I appreciate your passion Curly. I hope you will come to my seminar at the Harrisburg show on the first weekend of Feb. If you do, stop by the booth or catch me after the seminar and we can talk shop.
HuntedOne, I like the way you state your case.
I honestly think every one on here feels like you do Curly and is not ashamed of what they do. I don't agree with your assertion that we have lost the battle simply because we may try to explain in less offensive terms what we do or, in your term, "defend" what we do.
Instead of viewing it as a moment to defend, try to view it as a moment to educate. Because as Flattail points out, the middle 80% are the ones that need to be educated because, friends, they are the ones who will be the "swing" votes when politics tries to take away what you love to do. I just think it is prudent to speak of what we do in less confrontational or offensive language at critical times.
I am not trying to make our fraternity grow by leaps and bounds because societal trends probably will keep that from ever becoming a reality. What I do want to see is that the public at large never gets to the point where their perspective is that only old white guys are hunters. If we don't keep our ranks diverse across the age spectrum and improve our percentage of women and minority participants what incentive will others have to allow us to keep doing what we do?
If using the word Harvest, take, eliminate, reduce, thin or any other alternative to "kill" is what gives me an advantage at that moment with the middle grounder, then that is what I will use. It doesn't make me any less a man or hunter. I just hope it makes me more successful at fighting for what you and I both want our kids and grandkids to have the ability and opportunity to do......hunt.