Can you think of a reason, any reason, any reason at all, why a man ought to have to buy a license to go fishing?
I mean, really? The lake or river or ocean is there and I'm not going to hurt it. And if I don't catch that fish some bigger fish will eat it. So what does a license to go fishing do for the man who has to buy it? Does it make the fish easier to catch? After all, it's called "fishing," not "catching."
Or does it make all the fish line up and bite on the now-licensed fisherman's hook? Does it give the license holder inside information as to where the good fishing spots are? Or statistics as to where one has a better chance of landing dinner? Especially if you need to fish to have some dinner to eat?
The answer to all the foregoing questions is, NO!
All it does it generate revenue for the state. So they can hire guys in green uniforms to hassle you. Too big of a hook, or not the right kind of pole, or fishing before or after the state thinks is appropriate. In other words, bureaucracy for its own sake. Generating no reason at all to exist, except to hire lots and lots of folks doing lots and lots of things, to propagate its continued existence.
Oh wait! I hear somebody kvetching that these game wardens do good by stocking streams with fish! Okay, I'll bite. But then they hide in the bushes and try to bust people who catch too many of them. Or maybe the wrong ones. Or the wrong sizes.
Bait and switch? Hmmm?
And one could reasonably extend this same sort of thinking to hunting. A sport, along with fishing, which is deeply ingrained in our DNA. We've been hunting and fishing to stay alive since time immemorial. Hundreds of thousands of years. At least. We need it. It's in our soul. We don't want to pay to do something God gave us the natural right to do. Nor, many would say, should we have to.
And if your family's hungry and you take a deer without all the expensive licenses and permits and permission slips, you get a fat $Fine. And then they take your deer and give it to the hungry family down the road. Plus, you six months in the county lockup to contemplate the errors of your ways.
Think about it: We're naturally a bunch of hunter-gatherers. So hunting and gathering should be enshrined in the Bill of Rights, me thinks. Proposed new 1st Amendment: "You have the Right to say whatever you want, whenever you want, yada yada, and take a deer for your family any time you want."
Didn't work out that way. About 45,000 years ago, give or take, our forebears decided to pitch their tents next to each other and share the campfire. And enjoy newfound safety in numbers from that pesky saber tooth tiger out there.
And then more people brought their talents to the group, so some could hunt while others made dinner. And pretty soon you had a town. With a mayor and a city council. And their job was to make you pay to do the things you used to do for free. And hire a police force to hunt you down if you don't.
Makes one think it might be nice to devolve a notch or two, embrace some of the freedoms we used to enjoy, and go hunting and fishing...
At the end of this month I will have lived in my house in rural Ohio twenty years. I've had two kids and Dad here with eleven dogs, seven of which were acquired because of the other three dependents. Of those eleven dogs, all but two were rescues, most from extremely bad situations!
ReplyDeleteIn addition to food, spaying or neutering and medical care, every year I've paid my required $14 dog tag before it goes up February 1st to $28. I usually pay in person at the required location so there's not an additional 75¢ fee on top of the fee. In all, I've paid $966 for the right to dogs that previously were neither tagged, nor cared for.
Of course, the tag supposedly gives them a "get out of doggy jail free" if I have to retrieve them from the pound. I don't know because I have never had to. Of course I could take comfort in knowing my almost $1k was used to support helpless, homeless, animals but I also know in seventeen months the volunteer treasurer will finish his thirty-six month prison sentence for stealing $730,984.19 in almost seven years as treasurer. As the judge said at sentencing, "He took more that $100,000 a year from the shelter all the while having a job making $108,000." I wish I was paid
$2,076.92 a week when I volunteer!
The only benefit I've ever derived from this dog tax is when my grumpy, elderly calls the warden because a dog is loose or barking and wants to pin it on me. I can only surmise I'm an easy scapegoat because of his senility. Warden dutifully checks habitat, health conditions and dog tags and says, yes, he's the one that called. But, being a law-abiding citizen has its price as I pay a tax to care for dogs that didn't have care before I came along.
This really describes U.S. citizens. Because we care, and try to follow the law, we're taxed while our money is stolen instead of used as intended. $14 a year to own a dog. Tax to own a car, a house, or make a purchase. So, what do we really own? If we own it, why do we have to pay yearly to keep owning it?