Reptile & Amphibian Forums

The day you were born, you were born with liberty and freedom just by being born. Whatever god or power you believe in, you were granted these powers. Or forefathers recognized this and wrote the constitution to ensure no person or government could ever take these powers. Our constitution granted you freedom and civil liberties. These could not be taken away from you under the constitution, but along the way yourself or people before you traded these away for laws, these laws removed certain freedoms and liberties and replaced them with rights. Rights can be taken away, bought or even sold, these rights have no guaranty of real protection and with little or no notice can be taken away at any time. These laws have made it illegal to do everyday things such as hunting, driving, or even the ability to work. Think about it is ILLIGAL TO DRIVE A CAR, for a fee the government will sell you the rights to break the law, its called a drivers license. It is illegal to hunt, but for a fee you can pay to have the right to break the law, or maybe you work on A/C units or you’re an Electrician. It is against the law to do this activities, but for a fee you can buy the right in the state of Texas to break these laws, well kind of, then you have to buy the right to earn a living in the city you’re in. The city makes no hiding this fact. They sell you the right, they call it a permit. For a fee they will permit you take make money in this field.
Now keep in mind the government insists these tactics are done for the safety of others, but a 200.00 permit is no more than a tax on your ability to make money, a hunting license is no more than a tax to sell you the right to have fun and relax. But wait we are not done yet, in san Antonio if I want to put some of my old stuff outside to sell to my neighbors in my yard that I pay a tax on (garage sale for you slow ones), I must pay a fee to break that law. Or if I want to feel safe in my home from criminals I have to buy that right from the government they call it an alarm permit. I must pay the government a fee to be granted the right to have an alarm. Here is another one, we have a satellite permit here, if I want to have a satellite to watch TV I must be permitted to have that right by the government. This has gotten out of control, everyday of your life you must purchase your freedoms and liberties from the government. These licenses or permits does not include the penalties for using the internet, a cell phone, a home phone, using water or electricity, or even buying gas for your car these items are taxed by the government. Somehow in life we have allowed the government to take control of our life with everything we do. We must figure out how to become self sufficient from the government and to take care of everyday life our self, if not will all become slaves to the government, we will work to feed these tax hungry bureaucrats just to survive our self.
With all this in place is it about road hunting for a stupid snake or is it about your freedom in your state and taking back some of your ability to be free, for me I see past the snakes and look towards being truly free in my own back yard so to speak.

How do you regulate harvest? How do you check to be sure that people are not collecting endangered and threatened species? How do you pay for herp management without charging the users? Do you think TPWD is going to do it for free? How do you protect animals from abuse without inspections? I want specific details.

I understand that our rights are being taken away. I agree with you but what do you suggest we do? March on Austin with guns? That will get us put in jail. What human run system will work? And don't just say follow the Constitution.

The fact is we will be regulated. In order to be regulated we must be inspected, monitored and must submit information to the regulators. Wildlife is not owned by the landowner it is held in a public trust by the state and thus owned by everyone of that state. We pay the citizens of the state of Texas to harvest wildlife. Now that money should be ear marked specifically for herp management but it isn't. That needs to change.

The model legislation USARK submitted and got passed in NC was as you say: Make it illegal to keep venomous snakes except by the provisions put forth. I don't like this idea. I say make it legal to keep venomous period but make it illegal for them to do x, y and z with venomous. The model PARC regs say the same thing. Make it illegal to possess herps but allow certain things by permit. Does anyone no why laws and regulations are written like this?

Welkerii

We have laws/regulations in place in the state of Texas for possession of aggregate species of reptiles. There is a fee and a permit in place for this issue already. We have laws in place for the collection of species that are endangered already. We have laws in place that allow for PROPER SEARCH AND SEIZURE. In order to justify paying for herp management don’t you think we might need density and population numbers of the herps in our state? Should we not have some type of management plan in place?

I used to manage ranches for whitetail deer we did not charge people to come in and hunt without a management plan and herd studies in place! The fact is the Nazi Storm Trooper know nothing about the animals that they have been charged with protecting. The grab on your money by them is no more than taxation without representation. They charge you fees without providing service.
TP&W and the Border Patrol have been working together in Terrel County for years, a police state action to say the least. For no more than to be a thorn in your side for driving down the road. I haven’t keep a snake that i have found in 10 years, I take their pic and let them crawl off, but yet I’m harassed for this action. I have been told that I cannot use artificial lighting to take a pic, that is the most ludicrous crap I have heard of. Others have been told that if they take a snakes picture or even a deer’s picture and you cause the animal to change direction of their movement you are in violation of the law????????

No doubt we have to have laws and regulations of some sort in place to be a society with order, but when it stretches as far as some laws have, we become a society of criminals with no freedom or liberty. We become slaves of the government. No government should have the ability to walk in your house or your property without a warrant, no agency should have right to confiscate your property without a court order, yet TP&W have done that. When told they were on private property and they should leave they stay and become confrontational by yelling and shaking their finger inches from your face.

Why not follow the constitution, why not make the government servants to the people. It is a great system, a system that does work. It’s a little broke right now but if people did march to Austin in a show of force it would get attention. People have become too dependent on the government. Ron Paul has great bill pending, basically no law can be placed upon the people that is not also enforceable upon the bureaucrats. The idea that the government can spy on people and do not follow the constitution or supreme court rulings is nuts.

I agree that money spent on herp hunting should be marked for further research of herps. The problem is that money raised by the Nazi Storm Troopers or other agencies has become taxing revenue. The state of Texas knows nothing about the wildlife of the state, hell Kerr Wildlife management cannot even get the simplest deer studies correct. Why, because if they came up with definitive answers their funding would be cut, yet universities, private land owners, ranchers, etc have done proper research and do have the answers. TP&W is so broke I do not believe it can be fixed, nor will it be fixed. It has become such a revenue generating and power stealing agency that Austin would never want to fix it.

Why must you be inspected and spied upon, this presumes everyone is guilty of something, this presumes by the government you are a criminal. There used to be an old saying, you are innocent till proven guilty, can that be said now in today’s society???????
These laws are written to give the power to the agencies and take it from the citizens, by being charged with additional law enforcement these agencies must grow, they need more money and more officers to enforce these laws. It is a vicious cycle that appears to not be able to be changed. I’m self employed and the best I can figure is I pay about 55 percent in taxes, I work over 1/2 of the year to pay someone to allow me to do every day activities that a truly free man can do. I rent my freedoms from the government. I have an outline of how things could be fixed but the government and the sheepish people of this country would never allow it to happen, nor would agencies like tp&w or the IRS. To many people are afraid to have control of their life and the chance for failure. To many times when something goes wrong there is a knee jerk reaction and someone cries there should be a law about this. Yet our laws are so far reaching that in many cases there are 2, 3, 4 laws for the same offence. A good example is the hate crimes bill, if you kill someone and you receive the death penalty for murder, does it matter if you did it out of hate towards some ethnicity? You cant double execute someone for murder can you? This law is no more than a racial bill enforced on white citizens.

" No government should have the ability to walk in your house or your property without a warrant, no agency should have right to confiscate your property without a court order, yet TP&W have done that."

I agree. It's really bad that wildlife and animal welfare agencies can do this. They do it all the time and the general public should be alot more alarmed than they are.

Another one is traffic cameras. In my town we have them all over. They used to be fixed in place, always pointing at the intersection. Now they are switching them to movable ones that can be trained in any direction, at any time, from a central control room. They have promised not to look in peoples yards and houses. But they have the ability, lol. I think it will not be long before they add sound detection capabilities. Then you won't have to dial 911. Just yell help and the camera will automatically point at you. Great idea right? They will also work great at monitoring political marches and other free assemblies. Hmmm.

And then there's the border fence. They say it's to keep people out. But it's just as effective at keeping people in, lol.

The infrastructure for a police state is all in place. As you said they can enter your home without a warrant to check on your animals. You have to sign away your rights in order to keep many kinds of animals. How long will it be before you have to sign away your rights in order to own a gun, to own a computer, to own a car, to own a leafblower?
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www.hcu-tx.org/

I say arm yourselves, mount up and CHARRRRRRGE.
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Steve W.

"The infrastructure for a police state is all in place."

I have to disagree here Aaron, the capacity to roundup, detain, process and deport or otherwise alter the disposition of 11 million people is still lacking but "conservatives" are clamoring for it! The irony of this detail almost leaves me speechless.
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“Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.” Emmerson

WWW.TDSNAKES.BLOGSPOT.COM

Ok I take it back, it's not ALL in place. It is true, however, that traffic cameras are operating in many cities and some of those cites have been upgrading or thinking about upgrading to movable cameras that can be pointed in any direction and operated remotely from a central control room. That's scary to me.

As far as democrats and republicans, conservatives and progressives, many on both sides are sellouts.

I am by no means convinced that there is some sort of grand plan to turn this country into a socialist, fascist, corporatists or any other type of domain but things seem to be changing little by little with the government and corporations both gaining more and more power and influence over our daily lives.

To start with I think instead of the republicans pointing the finger at democrats and vice versa, what we need is for the republicans to start worrying about fixing themselves and the democrats to start worrying about fixing themselves. Both sides spend alot of taxpayer money so both sides have plenty of opportunity to look at their own side's "pet projects" and find ways to cut waste and increase efficency. Then let the voters decide by making government more transparent.

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www.hcu-tx.org/

Aaron,

Nothing good can happen without two basic reforms: First, campaign finance reform, to break the back of the alliance between corporations and each and every politician. Second, Tax reform, hopefully in the form of a flat tax, with no deductions or shelters.

These two basic reforms would once again make government primarily beholden to the people. This is also why it will take almost a revolution to get them enacted.
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Brad Chambers
WWW.HCU-TX.ORG

Boas, Pythons, Colubrids, Tortoises and Turtles

Yes I agree. In fact I was wondering the other day if it would be possible for a totally politically inexperienced person to run for Senate or House purely on the platform that they WILL introduce campaign finance reform and not even attempt to accomplish anything else. Of course if they are honest they could not say they will pass campaign finance reform, only that they would introduce it. I believe that even just introducing a logical and fair reform would be a dramatic step in the right direction because it would expose those who voted against it and create opportunity in future elections where new runners could point to the fact that their "entrenched" opponents voted against a good reform bill.

Somebody should start a website that would compile all the new unfunded runners throughout the nation. Want to know if somebody truely outside the system is running for an office near you? Go to this website and it would show you everybody whose running for any office on a shoestring budget. I think it would really catch on.
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www.hcu-tx.org/

Without getting on a real rant here, a lot of what Tanks is saying has got me to thinking. Even though I truely believe the wildlife laws have gotten totally out of hand. BUT, and it is a big but, the wildlife regulations/laws were probably first requested by the sportsmen and land owners of this country. Without some of the laws being enforced, we would not have some of the animals we have available. The unfortunate part of this is that it has gotten bigger than the sportsmen and landowners. The reasons for the wildlife department's being have changed. It has gotten to be a real governmental entity that relies on tax money and will do anything it can think of for "self preservation". Taxes on sporting goods, license fees, fines they can get their hands on, fudging statistics to get more federal money, and much more are included in this process.

In a day where Texas is worrying about a 19 billion dollar shortfall, we seem to be worrying about how to nickle and dime our way out of this problem. Cutting government jobs or adding more taxes will not fix our problem. Our law makers need to see our real problem. We are spending way more than we are taking in. We are spending money on programs that have no way of bringing in income. We can fix this by stopping money and services being supplied to people who are illegally in the country. It irks me that I give up my money to taxes and then some politicians figure they should use the money to subsidize someone who is breaking both federal and state laws being here illegally. We treat them better than we do our own citizens. If I get caught on private property looking for snakes, I get arrested and charged with criminal tresspass and could go to jail. A NON-US citizen gets caught crossing a ranch, breaks into a house and steals food or clothes, cuts the fence and runs when pursued by law enforcement, he or they get a free bus ride home so they can do it again. If they manage to make it to a safe haven and get a job, they soon find out how to qualify for many government programs and get tax payer's money. STOP IT, and our money problems will go away both in the state and at the federal level.

Too bad the lawmakers do not read this forum. IMHO

ECT