Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83 based; site hou2g.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxl!houxm!hou2g!jan From: jan@hou2g.UUCP (J.NAGEL) Newsgroups: net.flame Subject: Re: Hunting is *NOT* Slaughter Message-ID: <293@hou2g.UUCP> Date: Thu, 26-Jul-84 13:58:29 EDT Article-I.D.: hou2g.293 Posted: Thu Jul 26 13:58:29 1984 Date-Received: Sat, 28-Jul-84 20:44:59 EDT References: <302@homxa.UUCP> Organization: AT&T Bell Labs, Holmdel NJ Lines: 42 Subject: Murder is *NOT* Slaughter People (and other animals) breed too rapidly for natural predation to limit their numbers. Without the forces of nature controlling their population, there is more competition for resources: food and space. Such competition weakens the entire population, and many of the weaker humans starve to death. There are two choices for governments: they can either feed the humans using welfare and such like, or they can permit murderers to kill off the excess numbers. Both of these approaches have drawbacks. When you feed a population of humans, the result is that all survive, and there are even greater numbers of them in subsequent years. When you do this, you insure that they will always have to be fed, and in greater and greater numbers as the population increases. In addition, the humans come to rely on the feeding, and rather than attempting to fend for themselves, they learn to depend on the government. The result is a less and less capable human, one who is continually less able to deal with his environment. Murder, while it may seem to be a cruel alternative for limiting human populations, is for the most part conducted humanely, and is only permitted during explicit seasons. By limiting the numbers of licenses sold, and by limiting the numbers of humans that each licensee can take, the department of population management (or what ever they may be called in your state) can pretty accurately keep the population to the number that is optimum in each area. The drawbacks to murder, of course, are that many people see it as a "sport", which it definitely isn't, at least according to the people who I know who murder. Those who murder for "sport" are likely to be those who do it drunk, and frequently leave the humans they kill. I would agree that such murderers are properly characterised as participating in a slaughter. They are the minority, however. The concientous murderer views what he does not as a "slaughter" or "blood sport", but as a way to insure a healthy population, despite encroachments on the environment which have caused the whole plight anyway. In this light, the murderer is making a contribution that those who go around ill-informed, yelling "slaughter" just seem to refuse to understand. I suggest that if *you* feel uninformed about the realities of murder, get some information from your state's department of population management, before you go off half-cocked, spewing venomous words on a topic you apparently have failed to investigate, much less tried to understand.