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Fightdirecto -> Feds May Outlaw Treading On Tea Party's Favorite Snake (5/12/2012 3:43:37 PM)
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Feds May Outlaw Treading On Tea Party's Favorite Snake
quote:
In what might be one of the tea party's greatest unintended victories, treading on the snake depicted on the protest movement's ubiquitous "Don't Tread On Me" flags could soon become illegal.
The iconic yellow flag, originally designed by the American revolutionary Christopher Gadsden circa 1775, features a drawing of the eastern diamondback rattlesnake, which was once plentiful in longleaf pine forests across the Southeast. But while the Gadsden flag has proliferated as a symbol of fierce resistance to "Big Government," the eastern diamondback has gotten clubbed, shot, and bulldozed by the private sector to the point that on Wednesday the US Fish and Wildlife Service announced that it's considering protecting the snake under the Endangered Species Act.
Tea partiers aren't happy about efforts to save their symbol. "They're up to their kneecaps with rattlesnakes in Texas!" says Alan Caruba, a blogger for Tea Party Nation, who added that it wouldn't really bother him if they weren't...
A press release from the Center for Biological Diversity, which petitioned the federal government to protect the diamondback, argues that its decline is symptomatic of the unsustainable development of longleaf pine forest throughout the Southeast. The snake now occupies only about 3 percent of its original range.
Of course, those kinds of facts aren't about to win over Tea Party Nation's Caruba, who, like many tea partiers, sees the Endangered Species Act as just another part of the nefarious "Agenda 21," a supposed plot by the United Nations to convert Earth into a giant biosphere reserve.
Report: Tea Party's Favorite Snake Needs Government Aid
quote:
Scientific American reports that the Center For Biological Diversity, along with Protect All Living Species and the delightfully acronymed One More Generation, have petitioned the US Fish and Wildlife Service to classify the eastern diamondback rattlesnake as an endangered species. The rattler is down to 3 percent of its original habitat, and according to the Center For Biological Diversity, its population has fallen from 3 million to 100,000.
From the report:
"The eastern diamondback rattlesnake is a wildlife icon of North America," said biologist Bruce Means, president and executive director of the Coastal Plains Institute, in a prepared statement. Means was also one of the petitioners. "Africa has its lion, Asia its tiger, and we can boast of this marvelous 'Don't Tread On Me' snake. Like so many others, it's a wildlife treasure that we must not allow to go extinct. Remaining habitat for the snake must be preserved, and negative public attitudes toward these nonaggressive animals must be reversed."
But how will this sit with tea partiers?...many tea partiers view the Endangered Species Act as a tool of an overreaching federal government — if not something even more nefarious. In Florida, conservative activists are fighting to roll back manatee protection rules because they believe the regulations are part of a United Nations plan called "Agenda 21," which they fear will force humans to live in designated areas and turn the rest of the planet into protected biosphere reserves.
Ironic - is it not?
My favorite Gasden Flag variant:
[image]local://upfiles/42188/CDE311D4F00249D28BE3339486924085.jpg[/image]
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