Welcome to freefish7
Thank you for visiting the freefish7 website. After a decade of being dedicated to mostly fishery issues, it is time to expand the mission to promoting freedom in general. I am working on a book called, A Fisherman's Freedom Philosophy based on a lifetime of fishing experience and lessons learned working as an independent fisheries advocate. The book attempts to explain how some of the solutions offered for managing our fisheries and other public resources can help us preserve the individual liberties that collectively make us free people. Please take a few minutes to read a summarized version below that is included in the 2022 Natural Art Freedom Calendar. Please consider purchasing one for yourself and helping spread the message by giving them as gifts or just tell anyone who likes freedom about this website. Your reward for taking time to read this and sharing it with others is to set your own price for a calendar at this link: Natural Art - freefish7 Thank you for your time and support!
We are blessed with freedom few have ever known throughout human history. Think of the struggle and sacrifice so many have made over time to secure this level of freedom we enjoy today. We all have a natural yearning to be free that unites us regardless of race, religion, sexual orientation, political affiliation, or anything else. Our collective freedom exists because of everyone’s individual liberty. Each of us have different liberties we cherish more than others. The key to keeping freedoms we hold dear is accepting that others should be able to keep those freedoms they love so long we do not infringe on each other’s rights. These words will attempt to share ideas for uniting enough independent thinkers that we can remain forever free. The truth is that we are all independent thinkers at heart based on our different life experiences. Please keep an open heart and mind as you think about the ideas expressed in this freedom philosophy.
Before we go any further, let me try to explain a little bit about where I am coming from. I lean left on some issues and right on others while always staying focused on preserving liberty. I love America and the freedom it offers. Being one of the last independent commercial fishermen bolsters an already profound appreciation for freedom. Working as a fisheries advocate has provided unique insight as to how and why things are happening the way they are. Fellow fishermen have contributed greatly to my way of thinking. The first person who took me fishing to make money had some fingers that were not quite right. They had been blown apart by an anti-aircraft shell that landed in the airplane he was about to parachute out of during World War 2. He grabbed the shell and tossed it out of their plane just as it exploded. His heroic actions saved everyone onboard and engrained the price of freedom in a young boy. One wise captain I fished with for years shared a quote that always stuck with me. “When everybody thinks alike, nobody thinks.” Jesus was a fisherman who always knew right where to catch what was needed. He fed fish to multitudes of followers while teaching them things like the Golden Rule. That simple concept of treating others the way we want to be treated could bring peace on earth if we all practiced it.
Anger over what was happening with the mismanagement of our offshore fisheries motivated me to get involved as an advocate. Drastic cuts were made to many quotas based on what fishery managers referred to as “fatally flawed data”. This created dangerous derby fisheries that encouraged us to catch as much as possible before the quotas were met, and seasons closed. It became extremely wasteful when some fish were illegal while others living in similar areas could be kept. We were required to discarded tons of dead and dying fish. During the final days of a snapper season, another fisherman fell off their boat in rough weather. That father of a baby girl was trying to make some money to support his family before the season closed. He died a horrible death alone in the cold water on a dark winter night. His body was never found. They had been fishing within a few miles of us that trip. The missing fisherman could easily have been somebody from our boat. I never wanted to fish again in these unsafe and wasteful conditions. This was the final push needed to start giving public comments at fishery meetings offering common-sense solutions that would stop the derby fisheries. Those comments explained how managing quotas with appropriate possession limits would let us target fish with high limits while keeping most of what we caught with lower limits. This simple solution would allow us to harvest a dependable supply of sustainable seafood safely and responsibly for consumers. It was extremely frustrating to see my pleas for help fall on deaf ears. Even the environmental groups at those meetings did not seem to care. A justifiable anger was fueled and evident at first. I started looking into why things were happening the way they were. Everything pointed to a plan for privatizing our fisheries and consolidating control of them so a few global corporations could own our public resources. Not what I was expecting to learn. It quickly became clear that being angry was not going to help anything. Calmly explaining the problems while offering logical solutions people could understand and support was a much better approach. This life lesson could be summed up as ignorance breeds anger just as gentleness is born of wisdom.
Traveling across America talking with people from all walks of life about ways we could preserve our freedom to fish and access seafood from public waters was an eye-opening experience. There were pleasant surprises as well as disappointing moments during interactions with people who should have been nicer and some, I had no idea what to expect. Spending time with Middle Easterners for the first time was inspiring as they seemed to understand the importance of freedom in a way many others did not. I will never forget this guy with a big smile and sparkle in his eye emphatically telling me to never stop fighting for freedom. Meeting so many different people confirmed that being equally respectful to everyone was the best approach. Respect is universally appreciated and usually reciprocal.
Public support was key to success. Calendars provided a way to inform the public about solutions that would benefit everyone and our environment. Postcard petitions gave people an easy way to get involved. There was a calendar picture on them with information about whatever issue was most pressing at the time. They stated support for or opposition to something and were already addressed. Thousands of people signed and sent postcards for different issues. There was a level of public support that could turn the tide on any issue. One of our biggest victories was over a plan to make us install Vessel Monitoring Systems on our boats. We would be forced to buy expensive tracking devices from a corporation and pay them to spy on us every month. I explained how requiring citizens to install tracking devices on our private property was unconstitutional and dubbed them Orwellian Vessel Monitoring Systems. One fishery manager argued that we should go along with it since that was how they did it in Russia. Wow! What a stunning statement. It seemed like the law would pass despite overwhelming opposition from fishermen and the public. Days before the final vote I called into a national radio program and asked everyone listening if they would contact the management council to politely oppose their Orwellian scheme. The vote was close but in favor of freedom. Council staff later told me that enough calls came in from across America opposing “Orwellian Vessel Monitoring Systems” that they swayed the vote. We have power in numbers. We can influence outcomes when enough of us stand united. The bigger the issue, the more people it takes. Polite persistence wins in the end.
Many problems we face can be solved by restricting freedom or promoting it. One of the problems plaguing our fisheries is habitat degradation that negatively impacts spawning success for many species. Stricter regulations on what we can catch is not achieving desired results in most cases. One solution that promotes freedom is to use hatcheries for stocking a wide variety of native seafood that lives wild and free until harvested by independent fishermen. This is a wonderful alternative to closing fisheries and letting global corporations cage large concentrations of genetically sterilized species in our public waters. Industrial fish farms are another way of privatizing our public resources by making public waters off-limits to the public. Wise use of regional hatcheries that stock natural seafood promotes food security for everyone. We can help stocks thrive at historically high levels while allowing more harvest by recreational and commercial fishermen. This makes us less dependent on factory farms for food. Recent events show how food supplies can be disrupted. We need to keep options open for feeding ourselves.
Stop and Review is one of the policies I advocate for in our fisheries. We should stop writing any more laws while reviewing existing ones to see what is working well and what is not. This is a concept that should be applied at all levels of government. Think of how many outdated, redundant, and irrelevant laws have accumulated over the centuries. Shouldn’t criminal laws boil down to doing no physical or financial harm to others? We must be very careful about using our justice system to enforce morality. That system can be turned on you when the moral views of those in power change. Enforcing morality has created a sliding scale of justice based on money and appearance. It has created a corporate prison system that profits off the misery of others. It tears families apart and creates real crime. It is time to think about if we should focus more on isolating violent criminals from civilized society or punishing people for perceived moral shortcomings. Perhaps we should help people with personal issues when they ask instead of imprisoning them. For those who take exception to this idea, please consider how Jesus reacted when some religious leaders were about to stone a woman for not living up to their high moral standards. When they asked Jesus what should be done, He said whoever was without sin should cast the first stone. He never suggested they ask Caesar to punish her for them. Jesus had compassion and forgave the woman. That is a message worth remembering. Would you rather be punished or forgiven for what those in power may see as your moral failures?
Self-governance with official representation is an idea I started promoting after our fishing license fees were doubled to create the Commercial Fishing Resource Fund. Some of this fund was supposed to help preserve and promote our fisheries. Questionable expenditures and difficulties renewing our licenses prompted me to ask that some funds be used to set up an official website where we could conveniently and securely purchase our licenses. The website would include a way for us to vote on funding priorities and who represents us on the appropriations committee. We could set an example for governing ourselves using modern technology. This concept could be applied in state and local governments within our Representative Republic framework. We could elect articulate, apolitical people who agree to do what their voters want. They could post bills and relevant information on our own secure websites where citizen legislators can discuss issues and hold votes. Our votes should be binding when a two-thirds majority of participating constituents in a suitable quorum agree on something. Our Public Servant would vote the way we told them or abstain if supermajority agreement could not be reached. The supermajority requirement avoids mob rule and helps people think about other points of view. Multiple smaller constituent groups numbering between 3 and 300 would be beneficial in many ways. Public Servants should only serve one term in each position to limit the corrupting influence of power. A coordinated effort by concerned citizens to elect true Public Servants would take special interest money out of the political equation. We could direct our Public Servants to push policies like Stop and Review. We could coordinate with other citizen legislators to convince traditional politicians they should work with us. We could show others around the globe how to practice self-governance with official representation. Good communication and coordination can help bring power back to the people. Apathy is our biggest obstacle to making this a reality.
Financial Freedom is something we all want but many find illusive. Health problems or losing a job can be financially devastating. Politicians talk of a Universal Basic Income that would help cover living expenses. That sounds nice until you think about how it would be funded and what strings will be attached. What if we could produce new revenue streams from our public resources that is paid directly to citizens? Something I advocate for with regards to offshore energy production is that State and Local Governments should have the Right of First Refusal on new Public Water Leases. Rather than subsidizing global corporations to exploit our resources, we should consider options for using them to generate energy and revenue for us. We could guide our Public Servants in a direction that enriches and empowers citizens through wise use of public resources. Public roadways could be lined with solar panels and windmills that produce power and profit for the people living where they are located. One option for storing some of this inconsistent energy for use when needed is to make hydrogen from wastewater. Hydrogen is a clean burning gas that can be produced locally to run community power plants. Fresh water is another public resource we should manage for everyone’s benefit. Desalination plants can produce an endless supply of fresh water and income for the public. Dependable supplies of food, water, and power are necessary for civilized society. Now is the time to think about how we can pay our bills with fewer traditional jobs available as automation replaces more workers. We can make the best of any situation when enough independent thinkers work together. Wise management of our Public Servants and Public Resources can make doing the People’s Business, the people’s business that pays us for paying attention.
We are at a crossroads in human history where freedom could wither away or spread across the globe for all of humanity to enjoy forever. The choice is ours if we will think for ourselves or trust politicians and corporations to think for us. We have the power within us to collectively make our world a wonderful place where freedom flourishes and peace prevails. Please do not let apathy keep you from doing your part to secure the blessings of liberty for us and future generations.
Thank you for taking time to read this and using the calendar. Please consider helping spread this message by giving them as gifts. Look for the 2023 calendar next November. They are made in America and can be purchased on the website for any price over cost of shipping. You have an open invitation to discuss anything written here or just read more about these ideas at: www.freefish7.com
I will post each paragraph separately with more information and a way to comment or ask any questions at this link: freefish7 - A Fisherman's Freedom Philosophy
Before we go any further, let me try to explain a little bit about where I am coming from. I lean left on some issues and right on others while always staying focused on preserving liberty. I love America and the freedom it offers. Being one of the last independent commercial fishermen bolsters an already profound appreciation for freedom. Working as a fisheries advocate has provided unique insight as to how and why things are happening the way they are. Fellow fishermen have contributed greatly to my way of thinking. The first person who took me fishing to make money had some fingers that were not quite right. They had been blown apart by an anti-aircraft shell that landed in the airplane he was about to parachute out of during World War 2. He grabbed the shell and tossed it out of their plane just as it exploded. His heroic actions saved everyone onboard and engrained the price of freedom in a young boy. One wise captain I fished with for years shared a quote that always stuck with me. “When everybody thinks alike, nobody thinks.” Jesus was a fisherman who always knew right where to catch what was needed. He fed fish to multitudes of followers while teaching them things like the Golden Rule. That simple concept of treating others the way we want to be treated could bring peace on earth if we all practiced it.
Anger over what was happening with the mismanagement of our offshore fisheries motivated me to get involved as an advocate. Drastic cuts were made to many quotas based on what fishery managers referred to as “fatally flawed data”. This created dangerous derby fisheries that encouraged us to catch as much as possible before the quotas were met, and seasons closed. It became extremely wasteful when some fish were illegal while others living in similar areas could be kept. We were required to discarded tons of dead and dying fish. During the final days of a snapper season, another fisherman fell off their boat in rough weather. That father of a baby girl was trying to make some money to support his family before the season closed. He died a horrible death alone in the cold water on a dark winter night. His body was never found. They had been fishing within a few miles of us that trip. The missing fisherman could easily have been somebody from our boat. I never wanted to fish again in these unsafe and wasteful conditions. This was the final push needed to start giving public comments at fishery meetings offering common-sense solutions that would stop the derby fisheries. Those comments explained how managing quotas with appropriate possession limits would let us target fish with high limits while keeping most of what we caught with lower limits. This simple solution would allow us to harvest a dependable supply of sustainable seafood safely and responsibly for consumers. It was extremely frustrating to see my pleas for help fall on deaf ears. Even the environmental groups at those meetings did not seem to care. A justifiable anger was fueled and evident at first. I started looking into why things were happening the way they were. Everything pointed to a plan for privatizing our fisheries and consolidating control of them so a few global corporations could own our public resources. Not what I was expecting to learn. It quickly became clear that being angry was not going to help anything. Calmly explaining the problems while offering logical solutions people could understand and support was a much better approach. This life lesson could be summed up as ignorance breeds anger just as gentleness is born of wisdom.
Traveling across America talking with people from all walks of life about ways we could preserve our freedom to fish and access seafood from public waters was an eye-opening experience. There were pleasant surprises as well as disappointing moments during interactions with people who should have been nicer and some, I had no idea what to expect. Spending time with Middle Easterners for the first time was inspiring as they seemed to understand the importance of freedom in a way many others did not. I will never forget this guy with a big smile and sparkle in his eye emphatically telling me to never stop fighting for freedom. Meeting so many different people confirmed that being equally respectful to everyone was the best approach. Respect is universally appreciated and usually reciprocal.
Public support was key to success. Calendars provided a way to inform the public about solutions that would benefit everyone and our environment. Postcard petitions gave people an easy way to get involved. There was a calendar picture on them with information about whatever issue was most pressing at the time. They stated support for or opposition to something and were already addressed. Thousands of people signed and sent postcards for different issues. There was a level of public support that could turn the tide on any issue. One of our biggest victories was over a plan to make us install Vessel Monitoring Systems on our boats. We would be forced to buy expensive tracking devices from a corporation and pay them to spy on us every month. I explained how requiring citizens to install tracking devices on our private property was unconstitutional and dubbed them Orwellian Vessel Monitoring Systems. One fishery manager argued that we should go along with it since that was how they did it in Russia. Wow! What a stunning statement. It seemed like the law would pass despite overwhelming opposition from fishermen and the public. Days before the final vote I called into a national radio program and asked everyone listening if they would contact the management council to politely oppose their Orwellian scheme. The vote was close but in favor of freedom. Council staff later told me that enough calls came in from across America opposing “Orwellian Vessel Monitoring Systems” that they swayed the vote. We have power in numbers. We can influence outcomes when enough of us stand united. The bigger the issue, the more people it takes. Polite persistence wins in the end.
Many problems we face can be solved by restricting freedom or promoting it. One of the problems plaguing our fisheries is habitat degradation that negatively impacts spawning success for many species. Stricter regulations on what we can catch is not achieving desired results in most cases. One solution that promotes freedom is to use hatcheries for stocking a wide variety of native seafood that lives wild and free until harvested by independent fishermen. This is a wonderful alternative to closing fisheries and letting global corporations cage large concentrations of genetically sterilized species in our public waters. Industrial fish farms are another way of privatizing our public resources by making public waters off-limits to the public. Wise use of regional hatcheries that stock natural seafood promotes food security for everyone. We can help stocks thrive at historically high levels while allowing more harvest by recreational and commercial fishermen. This makes us less dependent on factory farms for food. Recent events show how food supplies can be disrupted. We need to keep options open for feeding ourselves.
Stop and Review is one of the policies I advocate for in our fisheries. We should stop writing any more laws while reviewing existing ones to see what is working well and what is not. This is a concept that should be applied at all levels of government. Think of how many outdated, redundant, and irrelevant laws have accumulated over the centuries. Shouldn’t criminal laws boil down to doing no physical or financial harm to others? We must be very careful about using our justice system to enforce morality. That system can be turned on you when the moral views of those in power change. Enforcing morality has created a sliding scale of justice based on money and appearance. It has created a corporate prison system that profits off the misery of others. It tears families apart and creates real crime. It is time to think about if we should focus more on isolating violent criminals from civilized society or punishing people for perceived moral shortcomings. Perhaps we should help people with personal issues when they ask instead of imprisoning them. For those who take exception to this idea, please consider how Jesus reacted when some religious leaders were about to stone a woman for not living up to their high moral standards. When they asked Jesus what should be done, He said whoever was without sin should cast the first stone. He never suggested they ask Caesar to punish her for them. Jesus had compassion and forgave the woman. That is a message worth remembering. Would you rather be punished or forgiven for what those in power may see as your moral failures?
Self-governance with official representation is an idea I started promoting after our fishing license fees were doubled to create the Commercial Fishing Resource Fund. Some of this fund was supposed to help preserve and promote our fisheries. Questionable expenditures and difficulties renewing our licenses prompted me to ask that some funds be used to set up an official website where we could conveniently and securely purchase our licenses. The website would include a way for us to vote on funding priorities and who represents us on the appropriations committee. We could set an example for governing ourselves using modern technology. This concept could be applied in state and local governments within our Representative Republic framework. We could elect articulate, apolitical people who agree to do what their voters want. They could post bills and relevant information on our own secure websites where citizen legislators can discuss issues and hold votes. Our votes should be binding when a two-thirds majority of participating constituents in a suitable quorum agree on something. Our Public Servant would vote the way we told them or abstain if supermajority agreement could not be reached. The supermajority requirement avoids mob rule and helps people think about other points of view. Multiple smaller constituent groups numbering between 3 and 300 would be beneficial in many ways. Public Servants should only serve one term in each position to limit the corrupting influence of power. A coordinated effort by concerned citizens to elect true Public Servants would take special interest money out of the political equation. We could direct our Public Servants to push policies like Stop and Review. We could coordinate with other citizen legislators to convince traditional politicians they should work with us. We could show others around the globe how to practice self-governance with official representation. Good communication and coordination can help bring power back to the people. Apathy is our biggest obstacle to making this a reality.
Financial Freedom is something we all want but many find illusive. Health problems or losing a job can be financially devastating. Politicians talk of a Universal Basic Income that would help cover living expenses. That sounds nice until you think about how it would be funded and what strings will be attached. What if we could produce new revenue streams from our public resources that is paid directly to citizens? Something I advocate for with regards to offshore energy production is that State and Local Governments should have the Right of First Refusal on new Public Water Leases. Rather than subsidizing global corporations to exploit our resources, we should consider options for using them to generate energy and revenue for us. We could guide our Public Servants in a direction that enriches and empowers citizens through wise use of public resources. Public roadways could be lined with solar panels and windmills that produce power and profit for the people living where they are located. One option for storing some of this inconsistent energy for use when needed is to make hydrogen from wastewater. Hydrogen is a clean burning gas that can be produced locally to run community power plants. Fresh water is another public resource we should manage for everyone’s benefit. Desalination plants can produce an endless supply of fresh water and income for the public. Dependable supplies of food, water, and power are necessary for civilized society. Now is the time to think about how we can pay our bills with fewer traditional jobs available as automation replaces more workers. We can make the best of any situation when enough independent thinkers work together. Wise management of our Public Servants and Public Resources can make doing the People’s Business, the people’s business that pays us for paying attention.
We are at a crossroads in human history where freedom could wither away or spread across the globe for all of humanity to enjoy forever. The choice is ours if we will think for ourselves or trust politicians and corporations to think for us. We have the power within us to collectively make our world a wonderful place where freedom flourishes and peace prevails. Please do not let apathy keep you from doing your part to secure the blessings of liberty for us and future generations.
Thank you for taking time to read this and using the calendar. Please consider helping spread this message by giving them as gifts. Look for the 2023 calendar next November. They are made in America and can be purchased on the website for any price over cost of shipping. You have an open invitation to discuss anything written here or just read more about these ideas at: www.freefish7.com
I will post each paragraph separately with more information and a way to comment or ask any questions at this link: freefish7 - A Fisherman's Freedom Philosophy