Protests against hunting and hunters have been staged for years throughout the world. This anti-hunting demonstration in 2005 in Berlin was organized by the "Initiative zur Abschaffung der Jagd" ("Initiative for the Abolition of Hunting") and supported by the religious cult "Universelles Leben." The banner on the right says: "Nature conservation without hunting!" (Photo: Wikipedia/Richardfabi)
There is an old saying that one must know one’s enemies in order to defeat them. One of the problems predator hunters have had historically is that we have not really known our enemies – the anti-hunters – in the ways it takes to defeat them and there has not been a concerted effort on that front to engage effectively.
Once such knowledge is acquired it is crucial that something actually be done. Talking amongst ourselves may feel good, but doesn’t do squat in the bigger war that has been waged against us by the antis.
Essentially, the antis merely want to stop all hunting, period. The antis’ biomass, however, is not monolithic. There are several distinctive genomes, if you will, each essentially autonomous yet aligned at one or more levels with the others.
These subdivisions include unaligned softheads, aligned softheads and institutionalized softheads. Individuals within the antis’ community may fall into one, two or even all three categories, depending on their level(s) of commitment.
The unaligned softheads are the ones who show up on social media postings as part of the choir responding to whatever it is that has gotten their attention. They are the ones who pen personal letters to editors and that sort of thing. They also include many teachers in public and private schools where they have intimate access to young minds and where they do not hesitate to brainwash their students.
In the aggregate, this group also gives the organized and institutionalized softheads their perceived political power. They are the masses the antis use to show their political prowess – numbers translate into votes.
Aligned softheads are those who are members of softhead organizations. These groups include organizations such as People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) and Human Society International (HIS) to name but three. There are tons of such organizations out there, some being general in their anti-hunting focus and others being more specific – all the way down to focusing on one or a couple of animal species.
Institutionalized softheads are the activists within the softhead organizations. They are the ones who show up for demonstrations and organized protests. Money to finance the institutionalized softheads comes from both the aligned and unaligned softheads. Most anti-hunting groups are actually more about raising money for their organizations and their leaders than they are about whatever they profess to be about.
The institutionalized softheads, however, are much more sinister than merely being a bunch of fundraisers who line their own pockets. They are responsible for the tripartite offensive against hunting. Those three elements are legislative, legal and media.
Typically, institutionalized softheads use the media, both mainstream and social, to mislead the general public with both lies and partial truths. By repeating those deceptions often, the antis establish a number of “understood” misconceptions about hunting.
Those misconceptions range all the way from saying that hunting endangers certain species to allegations that hunters are nothing more than beer-swilling, knuckle-dragging sub-humans who get their jollies from offing defenseless animals in the cruelest manner possible.
They then use this activity to back legislation that stops or inhibits hunting. When the legislative route doesn’t work, they go to court and sue anyone and everyone they feel will help their cause.
If some piece of legislation doesn’t become a law, they either reintroduce it later, or incorporate the essence of the legislation in still other legislation being considered at the local, state and federal levels. The same holds true with lawsuits. If they lose, typically they appeal to the next higher court, all the way to the Supreme Court when they feel it is necessary, or they file a series of lawsuits in various states when they have a single cause that is handled differently in different states.
The point is that they are persistent and they have the money to keep going because they use losses to generate more donations “for the cause.”
Think of it this way. If they win in a particular battle, what hook do they have to raise more money? The victory speaks for itself. Yet, if they lose, they have a great appeal for more money to fund the effort that they say obviously is needed in the face of the defeat.
Anti-hunters and what they do are perverted. That’s why they can profit as much or more from a loss than from a victory. They actually end up profiting either way – just more immediately and directly via the loss.
Hunters need to do a number of things. Certainly, joining and becoming active in organizations that are engaged in the fight against the antis is a good place to start. As importantly, local involvement cannot be overlooked because local action is the answer because ultimately everything is local somewhere. That is why the antis often chant, “Think globally, act locally.”
Antis have an advantage going into the fray because they are social animals with a herd mentality. It is both easy and natural for them to gang-up. For hunters, the opposite more generally is true. Hunters tend to be more individualistic and self-reliant. That also means that hunters overall tend to be less interested in joining others to combat things – especially if they don’t understand the totality of the situation. It is easy not to fathom the total reality of the antis and their efforts.
Neither total victory nor defeat happens immediately. The first step toward victory, however, needs to be a realization among hunters about what kind of enemies we are facing and what that means for now and into the future.
