Are they willing to kill?

By Charles Bloomer
web posted August 6, 2001

The situation at Klamath Falls, Oregon, has moved beyond
absurd and is now firmly enshrined in the surreal.

In an effort to protect some kind of suckerfish, the federal
government has shut off water to the farmers of Klamath Falls.
This shut off comes despite an agreement by the federal
government to provide water, an agreement nearly 100 years
old. The results have been predictable. Without water, the
farmers cannot farm their land. Many face bankruptcy and loss
of their farms. Property values have plummeted to $35 an acre.

Farmers in the Klamath Basin were granted water rights from the
Klamath Lake by the Reclamation Act of 1902. Many veterans
homesteaded the land and were promised water rights forever.
The water promised to the farmers is absolutely necessary for
the cultivation of the land, and, therefore, necessary to the
economy of the area.

But the farmers and residents of the Klamath Basin are the losers
in the decision by the US Fish and Wildlife Service, based on the
Endangered Species Act of 1977, that the suckerfish has priority
for water. The irrigation canal gates were closed to preserve
water for the fish at the expense of the farmers. A federal judge
has upheld the decision, and the Bush administration has been
noticeably absent in this dispute.

In order to protect the Klamath Falls irrigation canal gates, the
federal government has stationed armed US Marshals at the
dam. The Marshals are there to prevent the farmers from
opening the floodgates.

US Marshals, armed with guns.

Here's the question (actually, there are several): Are those
Marshals prepared to shoot their fellow Americans? Are they
ready to shoot and kill people whose only offense is to compete
with suckerfish for the water in the lake? Are they ready to open
fire on people whose lives have been shattered, whose farms
have been devastated, whose livelihoods have been destroyed,
in order to protect a fish?

Evidently, some people believe the Marshals would shoot.
Surprisingly, no one yet has challenged them.

It is inconceivable, unbelievable that the government of the
United States, a government charged with protecting the human
rights of its citizens, could turn on its own people. It is difficult to
imagine that this is the same America formed by the Declaration
of Independence and governed by the most successful
constitution in the history of the world. It boggles the mind to
consider that an American government would be willing to shoot
and kill innocent farmers over a fish, regardless of how
endangered the fish may be.

Has our government become so tyrannical, so despotic that it is
willing to destroy peoples' lives because of a dispute over a fish?
Not only destroy their lives and way of life, are they willing to
shoot people to protect that fish? Has the United States
government become a totalitarian dictatorship that makes
uncaring, bureaucratic decisions, that is apparently willing to
shoot to kill to enforce its bullheadedness? Is this an America in
which we wish to live?

It's too late to ask the people at Waco, incinerated by
government agents. It's too late to ask the wife of Randy
Weaver, shot through the head by a government sniper as she
held her child in her arms.

To borrow a line from my friend Ken Bagwell, a radio talk show
host in Asheville, NC: "Heads Up, America!". This surreal
situation in Oregon should serve as a wake up call to every
American. If the federal government, or government at any level,
can destroy people with impunity, none of us is safe. Whose life,
whose property, whose freedom is next?

It is well past time for us to demand accountability from our
elected representatives and from the petty bureaucrats who want
to micromanage our lives. It is well past time for us to insist that
our government restrict its activities to those specified in the
Constitution of the United States, that it fulfill its obligation to
protect our unalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of
happiness. Totalitarian policies based on radical
environmentalism are not an acceptable substitute for human
rights or constitutional government.

Now is the time to send the Marshals and their guns home. Let's
not test their willingness to kill.

Charles Bloomer is a Senior Writer at Enter Stage Right. He can
be contacted at clbloomer@enterstageright.com. (c) 2001
Charles Bloomer

Enter Stage Right - http://www.enterstageright.com