On the Edge of Common Sense: A Job For Life
by Baxter Black

What if the “ANTI’s” dreams came true. A land where livestock raising was outlawed - no cattle grazing, no dusty feedlots, no chicken houses, no hog confinement operations. All farming disallowed except strict organic gardening. No mining or drilling. No coal burning or nuclear power. No new damming of waterways and elimination of existing dams. No timber harvest - even on private lands. No research laboratories of any kind, no resort facilities on public lands, no wild game hunting, no snow mobiles, ATV’s, motorcycles, or four-wheel drives on public lands.
     No commercial fishing offshore or inland. No sport fishing, including catch and release. All, except domestic livestock would be considered protected. A population control program limiting births and immigration.
     This paradise brought to you by the “ANTI’s” Coalition for Restoring Earth to it’s Natural Splendor.
     So, does this mean that the “ANTI’s” don’t want gasoline-powered cars, air conditioned townhouses, Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, redwood decks, well water, concrete bridges, asphalt highways, sewer lines, antibiotics, crab salad, pasta, chicken nuggets, spare ribs, Double Whoppers, parks, boating, fresh strawberries in January, central heating, trash pick up, electric computers, cell phones, and cable or satellite TV?
     Of course they do! They just don’t want to use our natural resources to produce it. Already, for instance, they see nothing wrong with importing 60% of our oil from unfriendly countries with-less-than-EPA approved drilling methods, in questionable tankers operated by reliable allies such as Libya.
     The “ANTI’s” can easily envision a world where we import our steel, cement, medicine, food and lumber from third world countries. Think of it, a land with no factories, no slaughter houses, no wheat fields, corn or soybeans, no refineries, coal mines or Hoover dams, pulp plants or sawmills. A Utopia with semi-clean air, semi-clean waterways and a declining population all doing each other’s laundry. Fifty percent of the jobs would be in the service industry, 49 percent would be government regulatory enforcement employees.
     But, of course, this scenario will never happen. For this I give credit to the “ANTI’s” common sense. If all the disparate ANTI groups succeeded in their goals to abolish industry as we know it, then what would they do? They only can exist if they have something to be against, to draw financial nourishment from.
     If they win and put our producers out of business, then they put themselves out of business, too. And they are too smart for that. Because they know that as long as the capitalists in our country try to be self-sufficient, the “ANTI’s” have a job for life. CS