L. Neil Smith's
THE LIBERTARIAN ENTERPRISE
Number 333, August 21, 2005

"...far greater threat than Al Qaeda..."

Jackassic Park
by L. Neil Smith
lneil@lneilsmith.org

Exclusive to TLE

It says here (in the Associated Press and about a hundred other sites I've been directed to this afternoon) that "a group of prominent ecologists" have a splendid new scheme to transplant purportedly endangered African wildlife—including elephants and lions—to North America, establishing a "Pleistocene Park" out here on the Great Plains.

It shouldn't surprise anyone that this particular bonnet-bee, termed "rewilding" was hatched at a retreat on a New Mexico ranch owned by the supreme propellor beanie wearer of the mass media, Ted Turner.

"Gaining public acceptance is going to be a huge issue," Josh Donlan, a Cornell grad student and one of the plan's co-authors is quoted by Associated Press as conceding. "...when you talk about reintroducing predators... people are going to have to take precautions."

Like what, Josh, whipping out the trusty .416 Rigby and defending themselves? Not if we judge from history. How many thousands of Brits found themselves transported to Australia, or even hanged, for feeding their families by killing the King's deer? What do you think they'll do to us for protecting our families by shooting Ted Turner's pet rhinocerous?

By the way, you might ask thousands of Kikuyu farmers eaten out of house and farm by hordes of "endangered" elephants in Kenya exactly how important they think preserving this species of giant gray rabbits is.

In an apparent belief I would approve of this plan to "restore" species to America that never lived here before—probably because I wrote about stocking dangerous game on a terraformed asteroid in my novel Pallas—people in droves sent me articles about the notion. But there's a difference: in Pallas, the lions and tigers and bears (Oh, my!) were being put on private land by private individuals, land where nothing had ever lived before it was rendered Earthlike by technology.

Just as important, everybody on Pallas (except for the poor serfs in what amounted to a U.N. agricultural concentration camp) was well armed.

Under the scheme revealed today, according to this Donlon fellow, we'd just have to change our attitude. Sometimes the elephant eats you, but you never get to eat the elephant. After all, you're only a human being, part of an unfortunate skin disease suffered by Mother Gaia.

All of this brought to mind another ongoing program that very few individuals know about—probably the major reason that the Supreme Court did its best, recently, to eradicate the very concept of private property from our culture. It appears that there's a program called "Agenda 21", conceived by the United Nations (who else?) and backed by a United States government that has now divorced itself entirely from the consent of the governed, to drive private individuals out of the countryside and crowd them together in cities—remember the proposal to build "arcologies", huge concrete rat warrens into which people would be shoved by the total state?—where they can be watched and controlled.

Think of the ubiquitous weapons detectors in Total Recall.Or the yellow circles you had to place your hands in in The Fifth Element.

This idea, cooked up by environmental Nazis on PCP, would free them to "restore" the world outside the cities, allowing humans out only by special permits, damned few of which would ever be issued. People would finally be prevented from "destroying" (for which read changing—not the same thing at all) the precious, pristine face of what is actually just an 8,000-mile diameter ball of rock, covered with a thin film—about three billion years' worth—of worm excrement.

That's the theory, and it's bad enough. The reality is that good old George and Laura, Bill and Hillary, and their friends like Ted and Jane would have estates out there in the Forbidden Zone, where they could pretend that the peasants they spend their time oppressing don't exist—except, perhaps as humble hewers of wood and drawers of martinis.

And maybe the occasional sex-slave.

We know this would happen because it's exactly what happened when William Wallace finally had his guts pulled out of his abdomen and the British finished conquering Scotland. The countryside was scoured, the natives rounded up, and, except perhaps for the better looking girls and prettier boys, force-marched away. People who had raised highland cattle for generations, dumped on a cold, unforgiving coast without supplies or equipment, asked what they were supposed to do for a living.

How were they supposed to feed their children?

Gather seaweed, they were told.

Meanwhile, the English nomenklatura put their stolen land to good, productive use: finally cleansed of all those filthy peasants, it was perfect for riding to hounds. This is only one of many reasons why I've never paid attention to British protestations that they are the very fountainhead and wellspring of Western Civilization. Any Scotsman who still cherishes a desire to shoot a "sassenach", or skewer him like shishkabob on a Claymore has my understanding and sympathy.

But I digress.

Comprehending one thing about this issue will make everything else crystal clear. Academics—especially "scientists"—are almost uniformly spoiled, nasty-tempered infants, brought up in the socialist nurseries that American universities (exactly like universities everywhere) have become. They secrete wonderful schemes continuously, plans that "merely" involve rearranging, circumscribing, or simply terminating the lives of the productive class whether members of the productive class want them rearranged, circumscribed, terminated, or not.

They demand that we admire the smelly messes they deposit in their diapers (the pages of Nature and similar journals) and if they don't get everything they want, right now, they whine to the mass media—another culture with serious mental health problems—until they get it.

After all, if you possess a college degree—bestowed upon you by the previous generation's spoiled, nasty-tempered academic infants—especially a degree in ecology, the 20th and 21st century equivalent of phrenology or underwater basket-weaving, you automatically know vastly better how to run the lives and businesses of those of the productive class who are forced at gunpoint to pay your bills, than they do.

The ungrateful peasants.

The process of stealing America from Americans is already well underway. Many of the country's parks and wildlife reserves are said to be under the control of the U.N., or at least operating in compliance with its dictates. Some even display signage to that vile effect.

There are a lot of things that need to be done about this. The first is what I like to refer to as "Land Reform". It was a very bad (and unconstitutional) idea to establish government-owned parks in the first place. These lands must now be returned to the people they were stolen from, either the original owners, if possible, or to individual taxpayers. Every single square inch of the country must become private property.

The United Nations must be kicked out of America and declared outlaw. It should be clear by now that this fascist organization is a far greater threat than Al Qaeda ever dreamed of being. I still believe a proper Libertarian Party presidential candidate could raise a lot of money by raffling off the chance—provided he's elected, of course—to put the first RPG round through their building in New York.

One tactic can be taken from the anti-nuke movement immediately: make sure that wherever proponents of "rewilding" (or anybody even remotely associated with it) go, whatever they do, they must contend with dozens—or hundreds—of lawsuits. The added burden of time, effort, and money this cost the nuclear industry virtually destroyed it.

Which is why even France now leads us in the field.

Let them lead us in "rewilding", as well.



Four-time Prometheus Award-winner L. Neil Smith is the author of 24 books, including The American Zone, Forge of the Elders, Pallas, The Probability Broach, Hope (w/Aaron Zelman), and his collected articles and speeches, Lever Action, all of which may be purchased through his website "The Webley Page" www.lneilsmith.org>. Ceres, an exciting sequel to Neil's 1993 Ngu family novel Pallas was recently completed and is now on the market.

Neil is presently working on Ares, the middle volume of the epic Ngu Family Cycle, and on Roswell, Texas, with Rex F. "Baloo" May. A decensored and electronically published version of his 1984 novel, Tom Paine Maru will soon be available online. The stunning 185-page full-color graphic novel version of The Probability Broach, which features the art of Scott Bieser and was published by BigHead Press www.bigheadpress.com has just won a Special Prometheus Award. It may be had through the publisher, at Amazon.com, or at Bill of Rights Press.com.


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