[lbo-talk] Thoughts on Palin and Sexism

[John Thornton]

For whatever it may be worth almost none of the hunters I know or am 
related too think hunting wolves by helicopter is copasetic.
A small number of extreme right-wingers think it should remain legal 
because they believe that attempting to ban it would be a slippery slope 
towards confiscating their guns even though they claim they wouldn't 
engage in such a practice themselves. They think almost every gun or 
hunting related piece of legislation is a disguised attempt by liberals 
to confiscate their guns however.
The very rural parts of my family who love to hunt think the practice is 
disgusting but members of my family are involved in wolf relocation 
projects as well as shelters for unwanted pet wolf and wolf-hybrids.

John Thornton

Gar Lipow wrote:
> To chime in, when I lived in Texas I knew several people who got a
> substantial percent of their protein from hunting - including one for
> whom it made a serious difference.  Here in Olympia, Washington it is
> more friends of friends than friends, but still several people I'm
> aware of.
>
> But that really has nothing to do with hunting wolves from
> helicopters. In terms of the "controversy" as Shag put, it is a ginned
> up controversy like denialism of the human contribution to global
> warming. All the mainstream scientists and biologists are against it.
> Here is the trick supporters use. The formula for when wolves can be
> shot is based on the Moose and Elk population dropping below a certain
> number. That numbers is set higher that it is likely to ever go ,
> because most of the drop is based on human not wolf hunting. And that
> number is much higher than needed to maintain a stable Moose and Elk
> population. So a formula was chosen that has nothing to do with
> biological reality but which will always  allow hunting from
> helicopters. Which has everything to do with the "fun" of torturing
> wolves to death, chasing them to exhaustion and then killing them. To
> me this is really repulsive in a way that a skilled hunter making a
> quick kill of an animal he or she intends to eat is not. And yeah it
> is a personal and subjective judgment, not an advanced political
> analysis. Although I disagree with Chris on many things, like him I
> reserve to right to make personal judgments, not only political ones.
>
> On Mon, Sep 8, 2008 at 9:19 AM, John Thornton <jthorn65 at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
>   
>> Jordan Hayes wrote:
>>     
>>>> Are there so many USers who "secure their proteins" with hunting ?
>>>>         
>>> I doubt there's many who use hunting as subsistence (Ted Nugent to the
>>> contrary), but there are a not-insignificant number who do essentially count
>>> on supplementing their table with their take from hunting season. The last
>>> number I saw was that there are between 15-20M "active hunters" in the US,
>>> which is, as you could imagine, hotly contested by both sides of the
>>> hunting-advocacy issue.
>>>
>>> /jordan
>>>       
>> The numbers of people where I live who supplement their proteins by hunting
>> is large.
>> Were they not allowed to hunt their food costs would rise considerably.
>> Certainly most hunters are just doing it for the fun of killing something
>> and spend much more on hunting accoutrements than they save on food but
>> significant numbers of people rely on hunted food to supplement their
>> caloric intake a noticeable amount.
>>
>> John Thornton
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>>
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