The Family Research Council offers an account of an amazing story of liberals acting breathtakingly stupid.
California's Central Valley is known as "the salad bowl of the world" -- but that salad's about to get tossed, if the Left doesn't stop angling for special fish protections. Under some of the worst drought conditions the region's ever seen, communities may be 60 days away from running out of water altogether. While people panic, especially farmers of the rich asparagus, broccoli, onion, tomato, lettuce, and garlic crops, liberals are fighting the push to divert millions of gallons of water away from an endangered fish habitat to parched locals.
"Without water, we can't work," said the head of Harris Farms. "It's not healthy. Without knowing how much water we're going to get, it's so difficult to plan!" If a pistachio tree takes five to seven years to grow, "how can we plant one now if we can't guarantee we can water it in a couple of years?" Yesterday, recognizing the desperate situation of farmers and families, the House debated a bill that would roll back the area's environmental protections long enough to save the harvest. But fishing for liberals' support was tough, especially in a party willing to leave families thirsty for the sake of a three-inch fish called the delta smelt.
"As fish go, it is undistinguishable..." writes National Review's Charles Cook. "[They] are of interest to nobody much -- except, that is, to the implacable foot soldiers of the modern environmental movement, some of whom have recently elevated the smelt's well being above all else... Human beings, the production of food, and the distribution of life-enabling water can all be damned, it seems. All hail the smelt, the most important animal in America." During the two-hour hearing, Democrats were the smelts' most passionate defenders, putting fish before families in a revealing display of the Left's priorities. By a 9-3 vote, Republicans did manage to send the Emergency Water Delivery Act to the floor -- but not before liberals proved that what's really endangered is common sense.
Like most conservatives, House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) shook his head at the backward agenda of the President's party. "How you can favor fish over people is something that people from my part of the world never understand." The Left would rather ration water, destroy California jobs, jeopardize the food source, and drive up costs than put people above animals. Unfortunately, this is just another byproduct of driving the biblical worldview from public policy. The idea that people are made in God's image is completely lost on rabid environmentalists who are willing to sacrifice Americans' health, productivity, and the economy for the sake of a short-lived, bony-backed river dweller.
Meanwhile, these same champions of the delta smelt -- the ones ready to risk acres of farmland on its survival -- stand by as innocent children are killed in the most vulnerable habitat in America: the womb. Where is this same concern for human beings, who suffer by the millions simply because they aren't wanted? That's the great hypocrisy of the Left. They worry about the humane treatment of fish only to turn around and fight fetal pain bills in every state legislature in America. The House's liberal members shudder to think what it's like for the poor smelt. But that's just a drop in the ocean compared to the millions of children caught in the nets of choice.
Me: I strongly suggest you look at Charles Cooke's article mentioned and linked above.