Endangered Species Act

Maura Dolan’s report, “Nature at Risk in a Quiet War” (Dec. 20), should have been headlined “Property Rights at Risk in a Quiet War.” Property rights don’t endanger rare species. It is the Endangered Species Act that threatens property rights.

This nation was founded on the principle of each individual’s inalienable right to his life, liberty and property. It is the sole function of our government to protect these rights, not the nonexistent “rights” of plants and animals.

Landowners who rid their land of government protected plants and animals do so in self-defense and they have every moral justification to do so. Instead of protecting people’s freedom to produce, keep and control the product of their efforts, the government is now the chief threat to these freedoms.

The landowners are acting in the spirit of the American Revolutionaries, who held that “whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it.” Maybe it’s a time for another revolution.

RON M. KAGAN

Los Angeles