Maine’s Ken Allen Attacks “Right-Wing” Sportsmen
April 14, 2007
I just finished writing an article this morning about how the media sways its readers by twisting, distorting and inaccurately handing out information and then I stumbled onto this piece of confusing writing by Ken Allen, outdoor writer for the Morning Sentinel. (When you get to the page, scroll down a bit to find this part of his article.)
I guess Allen lines up on the left because he seems to have a problem with those lining up on the right. There’s nothing wrong with being left, right or somewhere in the middle. It’s what makes us an interesting lot. Right or left shouldn’t matter. What matters is debating facts and making decisions based on such.
What I find puzzling is that Allen used his platform at the Morning Sentinel to levy unsubstantiated comments lumping anyone opposed to his beliefs as being all the same. Allen’s rant comes in reference to what he describes as a movement by the right in the sporting world in Maine in a way that makes a reader easily see he doesn’t care much for. Read this.
Right wingers in the movement do not want to be told that they cannot use live fish as bait, that they cannot day-trip on the Allagash, that snowmobilers and ATVers have no access on certain lands, etc.
They’re consumptive users to the core and have no interest in backpacking for backpacking’s sake or cross-country skiing without a firearm or fishing traps.
We can argue all day about whether all people have a right to voice opinions and if being a consumptive sportsman is good or bad. Obviously Allen believes anyone who consumers their fish and game they catch is bad. But the culmination of his comments lumping what he calls, those in the right-wing movement, as having “no interest in backpacking for backpacking’s sake or cross-country skiing without a firearm or fishing traps”, is a ridiculous statement and quite childish when you look at the entire writing.
But it doesn’t stop there. Allen then makes an embarrassing statement that makes me question how much thought he put into it or whether he was just pulling a “Jim Zumbo” and reacting out of anger.
What makes these right wingers particularly tenacious is this: Some of them make a living at their chosen sports by working in an industry affiliated with bait, snowmobiles, ATVs, ice-fishing equipment and so forth.
First of all, doesn’t Mr. Allen make a living, of some sorts anyway, from what he does? Does that make him “tenacious”? Do right-wingers find that tenaciousness bad? If Allen makes a living thusly, then I guess I am to assume that making a living off writing about your chosen sport and having tenacity is higher on the list of acceptable practices than say selling bait, snowmobiles, etc.
By the tone of Mr. Allen’s comments, I would have to say that he views selling bait, working in the snowmobile and ATV industry, selling or manufacturing ice-fishing equipment and whatever else on his list he doesn’t approve of, as nothing any better than prostitution, selling crack cocaine or dealing in illegal arms trade. Are these activities above sponsoring terrorism?
If being on the right, having an opinion, some compassion for your “chosen” sport and taking an active role to protect what you believe to be in the best interest of all sportsmen is somehow wrong, maybe even evil, then where does that leave those on the left like Ken Allen?
His choice to lump all right-wing sportsman into a group of consumptive criminals, while ridiculing right-thinking people and painting a picture of them as somehow sub-human, isn’t a real pretty picture either.
As much as I might like to, out of angers and the sometimes overwhelming passion that wants to flow from within out through my fingertips to my keyboard, I won’t lump all left-thinker sportsmen into a group that thinks progressiveness is the right thing for our industry. Not all left-wing sportsmen believe that Baxter State Park, the Allagash and trout fishing should be for only select groups. Not all left-leaning fishermen think catch and release is the only humane way to treat a fish. Not all left-minded backpackers and cross-country skiers think that consumptive hunters and fishermen are evil people.
It’s only a few!
Tom Remington
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Very well said Tom, but this piece is a bit ironic considering your earlier post (just below this one) about bear trapping in Maine and what’s wrong with everyone on the left who just doesn’t have good values and are ignorant to boot
I think the world does not always cleave neatly into left and right, right and wrong. Good people can disagree about outcomes and even about facts, since what they see depends on where they stand (this is true on the mountain and in life).
People on all sides of all debates are convinced that not only are they right, but that they are good moral people. You can take the most evil person in history, and he will tell you that he was only doing what was right.
All of this is to say the business of lobbying for a cause is, at some level, the business of understanding where people are coming from and then showing them to YOUR destination via THEIR road. An example: If you want a Muslim to be a Christian, you cannot get them there by yelling at them (or bombing them). A good place to start is with the first sura of the Koran which says Jesus and Moses were also prophets. Now the nice Muslim men and women you want to convert are no longer traitors if they listen to a few Bible stories while you fix them a really nice lunch
The same is true when talking about wildlife and “extractive” industries like timber and mining. Let’s assume — whether you are right or left — that no one wants to rip, rob and rape the forests anymore than anyone wants to lock them all up for the titled gentry (which in the U.S. are the folks with trust accounts and gold cards). Let’s assume “the other side” is not evil. Let’s assume that they are as they imagine themselves to be — good people.
Can we find common goals, even if we cannot find common values? More often than not, I think the answer is “yes”.
I LIKE the fact that there are people on the “left” who hug trees, and I LIKE the fact there are people on the “right” who know the value of timber in terms of board feet. Ditto for the schisms we see in the world of hunting and fishing, farm production, etc.
Sure there are liars and morons on boths sides of every wildlife and wild lands debate, but in general the outcome of the tension in world views (and the fierce debates that follow) is that we have more bear, more wolves, more alligators, more turkey, more deer, more coyote, more duck, more geese, more raccoon, more manatee, more whales, more eagles, more bison, more fox, and more elk than we have ever had in my lifetime, or yours … or our fathers and grandfathers to boot.
And, as a consequence, we have more hunting opportunities too.
In the end, these political and world-perspective fights are as ugly as sausage-making, but what comes out in the end is a pretty fine thing most of the time. I am not for “management by majority,” but thanks to the Fish and Wildlife Service, we do not have that most of the time; both good and ill can come from that, but in balace we seem to be doing a lot right whem you see where we were 100 years ago, and where we are now.
P.
http://www.terrierman.com
First of all love what PBurns said above.
It seems to me that today everyone is required to take a side. You must be a red state or a blue state, a Republican or a Democrat, for or against. Whatever happened to debating the issue on its merits, seeing the value of some of the ideas from each side and then making a decision. Why does it seem to be required that you must pick a side.
I think a great deal of damage has been done by this “pick a side” mentality. First, it creates a “them” and an “us”. Second it makes it easy to assume all the “thems” believe the same thing. In my opinion, it’s the differences and the discussions that make things interesting.
What Mr. Allen referred to is the one sided and blatant stance of rightwing media control in our nation. The purchase of the vast majority of the US media by the rightwing has wrought it’s evil, as intended–that’s why groups BUY control. It would be silly to think the right would buy up the media then not use that power for it’s own means.
What’s evil is the manner oF distortion———–the LIES!
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