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Letter from Jeff Fullerton

Letter from Bobbie

Letter from Manuel Miles (a.k.a. Kaptain Kanada)

Letter from Michael Morrison

Letter from Jeff Fullerton

Re: “A Slave is a Slave” [mentioned by by A.X. Perez last issue]

As the straw bosses in H. Beam Piper’s “A Slave Is a Slave” pointed out if something belongs to everyone, it really belongs to whoever manages it for everyone.

Guess who Warren, Pelosi, Schumer, and Ocasio-Cortez see owning everything.

A.X Perez

To Mr Perez & Others

I just had to look up and listen to that novel on Libravox while preparing and having breakfast this morning. I started out liking H.Beam Piper because his awesome talent as a world builder putting together some of the most fascinating and scientifically plausible descriptions—(and they still are)—of extrasolar planets using the existing body of astronomical knowledge available in his time. More and more as I get around to reading the remainder of his works I'm finding him to be a master in his understanding of the Human Condition—perhaps even superior to Isaac Asimov or Robert A. Heinlein in the design of believable societies.

Like the diversity of life and fossil record scraped off the Canadian Shield and pulverized by the Pleistocene glaciers; we can only speculate what might have been if Mr Piper had just hung in a little longer to see the breakthrough that probably would have jumpstarted his literary career and elevated him to one of the masters of classic 20th Century Science Fiction alongside Asimov, Heinlein, Arthur C. Clarke and John W. Campbell.

As a fancier of various species of reptiles, fish and rare plants I have been long frustrated by the fascistic regulations and outright contraband approach promulgated by those who insist that wildlife belongs to everyone—which like the straw bosses in “A Slave is a Slave” points out—belongs to those appointed to manage it for all the people. Namely—in the case of native reptiles and amphibians; the pointy headed professional herpetologists and wildlife biologists hired by wildlife agencies. Unlike traditional Progressive Era wildlife management philosophy that actually aims to scientifically manage fish and game and public land for sustainable use by the public -many of the people in these agencies are steeped in a combination of elitist arrogance and cultural Marxism with a little deep ecology mysticism thrown in. They more or less see the natural world as something they've been appointed guardianship over and it's their job to protect it from being defiled by human hands other than their own which explains why they loathe the very idea of someone like any of us peons owning a pet turtle—or anything else for that matter. For them the reptile hobby and other niche interests are the low hanging fruit. Eventually they will go full bore after other things—like more conventional hunting and fishing, public land use and even private land ownership itself. Indeed they have already been chipping away at these things for many years. Some of the problems with wildfires in California and other western states have been magnified by changes in management practices employed in the National Forests and on other federal and state lands—driven by the deep ecology philosophy that has metastasized in wildlife and natural resource agencies at all levels of government.

Even if it doesn't threaten a population of an endangered mouse or insect hanging by a thread—it would still be sacrilege to allow the thinning of underbrush or scientific managed grazing or timbering by private citizens who would pay for the management of the land through user fees like state fish and game use revenues from hunting and fishing licenses.

And the idea of letting someone like me raise spotted turtles or other taxa in need of conservation is just unthinkable in my state. Mainly because some P.H.D herpetologist employed by the state—or has their ear—is contemptuous of amateurs like me who are not anointed by the environmental priesthood of the Marxist professors who indoctrinated them in their formative years.

Another thing I picked up from “A Slave is a Slave” is that it may take three generations for a people so conditioned to change their ways. I hope not.

Jeff Fullerton
[email protected]

Was that worth reading?
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PAY Jeff Fullerton