Buddhists in NJ fined for buying Chinatown animals and releasing them into the wild
Posted on August 14th, 2007 by bile Categories and Tags: Uncategorized, Amitabha Buddhists, Arlington, Chinatown, crime, Department of Environmental Protection, environment, free will, gas money, Mark Boriek, New Jersey, New York, Passaic River, Pennsylvania, property, the HeraldA New York sect of Amitabha Buddhists bought hundreds of eels, frogs and turtles in Chinatown to set them free in the Passaic River, hoping they would not only survive but also realize their karmic potential.
Saving the animals, though, did not do anything for the karma of the state Department of Environmental Protection. DEP pfficials say the Buddhists did not have a permit and may be subject to fines up to $1,000.
Releasing critters into the wild takes a permit - and because of fears of harm being done by nonnative species, New Jersey is reluctant to issue them out for anything beyond stocking fish ponds.
“We’re dead-set against it,” DEP biologist Mark Boriek told the Herald News of West Paterson for Tuesday’s newspapers. “It’s even illegal to stock any kind of carp or goldfish in New Jersey in a place with an inlet or outlet.”
I don’t agree with the DEP… or care about nonnative species… but releasing them into the Passaic? I used to live 2 blocks from the Passaic River in North Arlington and it is still far from being an OK living environment for bacteria let alone eels, frogs and turtles. The joke used to be you could walk across it because it was so full of trash, bodies and drugs. The ‘water’ was black. These Buddhists could have spent the extra gas money and brought them to PA, South Jersey or Northern New York.
20 Responses to “Buddhists in NJ fined for buying Chinatown animals and releasing them into the wild”
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August 14th, 2007 at 12:18 pm
I dunno, dumping off an invasive non-native species into the wild without considering what would happen to the existing ecosystem sounds pretty bad to me. Considering the effect it can have on acres of land or miles of stream, it’s almost like destruction of property. I would hate to own a farm near where some asshats dropped off some bug from half-way around the world that ate all my crops. Some migration is inevitable sure, but I don’t think humans should go out of their way to conduct it.
August 14th, 2007 at 12:49 pm
The animals involved are probably native or in the least have already polluted the environment. People purchase exotic animals all the time and let them go with little injury because most animals people get as pets are fairly harmless. There is a woman right this moment in front of the building I work in selling painter turtles from Chinatown. I’d bet those are what they purchased. In this particular case I don’t see the issue. Especially since it’s the Passaic. The animals probably died shortly after being released. My worry would be monster eels attacking the city in a year.
People generally shouldn’t go out of their way but usually if you can easily get your hands on it it’s probably already been released by someone else. It takes more effort to have a problem like in Australia. How do you feel about feeding pidgeons birth control? Ultimately this is a property issue and those responsible for the property should be dealing with the Buddhists. If only the government didn’t take ownership of the waterways.
August 14th, 2007 at 1:24 pm
Who should take ownership of the waterways? You bring up an interesting fund raising question — if we can sell the Turnpike to private parties, why not the Delaware River or Hudson Bay.
August 14th, 2007 at 1:41 pm
Who? Private individuals. How? You could auction it. Offer it to those who own the adjacent property. Any issues which would arise (pollution, animal population, etc) would be dealt with through some sort of arbitration. If private property was actually protected by law like it should be and is supposed to be and government owned land was in private hands… pollution and other problems would be far simpler to deal with. Note how communist countries treated their environment vs the typical private property owner. Same goes for road ways. Does anyone truly believe the government does a good job of upkeep WRT to the government roads and bridges? You don’t usually see private infrastructure go to such decay. They need to keep it up to maintain their customer satisfaction. Disney may be an exceptional example but they practically own a city and it’s immaculately maintained.
August 14th, 2007 at 3:02 pm
First off. Releasing to the Passaic, “Ha!”, the animals were dead when they hit the “water”.
Secondly as far as non-native problems I think a good example would be snakeheads.
As far as private ownership of waterways, I think it presents more problems than private ownership of land because of the nature of water. Waterways are intrinsically linked. If you dump crap upstream it WILL go downstream. Who then deals with it? The guy who owns the downstream property?
Now I do think private companies could do a better job maintaining some waterways than the government. Say I bought a lake from the government and stocked it with the best sport fish I could find. Made the place freakin’ pristine, had barbecues, allowed pets off of the leash, only allowed a certain amount of people in, in a day, didn’t allow people who polluted back to the lake, didn’t have a catch limit, and let people hunt geese or trap shoot. To account for this, I charged people 30 bucks a person for 8 hours. That would be sustainable.
That being said, if you took public parks and made them private it could also take away outdoor options for disadvantaged kids. Causing public problems like crime.
August 14th, 2007 at 3:49 pm
If you dump crap upstream it will go downstream. If that downstream happens to be someone else’s property then it has be damaged without the owners consent and that person can seek restitution. All the owners could form a group to manage the entirety of the river and surrounding lands or a single individual or group could attempt to buy it all up. It would be figured out. Rivers were not owned by the government at one point and the world continued to rotate.
If the government took their parks and sold them to private individuals… those who actually care to provide ‘outdoor options for disadvantaged kids’ could do so and they would be far better taken care for. If these kids don’t take care of it there are actual consequences to those actions.
I’d like to see the correlation between losing parks and increase in crime. I’d also like to know what type crime you speak of. Much of the crime we have today stems directly from the prohibition of something. That prohibition pushes the product to the black market which raises the prices tremendously and increases risk.
It is a common mistake made in discussing liberty and private property. Taking the current system and injecting those ideas into a particular facet. That is an incorrect application. You must apply it equally over the entire system. You can’t assume private property without assuming responsibility for it. You can’t speak of freedom of a particular topic. Freedom encompasses all.
August 14th, 2007 at 6:23 pm
The crime I speak of would most likely be selling drugs to make money, as well as the crime that surrounds selling drugs.
Can you give me an example of this? I still don’t think I understand.
August 14th, 2007 at 8:22 pm
The ideas of private property and liberty need to be applied universally. Property rights are derived from individual freedom. Therefore to design a world where there isn’t any government owned ‘public’ property where the right of an individual over that property is a protected value and yet there is prohibition of certain drugs leading to a black market and crime, seems contradictory. Perhaps you were talking about privatizing parks only and not everything… but again to talk of a world where we are removing some government owned property the next logical step would be to remove all of it. Many people who come up with arguments against practical libertarianism apply freedom to only one situation and not the whole or simply don’t follow the idea through to the end. Like with decriminalizing of currently prohibited drugs. They imagine only the current environment but with free access to the drugs but don’t realize the cost and crime associated with drugs are because of those prohibitions and that with a free market for those products just as with alcohol you’d be able to panhandle for pot or crack. There will always be addicts and there will always be some crime… but reducing the scarcity reduces the cost and that reduces the likelihood someone will resort to crime to obtain them. As for the crime of selling… that disappears instantly… as does the risk, profit and therefore incentive to risk big to gain big.
August 14th, 2007 at 9:52 pm
As you described it, the libertarianist principles will require a sea change. The government is structured, constitutionally I might add, to keep something like that from happening. Without a revolution, how do you think this will happen?
Oh and thanks for explaining your previous comment, I think I get it now.
August 14th, 2007 at 10:43 pm
A sea of change? How so? It requires just going back to our founding philosophy and taking it a step further (a step that hadn’t really existed at the time). Drug prohibition is unconstitutional. Private property already exists both as an idea and practice. Common law (which is often theoretically used as the basis for arbitration in a minarchist society) is practiced at the federal and state level (except Louisiana apparently). The Declaration of Independence says we a right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness (aka property). The Constitution is a document that defines what government can and can not do and implies the idea of negative liberty. The Bill of Rights does not define what rights we have. It defines how the federal and state governments can not infringe on our rights. “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.” It also says: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved for the States respectively, or to the people.”
The government is in fact exactly setup to allow libertarian ideas. It also allowed for reinterpretation and manipulation of the original meanings to create the monster we have today.
How do we get there? We can start by rolling back some of the unconstitutional or anti constitutional (against the original ideas or it before the change) things Lincoln and the post Civil War legislators, FDR, Wilson and gang;s New Deal and Federal Reserve programs, and all the crap done since then like the War on Drugs. Spend some time on youtube with the search term “ron paul”. When he’s given enough time to answer a question he explains the necessary transition required to do these things. It’s a big change from what we have now… but not from what the Constitution allows.
August 15th, 2007 at 4:18 pm
That would be a sea change. That’s a HUGE amount of legistlation and interpretation of legistlation to be changed.
It was my understanding from your previous argument that this change would have to occur quickly and equally over all facets of life.
How long does it take to repeal a law? Is it possible to change our current system that much and have the country survive?
To be clear I’m not arguing over your interpretation of the constitution, even though my opinions do differ on that mater. I’m arguing over whether or not such a change is feasible with the current state of the nation.
I’ll give that a looksie after dinner.
August 16th, 2007 at 9:04 am
I spent about an hour writing a response last night on my blackberry and it seems it didn’t get posted unfortunately. I’ll see if I can repeat it.
My previous argument was a criticism about your method of applying the ideas of liberty to our current system in a hypothetical construct. That you were only going part way without fully extending the consequences or not applying it equally. I do not know where you got the ‘would have to occur quickly’ part. I have never said we can simply drop anything. Just as it’s immoral to use force knowingly against another person or their property it would be just as immoral to pull the rug from under of the people who have already paid into the current government system.
I don’t believe that it’s a huge change. Most of the unconstitutional laws can be struck down in less than a year or simply ignored while the legislation is removed or changed. Repealing laws takes no time at all, it’s no different than passing a law. Congress passed the PATRIOT ACT in a matter of hours… they didn’t even read the thing or have the final copy when they voted it into law. We already know what laws need to go. I’m sure you could find a few more. If there is anything worth keeping you can re implement them after. Getting rid of Selective Service is easy. You could bring home all of our foreign deployed troops in a year. As you shrink the military you can take some of that 300-500 billion dollars we spend a year on it and sure up the social programs to faze out. Make it so people can opt out of SSI and Medicare. Get rid of all the gun laws. Strike down all the unconstitutional Executive Orders which infringe on the 4th and 5th Amendments (others i’m sure). Along with the PATRIOT ACT, Military Commissions Act, Federal Election Campaign Act, FISA, the old Espionage Act and related, Campaign Reform Act, and so many other blatantly unconstitutional laws. The government can stop taking orders, again unconstitutionally, from the UN and NATO. End the bullshit ‘free trade’ agreements we have that just open up trade for low wage workers and products but keeps heavy restrictions on high skill jobs in the tech, medical, and legal fields. The unconstitutional wars in Afghanistan and Iraq can be brought to a stop. Some of these will require transitions. SSI and Medicare obviously. Perhaps the drug prohibition should be done slowly so as to not potentially cause drug cartel violence. Private organizations will very quickly pick up the slack for monitoring doctors and what not, just as they do for electronics and unions do for other services. Other than that most of these issues will not affect the people because they are not services but infringements. And when you have gotten rid of all that bureaucracy you can get rid of the income tax and IRS. Not that income tax actually pays for any services directly. It’s used to pay off our huge debt.
The country survive? We are talking about bringing back the way the country was before. For longer than we’ve been in the current. It’s not some crazy new experiment. Freedom is the natural state not a forced social construct by people who think they know better. As for feasibility… that doesn’t even come into play. The goal of freedom is absolute. Millions have died for that goal even when it seemed they had no chance. It’s made a motley crew of farmers and merchants bare arms, leave their families, and sometimes give their life to free themselves of British rule while many of their countrymen thought them foolish because it was an unfeasible goal. I don’t care whether it’s possible. It’s what’s right. Even if you aren’t sold on liberty but as you have said should at least respect the current law… you’d have to support these changes as they go against our fundamental documents (some of them anyway, progressive income tax was added at the 16th Amendment). But even in those cases they go against the ideas of the architects of the government who had already dealt with many of the same issues. Spend a few minutes reading some Thomas Jefferson and you’ll be surprised as to how much was considered back then. Gonzales may think the Constitution ‘quaint and outdated’ and Bush thinks it’s just “a goddamned piece of paper” but that doesn’t mean we should just ignore it. It provides for alteration. If you allow government to ignore our supreme law you allow tyranny.
August 16th, 2007 at 9:57 am
I’m watching this. Also real quick I noticed this article (the one about Buddhists) was posted in the Trentonian, AKA the trashiest paper ever. More comments after I finish the video.
August 16th, 2007 at 10:24 am
That’s a pretty good video. There are lots out there. You get a lot of the same stuff because he’s been fighting the same things for 30+ years but they are generally worth watching to get random extra bits. Stay away from the supporter videos though as they are a bit retarded and/or long winded. Paul on the Colbert Report and The Daily Show are decent. Youtube also has 7 videos on different topics.
August 16th, 2007 at 9:58 pm
My two favorite parts of the video:
Talking about private ownership of nuclear weapons (all of 2s of it).
Ron Paul proposing to sell the rights to electromagnetic radiation based on carrier frequency. That would be a bitch to pin down.
He did talk about how he would reform things. Specifically I mean, like what actions he would take. I’d still like to hear more about that. I’d also like to hear what his views are on things that are contrary to the dogma of private ownership. Say for example I didn’t want the government to enforce my property rights, would that be possible? What about privatization of air space and space. Ownership of ideas and ownership of any method of transmission or the medium used for transmission. Oh and unclaimed land.
August 16th, 2007 at 10:16 pm
How so? They lease it now. Why couldn’t you sell it? It’s silly to think companies would screw with each other. They don’t internationally. If they don’t work together they can’t utilize it and it’d be a waste. If they sat on it they’d effectively be giving up rights to use it. I think it’d be better not to regulate it at all.
It’s not supposed to be the governments responsibility to handle the law for you as a victim. If you don’t bring charges against someone they shouldn’t be barging in ‘on your behalf.’ He talks about that IIRC in another video. Unclaimed land is the same as air and our space effectively. If you get their first and stake claim it’s yours. It’s also your responsibility to defend it. If you can’t and someone comes along and takes claim of a portion of it and you don’t have other property there I think you’ll have a difficult time convincing an arbitrator that they have done a great infringement. How do you own a method of transmission? The medium if physical is an obvious case for property rights. If you mean radio… as I said i think people will figure it out otherwise nothing will function.
August 16th, 2007 at 10:59 pm
The technology constantly changes. How are you going to classify it? You sell me the 700-800 Mhz range, what if someone starts using another range who’s harmonics happen to interfere with that range? They aren’t broadcasting in the 700-800 Mhz range, the reflections are. Also, what kind of modulation are you talking about? Does the band you own specifically refer to the carrier frequency you are using?
This is the easiest solution, since expecting government to keep up with technology has never worked in the past. The problems arise when I decide to screw with a private company because I’m a curmudgeon. If they don’t own it, what is their recourse? If you, the government, are going to sell it to them, you have to define what “it” is for the ensuing legal battles.
As far as land is concerned, do private citizens have to defend land in order to keep it? Doesn’t the government intervene on our behalf? Isn’t their job to protect our right to property, or is that solely our job? If it’s our job, I think you’re creating a fenced nation.
The reason I ask is because so many of my own person ideals could fit quite easily into this permissive philosophy. Say for example I think open spaces prevent street crime, which I do. I could buy a lot of land and keep it open for people to use in any way they see fit. Do I have to defend this land to keep people from claiming it? Am I responsible is someone kills someone else on this land?
I don’t think you do. How do you own an idea? Does the concept of property rights extend to thought?
August 17th, 2007 at 7:35 am
So what tech keeps changing? That hasn’t kept the FCC from keeping the same leasing laws for 50+ years. Like I said I think you’d really want no regulation. We already have that for some frequency ranges and it’s not that big of a deal. Paul is a medical doctor, not a tech head, he said that selling would be better but if better informed he may say nothing was necessary. Their recourse is to track you down and they can bring you in front of a arbitrator on behalf of themselves and customers for explicitly fucking people and their property (the receivers). The information being transmitted is considered property too so you could use that in some way. I’d think people would generally agree that in the least you don’t have the right to the radio spectrum outside your property so overpowering other signals on other people’s property wouldn’t go over well.
Do you have to defend land to keep it? No. Doesn’t the government intervene on your behalf? Sometimes. It shouldn’t without being asked at least. If you own land and don’t use it… and someone comes along and does and you notice after the fact… come arbitration you’ll have to give a good reason for now kicking that person off the land in question when you have no use for it. An arbiter may have no sympathy for those who can’t or don’t defend their land, particularly when they don’t use it. The country is really really fucking big and most of it does not have people utilizing it. There is no way every person would be putting up fences. There are plenty of people in South Jersey who use “No Trespassing or I will shoot you” signs and it works just fine. These are large chunks of land that people could probably use in some respect without the owner knowing.
If you bought up a lot of land and ‘keep it open for people to use in any way they see fit’… how could you complain that someone was claiming it. Why would you be responsible for another person infringing on the rights of another? Is the government responsible when someone gets shot on the street? Or if two people fight in your home? Of course not. Do you actually try to apply libertarian philosophy to these situations or just ask questions? It seems to me these are all fairly obvious. You have the right of life and property as do others. If you infringe on anothers right it is their responsibility to do something about it. If they don’t do anything about it then so be it. In a minarchist setup the government is there to be the arbiter and perhaps enforcer but it is still your responsibility to take care of yourself. It’s like that now with civil cases which are generally common law based.
You can own ideas as in patents and copyright does. It’s a contract. If someone else comes up with it independently fine… but your particular work is yours. The ease of copy isn’t important. Take modern music issues or software. I created something and sold with usage rights under contract. If you do not live up to the contract it’s the creators responsibility to do something about it. The problem currently is that we use government to do the ‘doing something about it.’ Nothing guaranties that the rights or contract infringer will end up losing. No one is claiming that but it seems you are assuming that there is this definite outcome to all situations. There isn’t.
August 19th, 2007 at 3:28 pm
I realize that. That’s why I’m asking you.
Can you use someone’s property, in this case the information being transmitted, any way you want if it is on your property?
It’s a matter of power and there are bound to be exceptions. Every signal you create is traveling as fast as it can to all corners of the universe. So in this case everyone is crapping on everyone else’s property all the time. You would have to figure out what power levels iare acceptable. That’s going to require some form of regulation. Maybe not the FCC, but regulation none the less.
You couldn’t. ‘Any way they see fit’ is too vague. I was aiming for sort of a privately owned park. So there would still be some regulation from the owner.
The argument could, and has, been made that you are partially (some would say entirely )responsible for facilitating a dangerous environment. For example if I buy a plot of land, call it “Bosco’s Public Park”, invite people to make use of that land (in a manner similar to a park), build a lake, fill it with piranha, and put a sign in front of it saying “Swimming Hole” some people would argue that I would be responsible if the Piranha hurt someone. Now, I know you’re going to tell me to stop hiding behind this “some people might say” and “others could claim” bullshit, so I personally would think that is irresponsible and the person who established the dangerous conditions is partially liable for the injury.
Yes, I’m actually trying. I’ve no interest in wasting your time. Libertarian philosophy is VERY, VERY foreign to me. If I was being a troll, you’d know it because I’d make stupid sarcastic statements that don’t really drive the conversation like, “You simplify everything to property arguments because you want to be able to hunt humans on your estate.”
As I understand it, the current method of resolving disputes between citizens is going to court. The judicial branches job is to interpret existing legistlation and determine who is correct and what they are entitled to. If you pull the legistlation that the courts use, say Title 47 of the Federal Regulation Code, how are they going to arbitrate?
As far as copyrights and patents. What if the situation doesn’t lend itself easily to a contract? Let’s say I invent a way of getting cotton seeds out of cotton. The idea is so innovative, novel and simple, that just by seeing the device someone would know how to build it. I sell the device with a contract that says “You can’t copy this device.” If someone, who doesn’t buy the device, see’s the device and copies it do I have any rights to my original idea?
August 20th, 2007 at 8:03 pm
Just because something is easily accessible or surrounded by your property doesn’t make it yours to do with what you please. If I’m invited into your home I don’t have free access to your things. If someone leaves open an Access Point it’s not yours to do with as you want. If they don’t encrypt their SSN or bank info it’s not OK to withdraw money from their account.
Why? The market will self regulate. And that’s not ‘regulation’ proper. There are already several frequencies which are not totally regulated and there aren’t any major issues. The market will find ways around interference problems. Whether it’s UWB tech or whatever. The average person will not have issues that companies can’t figure out. Otherwise they won’t exist.
Regulation by the owner is fine. That’s voluntary. It’s your property. As long as you aren’t deceiving people what you say goes.
Your example is flawed. You are seemingly deceiving people… not providing dangerous conditions. Fraud is coercive force against another and therefore it’d be alright morally for someone to seek restitution. If the person was otherwise warned to some degree then you would be off the hook. It is their responsibility to investigate a product/service before using it. The issue is the “swimming hole” sign which implies a safe environment. If you had nothing at all you’d be less liable. However, people could seek restitution no matter what just as they can now… just they have less force to their argument if they ignorantly walked in.
Libertarian philosophy is very simple. Generally summed up in the non-aggression principle. When there is conflict it requires personal responsibility to address it. It’s the philosophy of Thomas Jefferson and our government. It shouldn’t be foreign if you’ve ever read the founding documents or related material. If you want practical examples read Mill, Mises, Rothbard. Maybe even Rand. Even Wikipedia is a good start. Mises.org has tons of books in text and audio book format. That link I gave you before about the bus company… that’s a good book i’ve been listening to the past week at work.
That only would apply to statute law… and has nothing to do with common law. Again… in a true free society there is no equation or hard fast rule as to what is ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ except for the infringement of another’s liberty. Arbitration would be subjective and is not necessarily final. You have to contract beforehand to how the result will be treated. You could both have independent arbitration companies and decide to go through both and if they rule opposite than you or the arbitration company sends it to a appeals arbiter. There is no single way of doing things. Read about common law. Watch/read about civil cases not based on statute. Listen to FTL… these types of questions come up all the time. I think Friday or Saturday’s show there was talk about multiple arbitrators.
You can try to claim so… but just as with today’s laws… if it’s the combination of existing technology or something easily figured out your out of luck (depends on what arbitration with or however you choose to deal with it). Only the person you contract to is responsible for it, including letting someone else copy it, but only if they actually took it apart to do so. Simulation and emulation are fine… copying is not (given you’ve said as much). These laws already exist as patent and copyright… i see them as just contracts. It’s the sellers responsibility to go after contract infringements just like trademarks currently are. If you are unable to secure a market because your product is easily emulated, too bad. Try security through obscurity.