# Measure 2 is about standards, moral credibility of our sport



## Dick Monson (Aug 12, 2002)

President Teddy Roosevelt's great grandson speaks out on Measure 2.

http://www.inforum.com/event/article/id ... p/Opinion/

Opponents to Measure 2, a ballot initiative to outlaw canned hunting in North Dakota, paint it as a broadside against property rights and a stealth attack by animal rights activists. It is neither.

Measure 2 does not originate in the cramped notions of urban residents who have never tracked anything larger than a spider across their kitchen floor, nor is it inspired by animal rights activists. It originates with outdoorsmen and women - North Dakota Hunters for Fair Chase - who want to maintain the standards that guide our sport and give it moral credibility.

Here in the North Dakota Badlands, in the hardscrabble and isolation of the ranching and hunting life of the late 1880s, Theodore Roosevelt found what was fundamental to his own nature. Here, as Edmund Morris wrote, TR "repaired his soul and learned to live on equal terms with men poorer and rougher than himself. He broke horses with Hashknife Simpson, discussed homicidal techniques with Bat Masterson, and told Hell-Roaring Bill Jones to shut his foul mouth."

It wasn't that the place and its people were wild and hard; it was that they were enduring. It was North Dakota that built the man and his presidency; it was North Dakota that shaped TR's conservation and hunting ethos. One could not be separated from the other.

TR came to the Great Plains when there was little left to hunt. Piles of buffalo bones acted as windbreaks for the passage of new settlers, but only a scattered few bison remained. Hunting had descended into reckless slaughter, and Roosevelt with a number of other formidable outdoorsmen came together to establish the rules of Fair Chase and the Boone and Crockett Club to ensure that what was wild in the West endured.

Hunting is more than recreation for most of us. It is scripted into our muscle, sinew, neurons and bones: millions of years of evolution that built us. The hunt made us human, and we would argue that it keeps us human. It is not about slaughter. It is about the unknown, the challenge, the test of skill, endurance, character; it is honorable. There is no honor behind a fence. As another hunter once said: "To violate the wildness that is part of the animal's makeup and our own is a travesty."

The opponents of Measure 2 are telling you that you must tolerate what is an aberration of ethical hunting or else invite an infringement on your property rights and other hunting activities. I don't believe that the good residents of North Dakota are so impervious to balance and decency in their lives. Our democracy cannot be allowed to devolve from a responsibility-centered citizenry to a rights-centered citizenry.

Yes, Measure 2 is about more than canned hunts: It's about preserving an ancient tradition; it's about treating the community of life and nature around us decently and fairly; it's about putting our faith first in doing the right thing.

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Theodore Roosevelt IV is a former Navy SEAL, works in finance, and owns a cattle ranch in Montana. He is the great-grandson of President Theodore Roosevelt.


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## LT (Mar 12, 2008)

http://www.undueinfluence.com/alliance_ ... ection.htm

Alliance for Climate Protection Board of Directors - As of May 3, 2010

_Name Title
Al Gore Chairman
Larry J. Schweiger President, National Wildlife Federation
Orin S. Kramer General Partner, Boston Provident, L.P.
Carol Browner former EPA Administrator,
Obama's White House Energy Czar
Sherwood Boehlert former GOP Representative
*Theodore Roosevelt IV Chair, Pew Center for Global Climate Change*
Prof. Wangari Maathai Nobel laureate, Green Belt Movement founder
Prof. Joseph Stiglitz Columbia University Economist, Nobel Memorial
Kevin Wall CEO, Control Room
_

http://tomnelson.blogspot.com/2008/09/l ... -gore.html

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/03 ... others.php

http://willyloman.wordpress.com/2009/04 ... -brothers/


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## gst (Jan 24, 2009)

Dick, I honestly believe the voters of ND would much rather hear what someone from ND has to say about a measure that will directly affect ND citizens, rather than someone from out of state regardless of his lineage. Perhaps if those sponsors answered a handful of questions regarding their measure rather than posting out of staters responses the citizens of ND could cast an informed ballot on this issue. But then again perhaps the sponsors do not really want the voters to be TOO informed as to this measure and it's true intent.

By Theodore Roosevelt IV..
TR came to the Great Plains when there was little left to hunt. Piles of buffalo bones acted as windbreaks for the passage of new settlers, but only a scattered few bison remained. Hunting had descended into reckless slaughter, and Roosevelt with a number of other formidable outdoorsmen came together to establish the rules of Fair Chase and the Boone and Crockett Club to ensure that what was wild in the West endured.

It is funny that TR IV conveniently leaves out the fact some on here have a problem with that it was Teddy Roosevelt himself that "took" these animals from the public and placed them on private ranches.

By Theodore Roosevelt IV.
The opponents of Measure 2 are telling you that you must tolerate what is an aberration of ethical hunting or else invite an infringement on your property rights and other hunting activities. I don't believe that the good residents of North Dakota are so impervious to balance and decency in their lives. Our democracy cannot be allowed to devolve from a responsibility-centered citizenry to a rights-centered citizenry.

Perhaps TR IV should undertand what his ancestor did that a true Democracy is not what this country was intended to be for good reason.

I wonder if his ancestor and those people he quotes him spending time with would sooner see this "responsibility - centered citizenry" be able to make these choices of responsibility themselves, or if they would rather a group of people continue to push laws so that the govt dictates to the citizenry what these responsibilities should be.

By Theodore Roosevelt IV
Yes, Measure 2 is about more than canned hunts: It's about preserving an ancient tradition; it's about treating the community of life and nature around us decently and fairly; it's about putting our faith first in doing the right thing.

I wonder if someone that carved a life out of the hard praries in western ND would consider taking away someone elses livlihood they have created and built thru hardwork is how one treats their "community of life and nature around us decently and fairly" ?

I wonder if TR himself had a group of self appointed arrogant eliteists legislating to him what choices they could make or if he believed the hunter himself should be the one making that decision.

I wonder what TR would think of a group like HSUS whose primary purpose is to ban hunting and ranching and a group of hunters ,NDH for FC taking a page out of their play book and pushing an agenda that runs parrallel to theirs?

I can't picture him thinking to highly of a group like this, either one


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## Skavdog (Nov 13, 2008)

"Devolve into a Rights Centered Citizenry"?? Our country was founded on the principal of individual rights. The "rights" of the populus is enumerated all throughout the Constitution of the United States. If you take a stroll through the original amednments, known by the way as the "Bill of Rights", you will see that our sole purpose for our country's existence is to preserve the rights of the individual.


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