Rational Ag

In the spirit of all of the militant vegetarian people on the board, I started thinking about a problem my father faces in his industry. I'd like to know everyone's opinion on tree spiking and what they think about these people's moral stance on the issue.

Environmentalists, in an effort to take active steps to protect the rights of the woodlands and the environment, will drive 8-12" long nails into trees in the hopes that the spikes will cause damage to the equipment of the manufacturers processing the wood.

The following link is a website that has a general overview of the process and his justifications for it. <a href="http://www.peterherrick.com/content/treespiking.htm" target="_blank">Overview of Tree Spiking</a>

Personally, I think these actions are morally reprehensible, and I think these guys should be rotting in jail. They feel as though they are justified by morality. However, just because someone feels like something is right or wrong doesn't justify (in my opinion) damage to another person's property or welfare.

I don't think they would appreciate me destroying their car because I thought it was wrong for people to drive cars, thus polluting the environment. I don't think they would appreciate me destroying their computer business because I thought computers were causing the moral corruption of our society.

The real point, or question, of this is:

Do you think people have the right to affect the welfare or lives of others in society by imposing their personal sense of morality on others when it contradicts the accepted morality of the society?

I don't. I think actions such as these (and any other action of a person or group forcing or imposing a personal morality onto the society in which they live) should not be tolerated.

-Rational Ag

Mageth

Tree spikes can cause injury when a chain or band saw strikes it; pieces can go flying, or the chain saw can "kick back," for example. Thus I absolutely think it's not an ethical practice.

mac_philo

I think your standards of what people can do when they know they are right are far, far too high. The damage to property clause rejects the American Revolution, the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, the US response to September 11, and millions of other actions.

I'm not comparing tree spiking to those events, I'm just saying that a blanket respect for law and property is setting the bar too high.

I'm opposed to tree spiking, I think, but we at least have to show that its benefits aren't worth its costs.

[ April 09, 2002: Message edited by: mac_philo ]</p>

Mageth

I'm not so much ethically opposed to a little monkey wrenching now and then to protect the environment, for example. But I absolutely draw the line in doing anything that might cause physical harm to another human being. Tree spiking falls in that category.

&lt;shameless appeal to authority&gt; Edward Abbey, the late pentultimate Desert Rat, environmentalist, author of The Monkey Wrench Gang, and folk hero to many of the environmentalists that perform such acts, I believe shared the above ethical standard. &lt;/shameless appeal to authority&gt;

Corwin

Up here tree-spikers have a very short life expectancy. (Well this is less true now that the timber industry isn't as much of an economic force as it used to be...) Tree spiking maims, cripples and kills people. Saws shatter when they hit a spike and the shrapnel can be lethal. People who spike trees should be locked up for a long time. It's as cowardly an act as hiding a bomb in a civilian building.

mac_philo

So, it's clear that spiking can have deadly consequences. The question for me, then, is: how many lethal consequences per spike?

It makes a difference if it is one death in 10 or one death in 10,000, at least if spiking offers great environmental benefits.

Rational Ag

I'm not quite sure what you mean by this. I just don't think people have the right to override accepted "morality" by causing personal or property damage to another.

Would you feel as though someone as the right to cause personal or property harm to you if they don't agree with something you do, even though you are within accepted societal standards or norms?

My point is that the people who spike trees are imposing their moral position of right and wrong onto a society that disagrees with them. If we, as an American society, felt as though we were truly damaging the environment to the point that we need to take severe actions to limit the production of lumber, we do something about it and take a stance on it.

The fact that these people do not have enough support from the American public to get laws and bills passed through legislation shows that they are in the minority. Thus, the damage they cause (both to people, and to property), is driven by their minority viewpoint being forced on people trying to live and work according to what society deems moral.

-Rational Ag

[Edited because the quote button is dangerously close to the bold button, and I missed.]

[ April 09, 2002: Message edited by: Rational Ag ]</p>

Rational Ag

I don't think it makes a difference at all. Property damage, one life, or 10,000 lives...they are all damage that is caused by people with an unjustifiable moral position. They are in the minority; they are in the wrong to impose their version of what's good and bad for us as a society.

If they were in the majority opinion (the group that decides what is accepted by society), then I think we could start considering how many lives each spike costs vs. the environmental impact of tree spiking. However, they are not, or we would have laws restricting timber usage that are much tighter than they currently are.

-Rational Ag

Corwin

I don't see that whether they're the majority or minority opinion matters at all... These people are deliberately taking actions that they know will maim or kill people who are just trying to make a living. Does your average millworker expect to be in a combat zone? Should he expect to be?

I may have my problems with loggers and millworkers but they're no more 'guilty' than the people in the twin towers were. It's a similar issue really.... the difference is one of degree.

Rational Ag

My point of majority vs. minority opinion only has to do with what's accepted.

Let's draw a hypothetical. Let's say you have a fishing boat and you make your living with that fishing boat (you are a fishing guide), which is acceptable in our society. Let's also say there are people who feel as though fish have rights and shouldn't be hunted. The fish advocate decides to go to the lake and drill holes in all of the fishing boats so that they sink and cannot be used for fishing. Your boat gets a hole drilled into the bottom of it.

Is that person justified in his actions? He is placing his personal "rights and wrongs" onto other people by causing property damage to the boat owners.

Whether or not he hurts or kills anyone is a separate issue, and a much more important one as we have discussed in this thread. However, I have a hard time seeing the difference between the lumber businesses (and those that rely on that business for a living), and the boat owners.

-Rational Ag