stlhdh2o,

I believe I agree with many of your points.

I certainly do not support the idea of traditional rights, such as that we have been doing something forever so no we are going to keep doing it regardless of the consequences.

Also, god has nothing to do with my argument and I won't use the term "god given right" to support it.

"The existence of community, of society, is not guaranteed. Therefore the means and skills that are required to survive in the absence of society must be preserved."

I actually came up with that myself. If it has been written before I do not know who wrote it.

I believe that all living things have the right to attempt to survive and continue to propagate their species, sometimes at the expense of other species. While we could just refuse to teach our children how to fish, I believe it would be unwise to do so.

There are only two sources of food, food on land, and food in water. To ensure long term survival we need to retain the skills necessary to harvest both.

Ok, I had just about enough philosophy for today so I am going to spit out the real consequences of the "fishing privilege" opinion

I also feel privileged live in a country where we have many rights. But the way this country is set up, a government of the people, to publicly consider fishing a privilege really makes my stomach churn. A "right" can not be revoked of course. A privilege however, in this country, can be revoked, by a simple majority, and sometimes even a minority can pull it off. So I need to make this very clear. Pushing the ideals that sportfishing is a privilege is VERY VERY DANGEROUS to our sport long term. Probably not in our lifetime, but someday it might cost us dearly.