From: jsemrad@ems.cdc.com (Joe Semrad)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.animals
Subject: Re: Hunters legitimate concern
Date: 24 Jul 92 14:54:25 GMT
Reply-To: jsemrad@ems.cdc.com
Organization: Empros Systems International, a division of Ceridian

In article <BrvCEz.3v5@wpg.com>, russ@wpg.com (Russell Lawrence) writes:
|> 
|> From article <13460@nntp_server.ems.cdc.com>, by jsemrad@ems.cdc.com (Joe Semrad):
|> js> If you don't want to donate to DU or other such groups, fine.  
|> js> But don't stop donating.  There are other groups that probably 
|> js> have a different mix of hunters and nonhunters, such as Audobon 
|> js> and the Nature Conservancy.  I suspect though, that unless a 
|> js> group has a political anti-hunting agenda (and I don't believe 
|> js> the above groups do, though I could be wrong), you won't be able 
|> js> to get away from hunters as I'm sure they donate to groups like 
|> js> the above as well.  
|> 
|> I support quite a few organizations that are not anti-hunting, 
|> just as I support quite a few public health organizations that 
|> are not anti-meat-eating.  
|> 
|> On the other hand, I see no reason to support any organization 
|> that's inclined to miscast financial contributions from people 
|> like myself as votes in favor of sport hunting.  To wit, I think 
|> it's quite dishonest for pro-hunting advocates to pretend that 
|> the money I spend on Duck Stamps or Ducks Unlimited is a sign of 
|> the goodwill and generosity of hunters.  

It's almost like you didn't read the paragraph in my original post
prior to the you quoted.  As I said, I am aware that not every single
member of DU and similar organizations are hunters.  However, very
large percentages of the membership are hunters.  This is obvious
just from the kinds of things that are sold with DU's emblem on it.
While money from yourself is appreciated as much as money from anyone
else when you send it in you usually don't get to choose how DU
spends it. (Unless you're giving very large amounts -- how about a
rehabilitated Lake Russell Lawrence? :-})  In a way its like your taxes;
even if you are opposed to the military you can't tell the government
not to spend your money on defense.  Even if you could, they'd just
spend more of someone else's money to compensate.  It seems to me that if you
don't approve of something that DU does you can always find another
organization that helps ducks, or get on their board of directors somehow
and change what they do.  From everything you've said, it seems
like you really didn't know too much about DU before you sent in your
money.  Think about it: which would be worse for DU's fund raising, taking
away all hunter contributions or taking away all contributions from those
opposed to hunting?

As far as duck stamps go, every duck hunter must have one.  Again, there
are non-hunting stamp collectors who buy the stamps, some of whom may care
less about ducks.  There are also people like youself who like ducks, buy
the stamps and never hunt.  (Actually with the impact on ducks that the
drought has had in the past few years there are many hunters voluntarily
doing the same thing.  Hopefully it sounds like the water situation is
starting to improve.:-})  But here again I have to believe that the vast
majority of the stamps are bought by hunters, since they are required to have
them.

It seems like your position is that as long as there $1 contributed by
an anti-hunting person to any organization, it can't be used as an
example of hunters helping the environment.  That's like saying that as
long as there is $1 of Socialist contributed money in the Republican party
coffers they can't be called conservative.  By your definition I could 
contribute $1 to PETA and then they couldn't be called anti-hunting.

Joe
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