< I actually do agree with what you said, at least in this particular case, that the best way to end something (like farm subsidies) is to end it without having to use another reason like saving an endangered species. However, in this instance two positive results at once could be accomplished and since the opportunity is there why not take it or at least make the point?

if you would have gone through each point I made you would see. . . let me past it here again as to why we should not supprot ficsh over people (no matter what those people do):

As I said before, trying to deal with farmers on subsidies by putting the welfare of fish ahead of them might solve your subsidy issue right now, but years down the road, the same value that was established might be use to take your dying Parents' home when all they want to do is live their last years in a familiar place (my grandmother and the welfare of some snail darters comes ot mind) or maybe a vital resource to the way you make a living might be held up for the sake of some other animal.

Another thing, I am not a part of your High School or College debate team and I don't feel obligated to address every point made in many of the long winded posts that occur on Internet debate boards. I'm sure most people here feel the same at one time or another. That doesn't make you right (or wrong) it just means I have a life and I will address points worth addressing.

Long winded posts? the post I was refering to (the one which you only bothered to reply to the post script) FOUR LINES, not countign the post script that made a fifth.

I do not feel the need to address debating tactics that are obvious digressions and tangents only there to confuse the issues and not substantial to the debate.

Buck, of course you are free at any time to use whatever argument you want and follow any rules you want. I'm just warning you for your sake, that you keep wizzing by valid points brushing them aside as "digressions and tangents" without in any way demonstrating how, other people see this and it reflects on you and the issue you are trying to defend.

For example, your need to define subsets of environmentalism and your lengthy comments

where in your response to me splitting hairs. I responded to this accusation with a reason as to why it was not; pointing out that these establish values for discussion. Now somehow this is going off on a tangent?

about a non-personified natural world in reference to an obvious metaphor I used about nature being a "friend."

Its a stupid metaphore! It doesn't hold up! I demostrated how: aids, cancer, bubonic plauge, death etc. . .

. . . besides using it as a metaphor does personify it.

With that in mind I'll briefly address the salient point of your opinion which is spread at length over a number of posts in this thread. That being that humans have rights over animals. I certainly agree and you have a very good point. We are not some alien race that landed here and have no real rights on this planet.

just a note I diagree with the alien rights thing, but that is for a different discussion.

As the rulers of this planet though we have an enlightened self-interest in preserving the world.

I would phrase it 'enlighted self interest in improving the world for our exsistence'.

we have less self interest in perserving this word than making it better. Therfor, to trulely follow the value of self interest of mankind, we should be making the word better for us., that means saying no to stagnation.

This isn't about a "stupid fish." It's about a philosophy of responsibility to our future. Yes 99% of all species that ever lived have been wiped out by nature. Guess what? We can prevent that now and in the future because we have the power.

WHY?! Why the heck would I want to expend valuable resources that I could spend making the worl d better for busness nd raising hte standard of living to instead save a fish that isn't helping me or my life in any way? where does this moral duty come from? How is it based in self interest? I have no self interest whatsoever to give a rats hind quater about that fish.

And because we have the power we have a responisibility.

this is true only in the sense that by virtue of having ower we have the ability to control it, thus action or inaciton would be a result of us.

it does hold hold true though, in the other sense of 'responsibillity' that we are obligated to do anything one way or the other.

But as long as people are too wraped up in their own pitiful little pictures of the world they will never see the big picture. I'm not going to lose a whole lot of sleep if this particular fish dies off but it's the attitude of people who don't care at all that will make it happen again and again and again. So this time it's the stupid fish. Next time it's another creature and then another.

I still see nothing wrong with it if each species does not lie in any important path to me, let it be anothe rand another.

There are way way WAY too many damned farmers as it is, even if they weren't feeding at the government trough.

LOL. even if they weren't feeding at the gov. trough? that would mean their numbers were set by capitalism? Therefor the number set by capitalism would still be too many? tell me then what the correct number is and how it is determined?

The fact that they are makes this particular issue a no brainer for me. I strongly suspect if they were inner city welfare recipients instead of farmers you wouldn't give a damn about their "plight." You might even support the stupid fish!

no, but the fact that you bring this up could very well be allplied to you, after all, folks in rural areas do tend to vote republican.

In fact, if you go bakc in my argument, you would see that I told you before ( look at what I pasted earlier) I took the farmers out of the equation, and put any other person in its place. we shoudl not support these policies because they affect everyone not just hte farmers (even welfare recipients). I cna see it right now "you can't call the exterminator! THAT RAT IS ENDANGERED!" What absurdity, it has to stop. no matter who it is applied to.

Yes I believe people are important. So give them the retraining they need to support themselves and their families and end the idiotic farm welfare system,

we can reach a happy medium on this one, and say while we do not agree on the details the aproach is right, however this is not what we are talking about and duly it can be put ot rest.

and at the same time cut to a necessary minimum the destruction of nature for the production of food.

this on the other hand is what we are talking about. I have adressed htis several times in various points but you just don't respond to them. Nature is the complex interaction of physical laws aroudn us, and thers no way to destroy that. Perhaps you mean the current state of nature? the Current trends and patterns of interaciton it makes? Ok, we can 'destroy' that, but really only by changeing it, and as long as we change it to our bennefit and self interest I see no problem. Produceing food is one of the best ways of improving it for us and has been since we learned how [to farm].

-Justin Kelly