Weekly Newspaper and Travel Guide
for Pecos Country of West Texas

Opinion

Friday, February 4, 2005

Sage Views

By Smokey Briggs

Deer outsmart government
officials - go figure

If the government - in any of its forms - ever does something worthwhile - I may fall over dead in amazement.

As far as I am concerned government long ago evolved past its correct functions in a free republic - providing for the common defense from foreign invasion and a court system for inter-state disputes.

If you read our Constitution that is all the federal government is really supposed to do. Of course, our state governments are not much better these days.

I guess bureaucracy is a disease and obviously a contagious one.

I have a great “for instance.”

For instance - deer.

Deer you ask?

What do deer have to do with the insanity of the modern bureaucracy that is sucking the life out of this country?

Everything.

So, here is the deal.

When I was a young lad - lets say about 1975 - the deer population was not a big problem in Texas.

There were plenty of deer but they were not a plague.

I am told that the same was true in 1950 and 1925. That is about as far back as my sources go.

Today, deer have become a problem. They have become such a problem that state Rep. Scott Campbell of San Angelo is trying to draft legislation to somehow reduce the state deer population in a way that is not offensive to the morons who have moved into this state who love to eat hamburgers but just cannot stand the thought of blowing Bambi’s brains out the side of his head.

Throughout much of the state Whitetail deer abound in such numbers that crops are ruined and driving over the speed of 25 mph is akin to playing Russian roulette with a single shot rifle.

So, the government is coming to the rescue. Great!

Mr. Campbell, I have some information for you.

It is the idiocy of our wondrous state government that created this problem in the first place.

Since 1975 hunting a deer in this state has gone from a relatively cheep and easy enterprise to one expensive, bureaucratic pain in the fanny.

Everything about it is expensive, and mired with government red tape.

Add to that absolutely asinine bag limits that are assuredly created by some sandal-wearing Disney film reject and now our politicians wonder why we cannot keep the White-tail population at a healthy level?

Morons - all of them - from the politicians, to the biologists, to the possum police that enforce the regulations.

Growing up in the eastern part of this state it was not hard to see that a very large percentage of the Whitetail population died off in the winter from malnutrition - not hunters - and that was in the 70’s.

Now it is even more expensive and more a pain to make meat out of the little critters.

So, Mr. Campbell, here is a suggestion.

Ditch some of the red tape that keeps clogging up the process.

Make hunting licenses affordable for working people. Get rid of that idiot’s course you call hunter education. Fire the biologists that instituted the current bag limits and open the season up for bow and firearm.

You could even take the money the government saves by not meddling and by some land in the name of the people - a place where kids from the cities who do not have well-to-do parents can go hunt instead of playing Nintendo.

Your deer problem will be gone in a year or so.

And, the government would need less of our tax money.

Now that is good government.

Return to top

Pecos Enterprise
York M. "Smokey" Briggs, Publisher
324 S. Cedar St., Pecos, TX 79772
Phone 432-445-5475, FAX 432-445-4321
e-mail news@pecos.net

Associated Press text, photo, graphic, audio and/or video material shall not be published, broadcast, rewritten for broadcast or publication or redistributed directly or indirectly in any medium.
Copyright 2003-04 by Pecos Enterprise