Posted by Give me a break on January 09, 2005 at 12:46:56:
In Reply to: I'm not surpised:....... posted by Elaine on January 09, 2005 at 12:03:13:
"That you don't post under your real name."
Some of the greatest writers and dissenters used nom de guerres. Stick to the issue.... if you can that is.
"The F&G wardens don't have an easy job."
I agree, abusing peoples Constitutional rights must really take its toll.
" They don't make the laws, they just enforce them."
With of course the exception of the Constitutions prohibition against unreasonable searches and seizure. Violating peoples civil rights is not their "job". Hitlers deputies used the same lame excuse. When a warden detains people for a half hour looking through a book trying to figure out if that duck some soul took to eat is the right species, is the right sex, is within the territorial limit lines of the zone, is far enough away from a road, what constitutes a road, if the time is right, if the gun held too many rounds or not the right type of rounds, what the elemental composition of the round was, sorry, you'll excuse me for having no sympathy for them for having a really rough job.
"If you take some time to wardens and F&G biologists you will find that they are well aware of what some of the problems with the laws are."
Ok, so now we have established they knowingly enforce bad laws, making them even more guilty. I have talked to these thugs and have had to put them in their place numerous times, both in sight and in their kangaroo courts.
"I only hunt with a camera."
While your work is awesome in capturing the beauty of the ocean and its inhabitants, there just seems to be a hint, a subtle undertone of moral superiority and condescencion on your part to those that gather some of their own food, whereas you presumably not being a vegetarian, pay people to murder animals for you so you can claim the high ground because you "...just hunt with a camera."
"The pickings are getting slim. When I have a hard time finding things it probably indicates that all other interest groups are having a hard time too."
In 30 tears of diving SoCal, iI would disagree.
"I learned about the problems of keeping Garibaldi out of the aquarium trade first hand when I found and reported one in a pet store near where I work. There was so much red tape and the paperwork laws so impossible for the wardens to follow that I almost bought him just to get him put back in the ocean where he belonged."
Same goes for your cats and dogs and birds and the animals you consume. They don't belong in your home or in your mouth having their flesh torn and crushed by your teeth just so you don't have to eat vegetables.
I have seen these jack-booted thugs line divers up like lemings after multi-day dive trips during opener searching everyones posessions without probable cause. Lets hear your justification for them violaitng your inalienable, self executing, self evident rights refenreced by the Constitution.. I can't wait to hear the; "I am willing to give up essential liberty for a little bit of peace and securiry" -the neccessity plea,"... the plea of tyrants, the creed of slaves." that Thomas Jefferson warned about.