Still whining like spoiled brat children, the Editorial Board of the Portland Press Herald Newspaper continues to moan about how unfair it was that members of the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife (MDIFW) and the Maine Warden Service (MWS) participated in the recent anti human, bear referendum as a means of providing facts and data about what bear management was like. They lost and so they want to change the rules. What else is knew. God forbid that we should have informed voters.
Aside from the fact that the written text of the editorial makes little sense, on the one hand complains that it wasn’t right for employees to do this while in the next breath vows that little should be done to stop this unfair, in their eyes, practice. Fake compromise.
Utilizing the old and worn out technique of “comparison” shopping, the paper first attempts to equate the participation of state employees – in uniform…gasp – to pornography. If you call them out on it they will simply say they were making a point that a judge, who has nothing to do with the bear referendum, claimed they would recognize pornography when they saw it. Consider that for a moment. This reveals a poor judge and one that seems to be part of a promotion campaign by the Press Herald as being a good thing that a judge administers justice, via the judicial branch, by his or her perception of what should and shouldn’t be, based on their own moral standards.
Whether it is right or wrong, in your opinion, that the Editorial Board invoked the comparison of pornography, matters very little because the words are written and the damage done. The state of Maine now employees pornographic professionals according to the Portland Press Herald.
Equating the recognition of pornography by a judge in 1964 to actions by members of the MDIFW and MWS to provide facts about bear management, the Board says that they see no difference in that any judge should be able to see the two issues as the same.
We feel the same way about the involvement of state agencies and their employees in political campaigns. Sometimes it doesn’t bother us; other times it does. When does it go too far? It’s hard to know exactly where to draw the line, but we know it when we see it.
Evidently the Editorial Board has recognized pornographic equivalencies between one judge’s moral or immoral perception of pornography and one judge’s interpretation of Maine law that it is not illegal for the MDIFW to do what it did during this bear referendum. Voters need to be informed but those promoting the referendum wanted to censor MDFIW and MWS because the facts didn’t agree with their propaganda.
Other than having their own media platform to preach from, what is it the Editorial Board wants? I think they want their cake and eat it too.
We think officials should give their expert opinion and individuals should exercise their free speech rights. But as Justice Stewart said, this was not that – or at least it didn’t look like that.
What we saw appeared to be the enormous power of state government wielded against a group of citizens who were calling for a change in state law.
This is nothing but sour grapes from a bunch of misinformed and not informed losers who want to be able to exercise their rights so long as they can win with them. If they can’t, then they want to change the rules.
Surely if the Department of Environmental Protection was challenged through referendum by an out of state group with no interest in Maine government affairs, voters would want to know facts about the issue and whether or not the current administration supports or opposes the effort and why.
I see it as typical childish behavior, the result of not getting your way. It’s also irresponsible and unprofessional to attempt to smear the reputations of the MDIFW and the MWS by equating their activities to that of the promoters of pornography. Then, after accomplishing what they really set out to do, they attempted to paint themselves as some sort of reasonable and moderate compromisers; above the common fray.
But because what they did was so far from the norm, we think the Legislature should not go too far in its reaction. Just as we don’t want to see state employees getting too involved in political campaigns, we also don’t want them to be barred from participating. There is room for a happy medium, and the fact that this has not been a problem in the past should remind people that it might not need such a stringent solution.
The real issue here is that animal rights and environmental left-wing perverts lost their attempt to destroy all things normal. This began to reveal itself when the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) sued the state in the middle of the campaign in order to stop MDIFW and the MWS from doing what they should have been doing – educating the public.
Some attempted to hide behind the issue of transparency in costs to the state but that proved itself to not be the driving force in the lawsuit, nor is it the driving force behind efforts such as the Press Herald smearing the MDIFW and MWS. They don’t want transparency. They want an end to hunting, trapping and fishing. They will persist until they get it. After all, if a brat bangs his head on the floor until blood is drawn, any parent will give in.
Opening One’s Mouth and Removing All Doubt
There’s an old saying attributed to Abraham Lincoln where he said, “It is better to remain silent and thought of a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.” And it was H.L. Menken who said, “Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American Public.”
But alas, where doth the blame lie and to which action should one point a finger?
Recently in a Bangor, Maine newspaper, a person had published his “opinion” and comment about the recent bear hunting referendum, sponsored by the Humane Society of the United States, to effectively end bear hunting. While some are licking their wounds and others beating their chests in triumph, some just don’t get it.
I think it was humorist/comedian Tim Sample who got a laugh when he said that some people not only don’t have a clue, they don’t even suspect.
This man with an opinion had a complaint that the referendum was worded wrong and suggested, “Was it malice aforethought or just stupidity?” At issue was that he believed the use of the word “or” in the referendum was in error. In part the referendum read, “An Act To Prohibit the Use of Dogs, Bait or Traps When Hunting Bears Except….”(emphasis added) The writer wanted to know if the referendum had passed, who would have had the authority to decide which method of bear hunting would be banned.
I seldom would come to the support of any government official, however, I have my doubts that the person(s) who drafted the wording acted with “malice aforethought.” And I know it wasn’t stupidity but it might have been ignorance.
I’m no English writing expert, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express once. But it appears to me that the use of the word “or” in the context of this referendum is used in the collective sense. In other words, had the item been written something like this: To Prohibit Fred Brown the use of Dogs, Bait OR Traps…. then his assumption that somebody would have to decide which method would be banned. In the case of the actual referendum, the use of nouns and pronouns are in the collective sense, whether directly stated or inferred and thus the use of the word “or” then “collects” all three items, i.e. dogs, bait and traps, and then effectively becomes one item.
It is often said that stupidity can’t be corrected but ignorance can. Ignorance is the lack of knowledge. Stupidity is seeing no need to have knowledge. Or better yet, they don’t even suspect.
In this case, the writer was ignorant of the proper uses of nouns, pronouns and verbs, but was really stupid to write a letter to the editor of a newspaper in order to “open your mouth and remove all doubt.”