And I'm saying the golden rule is certainly not applied in social politics. 90% of people are happy to ban pollution from a small groups, while exempting themselves and all their own hobbies. The smaller the group, the more punitive the majority is willing to be. Fishermen might not get much sympathy, but prohibition on dog ownership or international vacations is unthinkable.
In my experience, small businesses, farmers, and sole proprietors almost never win out over environmental concerns. Big business gets a pass.
I think hunters and outdoorspeople are often positioned to see the hypocrisy of all this. They see a few tiny fishing boats being banned from California harbors, while massive container ships chug through the bay endlessly full of single use garbage.
They see fishing restrictions while entire municipalities discharge wastewater into the rivers and factory ships dragnet the ocean to sell at Safeway.
I guess there's a ton of overlap between "society" as an abstract idea and "the state" when it comes to regulations.
Opposing environmental regulations by saying "this is bad for my hobby" won't gain much sympathy, golden-rule-wise.
> Nobody cares if someone has spent their life building a fishing business and 300K loan on boat, the social consensus is haha, sucks to suck loser.
Hard to say what happened in this case. But usually business interests tend to win out over environmental concerns.