Recently, I have been critical of invention-guru Jerry Decker for
posting
information on his website telling how to build a cloudbuster. He has
also urged his readers to build cloudbusters and use them to end a
drought in his native
Texas.
Jerry Decker is a Libertarian. His website is full of polemics against heavy-handed excesses by law enforcement. In one of his e-mails about me, written in response to my criticisms, he raised the issue of my willingness to resort to using the legal system to deter wildcat cloudbuster operators from using cloudbusters. He seens to regard that as a betrayal of some sort of principle. He even used the word, "snitch" in describing my attempts to get the legal system to enforce laws against illegal cloudbuster operators.
Well, the same would apply to every other law that protects the environment. Every group that wants to protect any parcel of land, forest, shoreline, or anything else, every attempt to save any endangered species, prevent air pollution, or water pollution, anything at all in fact, must have as it's end point, laws that need to be first passed, and then enforced. There is nothing different about the need for laws to prevent malicious or incompetent cloudbusting.
Does Jerry really mean that he is against ALL laws that protect the environment? Is he so blinded by an ideology of "freedom" that he would like to see the repeal of the Endangered Species Act? Of the Wilderness Act? The Clean Air Act? The Clean Water Act? The Marine Mammal Protection Act? CITES? Every other law that protects anything from exploitation and destruction?
Would Jerry really say that if he sees something that is illegal, say, a hunter killing members of an endangered species, he would not say or do anything because he is against "snitching" to law enforcement? Well, maybe he just does not care about the environment, so let's ask him if he would report a rape or a murder if he saw one.
He certainly seems to not have any trouble about reporting illegal immigrants to the Border Patrol. His website is full of anti-immigrant polemics, and one of the things he often advocates is strict enforcement of American immigration laws.
I suspect he is rather selective about which laws he would like to see enforced and which ones he thinks it is wrong to enforce. Well, so are we all. That is why there has to be enforcement. But my policy is clear:
I support and endorse all laws that protect the environment, and I would like to see more and stronger such laws, and stricter enforcement of them. And I see nothing wrong with reporting violations of environmental protection laws to the appropriate law enforcement organizations and urging them to take legal action against the earth-destroyers like Jerry Decker, who think they have a right to inflict their control-freak fantasies of weather-control on the world by foolish and incompetent misuse of the cloudbuster.
An important part of any effort to protect the environment is to get laws passed, and then, to get them enforced by the legal system. And that is and will be one of the methods I will use against illegal cloudbuster operators.
And if the "libertarians" do not like it, that is just too bad.
Jerry Decker is a Libertarian. His website is full of polemics against heavy-handed excesses by law enforcement. In one of his e-mails about me, written in response to my criticisms, he raised the issue of my willingness to resort to using the legal system to deter wildcat cloudbuster operators from using cloudbusters. He seens to regard that as a betrayal of some sort of principle. He even used the word, "snitch" in describing my attempts to get the legal system to enforce laws against illegal cloudbuster operators.
Well, the same would apply to every other law that protects the environment. Every group that wants to protect any parcel of land, forest, shoreline, or anything else, every attempt to save any endangered species, prevent air pollution, or water pollution, anything at all in fact, must have as it's end point, laws that need to be first passed, and then enforced. There is nothing different about the need for laws to prevent malicious or incompetent cloudbusting.
Does Jerry really mean that he is against ALL laws that protect the environment? Is he so blinded by an ideology of "freedom" that he would like to see the repeal of the Endangered Species Act? Of the Wilderness Act? The Clean Air Act? The Clean Water Act? The Marine Mammal Protection Act? CITES? Every other law that protects anything from exploitation and destruction?
Would Jerry really say that if he sees something that is illegal, say, a hunter killing members of an endangered species, he would not say or do anything because he is against "snitching" to law enforcement? Well, maybe he just does not care about the environment, so let's ask him if he would report a rape or a murder if he saw one.
He certainly seems to not have any trouble about reporting illegal immigrants to the Border Patrol. His website is full of anti-immigrant polemics, and one of the things he often advocates is strict enforcement of American immigration laws.
I suspect he is rather selective about which laws he would like to see enforced and which ones he thinks it is wrong to enforce. Well, so are we all. That is why there has to be enforcement. But my policy is clear:
I support and endorse all laws that protect the environment, and I would like to see more and stronger such laws, and stricter enforcement of them. And I see nothing wrong with reporting violations of environmental protection laws to the appropriate law enforcement organizations and urging them to take legal action against the earth-destroyers like Jerry Decker, who think they have a right to inflict their control-freak fantasies of weather-control on the world by foolish and incompetent misuse of the cloudbuster.
An important part of any effort to protect the environment is to get laws passed, and then, to get them enforced by the legal system. And that is and will be one of the methods I will use against illegal cloudbuster operators.
And if the "libertarians" do not like it, that is just too bad.