fish so that they wouldn't interfere with hatchery runs.  And now they are clubbing the hatchery fish to death so they won't interfere with wild runs.  The government always finds something to do, doesn't it?

I'm going to let you in on another little secret here.  There's no important difference between hatchery fish and wild fish.  You remember high school, animals breed, and their DNA splits, and these little blocks of chemicals called genes, which are the building blocks for DNA, shuffle around like a deck of cards, and they get dealt onto the next generation. 

Well guess what?  These wild fish and hatchery fish are shuffling the same deck of genes. 

And no one has ever found genes unique to wild fish, because the decks are getting shuffled all time.  The salmon populations could all drop by a factor of ten, and we'd still have all the cards we need to deal to keep the salmon going—not that we have to, since most salmon populations are on the upswing.

Sure, sometimes, wild fish have some particular combinations of genes that might work better in a particular place.  But you can get those same winning hands dealt by breeding hatchery fish—not that we have to, since there are still lots of wild fish left.  We can breed fish pretty easily that will survive and adapt just fine. 

Each salmon has 3,000 eggs, and on average only two survive to breed.  So the gene combinations that don't work get weeded out real fast, and the ones that work well will start to show up more often.  This isn't some fantasy, this is the real world.  That's how come they could take one single barrel of salmon eggs over to New Zealand, and a couple decades later they had five rivers full of different looking fish, some fall runs and some spring runs. 

Habitat Science

So what do our fish bureaucrats do instead of making more fish?  Well, I went to the DOE website, and do you know what I found?  The new shorelines guidelines say you can't build bulkheads on your property because waves might bounce off of them and cause erosion. 

Imagine if you had these crazy neighbors across the bay, and they sue you because waves are bouncing off your property and carrying off a few handfuls of their sand.  The jury would look at them like they were wearing tin foil hats to protect him from the CIA mind control rays.  They'd get laughed out of court. 

Of course you know where they'd go.  They'd come to Olympia and get a job writing shorelines guidelines. 

These are the guys who think that salmon are so sensitive that if you cut down a tree 200 feet away from the water, salmon will feel some sort of invisible tree death rays and die.  These are the guys who say we have to plant trees by the water to make more shade, but you can't put a dock on your property because it would shade the water. 

These are the guys who talk about balancing the rights of private property owners.  The federal government already owns half the land in the West.  How is it balance for them to start acting like the landlords over the other half too?  I think balance means getting land out of government hands, and into private hands.

The bottom line here is that salmon science is dead.  The government killed it.  The salmon problem is really a government problem.  If you read history at all, the kind they don't teach in government schools, you'll find that government is always telling lies so it can get more power and money.  And you know who loses, right?  It's you. 

Law Is Dead

Don't think that law can protect you.  Law is dead too.  The courts killed it.

Let me give you a little story to show you just how dead the law is.  The law says that it is illegal to trade or transport endangered species in interstate commerce.  No exceptions.

So back when I still believed in law, I thought, I can put an end to this hypocrisy.  The federal government was issuing permits for commercial harvest of endangered salmon, and I sued to stop them. 

And you know what the government said?  We can't tell the endangered salmon from the non-endangered salmon, so we can't enforce the law.  And the courts went, duh, well, ok, whatever you say. 

And when the government threw shrimp fishermen in jail for catching endangered turtles, the fishermen said, hey, we can't tell the endangered turtles from non-endangered turtles, and the government said, it doesn't matter whether you can tell them apart, we have to enforce the law.  And the courts went, duh, well, ok, whatever the government wants.  Because the law is dead as a doornail. 

We are one judge away from the Supreme Court saying that there are no limits on the federal government's power, except for a few politically-correct rights. 

And rights to private property are not politically-correct.  All the governments from the UN on down are sure that it is a very bad thing for people to be able to do what they want with their property. 

Political Power Is The Answer

I'm here to tell you that there's only one thing that can protect you when law and science are dead.  Do you know what that is?  Power.  Raw political power, the kind we have here with hundreds of people demonstrating.  It's your only hope.

Whether you know it or not, you are at war.  You are fighting powerful and evil enemies, people like Bruce Babbitt.  Back when he was President of the League of Conservation Voters, he told his members, and I quote:  "We must identify our enemies and drive them into oblivion."  Last month Babbitt told the Tri-City Herald last month that people who believed in private property rights were anarchists.

How does it feel to be dangerous radical anarchists?  Does it feel good?  I hope it feels good.  It should feel good.  Because you know what, we're acting just like the people who gave us the Constitution wanted us to act.  You know what Thomas Jefferson said?  Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God. 

You can call them tyrants, you can call them the Dark Forces, you can call them the Destroyers, you can call them just plain evil.  They think that human beings mankind are a cancer on the earth, and that everything that human beings do must be shut down, even growing more fish.  And they don't care about freedom at all, because freedom just gets in the way of their plans. 

And our government and our media and our schools are now controlled by these enemies of freedom and those that appease them.  These people don't care anything about the truth.  They just care about cutting deals.

But know the truth when you hear it.  And your responsibility as a citizen is to start making sure other people hear it too.  We have to reach the young, and teach them what freedom means.  Always remember, we are just one generation away from barbarism.  We have to pass on our ideals to the next generation, or they 

We have to tell them of the dangers of government, because no one else will.  Because if we die without passing along that knowledge, freedom perishes.  And freedom is more important than anything else, even salmon.

Fighting for the Dream

This country is based on the dream of freedom.

We dream that principle is more important than power.  We dream that science is based on truth, and serves the people.  We dream that laws are simple and clear and fair.  We dream that the government serves the people, and not vice versa.  And we dream that we can live on our property in peace with our neighbors without some nut from Olympia or Washington, D.C. telling us what to do.

Here today, together, right now, we take a step toward getting back our dream.  Here today, together, right now, we put the fear into our government officials instead of them putting the fear into us. 

With enough political pressure, we can get people appointed to fix these problems with the stroke of a pen. 

With the stroke of a pen, we can take salmon off the endangered species list.  With the stroke of a pen, we can get rid of all the endangered salmon rules.  With the stroke of a pen, we can get the federal government's hands off private property.  With the stroke of a pen, we can open up public property to the public.  With the stroke of a pen, we can stop the overfishing that is hurting salmon populations.

But none of that is going to happen unless you take to the streets to make it happen.  If we let the Leftists control the streets, America will continue to list to the Left.  If right-thinking Americans take to the streets, we will start to get on the right path.

We Are The Good Guys

Remember, we are the good guys here.  We own land. We are about land.  We want to protect it for our children.  We know that a Garden of Eden is better than a natural desert.

And we know that the Government can't manage land worth a damn.  Remember last summer?  They were burning it all to a crisp.

Not only are we the good guys, but we are not alone.  All across this country there are people fighting for freedom.  You stand with the farmers.  You stand with the irrigators.  You stand with the ranchers.  You stand with the miners.  You stand with everyone who believes that the Constitution means what it says, even if crazy judges can't seem to read it.  And you stand with all the Americans who believe in freedom. 

Bills on Shorelines Management

We will win this war against the enemies of freedom one step at a time, and today we take the first step toward getting rid of the shoreline guidelines. 

Now your legislators have introduced two bills to fix this shoreline management mess.  One will repeal the guidelines, the other will freeze everything until the Legislature gets a chance to understand what is going on.  I think you can guess which one I'd pick.  But it will be victory when either one of those bills passes.  And you can make it happen.

Now imagine the vote is coming up on a bill to repeal the shorelines guidelines, and we all come back here, and bring a friend.  And imagine that our voices are loud enough that they strike fear into the hearts of our opponents. 

Now how'd you like to get a little taste of that?  Are you willing to do something with me right now?  Don't think of this as corny.  Think of this as practice.  I'm going to shout out a line, and I want you to repeat it as loud as you can:

Shorelines guidelines take what's mine; DOE is out of line.  My back yard is fine for fish; Go eat out of your own dish.

Doesn't that feel good?  It's fun to send a message.  The more you get out here and have fun, the quicker things are going to turn around.

Together, we have the power to make a difference.  Here, today, together, right now, we have the power to make things better.  Here, today, together, right now, we are putting the State of Washington back on the right track.  Thank you and God bless you.

© James Buchal, February 7, 2001

You have permission to reprint this article, and are encouraged to do so. The sooner people figure out what's going on, the quicker we'll have more fish in the rivers.