Florida Tea Party Adopts Grievance Against Endangered Manatees

Along with the Fed, health care reform, taxes, the TSA, Mexicans and secular governance, everyone can now add  "harmless, adorable manatees" to the list of things Tea Party Patriots would like to kill. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposed new rules to restrict motorized boating in a popular Florida wildlife refuge, because the boats are a threat to the endangered species. County officials have legitimate concerns that some of the regulations may harm business by dampening tourism to the refuge, but the Florida Tea Party, however, is officially upset because "God put humans before nature," and "this is a United Nations plot."

The St. Petersburg Times reports:  

"We cannot elevate nature above people," explained Edna Mattos, 63, leader of the Citrus County Tea Party Patriots, in an interview. "That's against the Bible and the Bill of Rights."

...

"We believe that (federal regulators') aim is to control the fish and wildlife, in addition to the use of the land that surrounds this area, and the people that live here and visit. … As most of us know, this all ties in to the United Nations' Agenda 21 and Sustainability."

Agenda 21 is a program, adopted by the U.N. in 1992, to encourage countries around the world to promote only development that does not harm nature. Pundit Glenn Beck and other conservatives have attacked it as an attempt to impose world government's rules on every aspect of American lives. The Citrus County tea party group's website says Agenda 21 is "designed to make humans into livestock."

Humans into livestock! Well here is something pretty terrifying: the manatee population in the bay has grown from 100 to over 550 since the federal wildlife refuge was established in 198o, and that is just too many of them for comfort. It is "manatee vs. human" as far as God, nature and Glenn Beck and the Bill of Rights are concerned. Whose side will you be on? [ St. Petersburg Times ]