From the WSJ Opinion Archives
SCENE & HEARD
Thoreau the Bums Out
Oregon's farmers embrace civil disobedience. Will it be so long, sucker fish?
Oregon's Klamath Valley made headlines this spring after the federal government brutally cut off 1,400 farms from water because of some "endangered" sucker fish. But the news coming out of Klamath Falls these days isn't really about legal briefs or junk science. It's about lawbreakin'.
Having been swindled by their government, the farmers, and a growing body of sympathizers, are engaging in a bit of conscientious objecting. Last week a group of 100 to 150 people calmly took a diamond-bladed saw and cutting torch to an irrigation canal's headgate, reopening the flow of water to their land. The county sheriff, prosecutors and the local irrigation district refused to lift a finger to stop them, though it has happened three times; they sat and watched.
Now laws are laws and should the feds come arresting, the Klamath farmers deserve a stay in the hoosegow. But what's impressive is that the farmers are ready for that stay. Indeed, what's rousing about the whole Klamath case is that it truly is some good, old-fashioned civil disobedience. In sharp contrast to the terrorism some radical environmental groups practice, this is a principled stand. An entire community has openly stepped forward to challenge the government's unjust laws.
But when it comes down to it, honest-to-goodness civil disobedience in the environmental field is in short supply. The media, of course, desperately try to pretend otherwise. When the Earth Liberation Front burns down a vacation home, the perpetrators are often, amazingly, described as civil disobedients, as it sounds much better than arsonists, thieves or terrorists.
The irony is that the bible of many enviro activists is none other than Henry David Thoreau's 1849 essay "On the Duty of Civil Disobedience." Thoreau, of course, has been studied by and inspired many thoughtful people, from Gandhi to Martin Luther King. In recent years, though, poor Henry has been hijacked by green goons with far lesser minds.
Thoreau's essay dwelt on the question of one's duty to make a principled stand against unjust laws. Key to making a principled stand is performing an act openly, so that all know you are objecting. Also important is taking the consequences of your actions. In Thoreau's case, he spent a night in jail after refusing to pay his taxes.
There's little question that Klamath's farmers have put themselves and their handiwork out for all to see. Their transgressions have happened in broad daylight; their pictures appeared in local newspapers and television stations. The act they committed was peaceful. On each occasion the water ran for only a few hours before the Bureau of Reclamation came to shut it down.
There is also little question that the law they are fighting, the Endangered Species Act, is unjust, at least in its present form. Originally designed for the commonsensical purpose of preserving species alongside humans, the act has become an evil weapon with which antidevelopment groups get rid of people they don't like. Indeed, environmental groups in the state have already drafted plans whereby the government would buy out the Klamath farmers and return the entire valley to a state of nature.
Unfortunately, the Endangered Species Act is now in contention with other, basic rights and laws. The farmers' water contracts have been the law of the valley since 1907. The Fifth Amendment guarantees a citizen's property rights. And last time I looked, the very basis of this country was the life and liberty of humans, not mud-sucking, bottom-dwelling fish. Perhaps, if the farmers were thrown in jail it would at least force a judge to weigh the Endangered Species Act against the rights of property owners.
Compare the Klamath farmers with the majority of environmental crusades. The Earth Liberation Front, which in recent months has torched a research lab at the University of Washington and a tree farm in Oregon, has "cells" across the country, made up of individuals who don't know one another's names. They are cowards who do their dirty work in the dead of the night. The laws they break aren't unjust, because the laws they break are simply those that allow people to run businesses and to live safely.
Perhaps it is because the Klamath farmers have been so principled that they have swayed many important people to their side. Indeed, Thoreau, who hoped that such example would cause others to follow their conscience, would have been proud. The county sheriff has declined to intervene, intimating it was none of his business. The district attorney told a local newspaper: "The sheriff and I are still of the opinion that damage to federal property is a federal issue." The Klamath Irrigation District, which operates the gates under contract, has refused to shut the gates after they were open, forcing the Bureau of Reclamation to do the dirty work itself.
And if the purpose of civil disobedience is also to gain attention, the farmers have accomplished their goal. Since their acts of defiance, national newspapers have been devoting daily coverage to the events. Lawyers and nonprofit groups have flocked to the city, offering help and support. Just last week, the Pacific Legal Foundation, a nonprofit that specializes in property rights, submitted an official petition requesting the government convene the "God Squad," a rarely used federal panel that has the ability to overrule the Endangered Species Act if human interests are at stake. Of course, the Klamath farmers haven't gotten the kind of salivating media attention of, say, Al Sharpton and his Vieques campaign, but it isn't a bad start.
In fact, maybe he'd be wielding that diamond-bladed saw himself.
Ms. Strassel is an assistant features editor of The Wall Street Journal's editorial page. Her column appears on alternate Thursdays.
