Kyronea
24-04-2006, 23:42
We're all familiar with extremists. Pat Robertson and Fred Phelps paint a horrible picture of Christianity. Osama Bin Laden/Al Queda and many others paint a horrible picture of Islam. Ariel Sharon and the rest of Israel paint a horrible picture of Judaism.
PETA paints a horrible picture of animal rights activists. George W. Bush and neocons paint a horrible picture of Republicans. And the list goes on and on.
What I don't understand is why, in some respects, people use the extremists as an example of all people who fit the same group. For instance, animal rights activists. Everyone sees PETA and thinks all people who try to protect animals are nuts and that it's a waste of time. Not true. Quite a variety of animals are important to an ecology. In Colorado, for instance, the elimination of the wolf population due to the effect the wolves had on livestock has caused an explosion of deer and elk populations, to the point where we literally have to rely on hunters to keep the population down. Wolves are being reintroduced, but it is a long and heavy process.
Another instance: environmental activists. People see Greenpeace and think all environmentalists are idiots and, in turn, think protecting the environment is a waste of time.(Great example of this: Rush Limbaugh. I remember him ranting on the radio about how humans can't possibly be contributing all that much to the carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere, so we should pollute at will.) Again, not true. While it's hardly anywhere near as horribly in danger as Greenpeace and others would have you to believe, protecting the environment IS important. I don't know about you, but I hate breathing smog. Furthermore, I would not appreciate some acid rain. I'm all for business and industry, but we need to balance things here.
That was just two examples of what I speak of. We shouldn't be using extremists as a way of measuring all people in a particular group, regardless of what it is. That's just common sense. So why do people do it anyway?
PETA paints a horrible picture of animal rights activists. George W. Bush and neocons paint a horrible picture of Republicans. And the list goes on and on.
What I don't understand is why, in some respects, people use the extremists as an example of all people who fit the same group. For instance, animal rights activists. Everyone sees PETA and thinks all people who try to protect animals are nuts and that it's a waste of time. Not true. Quite a variety of animals are important to an ecology. In Colorado, for instance, the elimination of the wolf population due to the effect the wolves had on livestock has caused an explosion of deer and elk populations, to the point where we literally have to rely on hunters to keep the population down. Wolves are being reintroduced, but it is a long and heavy process.
Another instance: environmental activists. People see Greenpeace and think all environmentalists are idiots and, in turn, think protecting the environment is a waste of time.(Great example of this: Rush Limbaugh. I remember him ranting on the radio about how humans can't possibly be contributing all that much to the carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere, so we should pollute at will.) Again, not true. While it's hardly anywhere near as horribly in danger as Greenpeace and others would have you to believe, protecting the environment IS important. I don't know about you, but I hate breathing smog. Furthermore, I would not appreciate some acid rain. I'm all for business and industry, but we need to balance things here.
That was just two examples of what I speak of. We shouldn't be using extremists as a way of measuring all people in a particular group, regardless of what it is. That's just common sense. So why do people do it anyway?