Hunting and Fishing Are American Values
While addressing a crowd at a Sportmen’s Club in Pennsylvania, Todd Palin said that it is important to elect a ticket that “supports our core values — hunting and fishing.”
Stories like these illustrate the difference between how Republicans and Democrats think. Knee jerk snarky responses like “God bless our constitutional right to shoot wolves for fun! Our founding fathers built this fine country on the need to stock our homes with fresh game meat” don’t help to attract votes to the Democratic cause.
In fact, Obama supports America’s sportsmen, and is pro-hunting and pro-fishing. Obama believes that the Second Amendment protects an individual right. Obama wants to create new hunting and angling opportunities for sportsmen. And most importantly, he wants to practice sound conservation policies.
When Obama said that people in small towns shouldn’t “cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them” he meant that as a positive message to small town America to stop falling prey to politicians who preach racism, religious hatred, fear and jingoism. Obama wants people to embrace the politics of hope and empathy, to help the poor and less fortunate, not to ignore the homeless in favor of creating an arsenal in one’s own home.
Lots of people consider fishing (and hunting) values. Sir Izaak Walton, in his Compleat Angler, advised: “You will find angling to be like the virtue of humility, which has a calmness of spirit and a world of other blessings attending upon it.”
Theodore Roosevelt said in his famous book African Game Trails that hunting is “not a business but a pastime….it is a craft, a pursuit of value in exercising and developing hardihood of body and the virile courage and resolution which necessarily lie at the base of every strong and manly character.”
Fishing (and hunting) are types of knowledge passed from father to son. The actual mechanics of fishing are almost zen-like, repetitive, and almost religious in nature. And, as you mentioned, outdoor and wilderness ethics are taught and revered as well.
So hunting and fishing are values, just like how hard work is a value.
Belittling values that we don’t understand makes the Democratic Party (and liberals everywhere) look stupid and elitist.
Of course, there are people within our Democratic party who are animal rights activists. Unfortunately for radical animal rights theorists, humans are omnivores and there is no anatomical or physiological basis that humans are pre-adapted to a vegetarian diet. Obviously, unethical killing of game “is as objectionable as any other form of wanton cruelty or barbarity; but to protest against all hunting of game is a sign of softness of head, not of soundness of heart.”
Too many liberal hearts have been hardened against outdoor enthusiasts who enjoy hunting and fishing. More understanding, not less, is required to bring this important constituency into our Democratic fold.
