Can You Stomach This?

There are many reasons for man to kill animals: for food, for sport, for science, for conservation, and even to maintain their dignity and quality of life.

Some people take the line that life is sacred and untouchable and that to even use animals is sinful. Many vegans are like this. I think they are crazy.

Other people have a more nuanced view of which animals can be hunted for food, for sport, and which are elevated to a higher status like pets. It would take a tome to decipher the various views and taboos and I’m not sure if any wide sweeping moral ethic would fit my views or the views of anyone.

For that matter, I don’t think a single moral code can be employed by even the strictest fundamentalist. If ALL life is sacred, how do they justify eating vegetables? And how can they justify their own immune systems killing off bacteria and viruses? The line has to be drawn somewhere, as it is impossible to live without something else dying.

Given that amazing amount of waffling, I find the following video rather disturbing. It depicts a handful of apparently modestly skilled hunters participating in a canned hunt for a male Lion. Their demeanor suggests that they don’t have a lot of strategy or preparation, there are multiple shooters standing in close proximity to each other and in each other’s lines of sight to the target. I think it’s a canned hunt because you can see what appears to be fence posts with wire fencing in the area, and no apparent vehicle which would be required if these fellows had to search the great open spaces to find a lion.

The fact that the South African and Colorado hunting companies advertise at the end of the video also leaves little doubt that this is a less than “organic” hunting experience.

Frankly, I don’t find the hunting of lions and elephants within my zone of comfort. I certainly would never do it, and I think the case that it should be banned wins out over hunting freedom.

When I watch that video, I have to ask, would I have cared if the Lion had ripped that hunter’s throat out? No, not really. That’s the risk you take when you go to the Lion’s house with your gun and are not that great of a shot, even up close. And hey, you’re there to kill the Lion, you’re going to get no sympathy from me if it kills you first.

These idiots don’t deserve a high-five for their efforts, the video clearly shows who is the better hunter and the higher species. I’m actually amazed that given their circular firing squad that none of the hunters got shot themselves. While there is more sport here than people who shoot from a sniper stand on the back of their trucks a mile or so away, it’s still not a fair game and I’d say that the outcome is highly unsatisfactory.

Speaking of unsatisfactory outcomes and animal death, someone forgot to tell Patrick that the election is over and he can stop his snotty mocking of Sarah Palin, especially over “Turkeygate.”

What exactly is the problem here worthy of blame? Palin didn’t slaughter the turkey, she was at the farm for the exact opposite reason, the customary “pardoning” of a turkey. And she’s an admitted hunter, outdoors woman, and unrepentant meat eater, so there isn’t any hypocrisy involved.

The scandal is clearly a set up by the media who framed the shot and adjusted the depth of field and focus to keep the slaughter in large crisp detail right next to Palin’s face while they asked her boring and irrelevant questions just to keep her there long enough for the deed to happen, twice. They clearly had an agenda to tie Palin with the slaughter and get footage of them in the same frame. But Patrick likes to blame the victim.

This is clearly some red meat for the Vegan/PeTA faction, and the other animal welfare folks. If we filmed Barack Obama giving a speech infront of an abortion clinic and you could see a fetus being sucked out of a woman and killed through the window, the “scandal” wouldn’t be about Obama, it’d be about the vile media constructing a shot to score points.

Where does Patrick and the other Obamatons think all that meat for Thanksgiving comes from? A nine-year-old was once at my house and asked me who hung all the apples on the tree in my back yard and why would they do that. The idiot didn’t know where apples came from. Do Democrats not understand where turkey comes from and that someone has to kill it, drain it, gut it, pluck it, wash it, and butcher it before it comes in those vacuum sealed bags in the grocery store?

What makes this incredibly stupid is that Patrick is a man how sends his dogs down holes to harass and kill wild animals for fun. He posts pictures of his exploits on his blog and those pictures include slightly bloody dead animals that he or his dogs have just dispatched. And he can’t stand to see some Turkeys humanely killed in proximity to Sarah Palin?

Only a jerk would go “super nova” over Sarah Palin merely being filmed at a Turkey farm when he himself actually kills animals every weekend and brags about it on his blog, for fun. And to boot, Patrick wants us all to know more about the historic dying art of terrier work, mostly because we’re too modern and antiseptic to recall days when rats ran through the streets and our homes and our food and had to be dispatched by nasty little dogs. Does it really make sense for Mr. Down-to-Earth Outdoorsy Rat Hunter to be appaled with the perfectly natural killing of a turkey or two, for food?

Being a Director of Communications, I guess Patrick likes media spin and distorting facts to create a message at all costs. In his comments he suggests that it’s a stupid move because Palin didn’t manipulate the media or prevent them from manipulating the situation and that it’s better that people don’t see things like turkey slaughter, especially near politicians who have to craft bullshit images pretending to be whatever is unoffensive and polls well. No surprise he voted for Obama.

If you want a manufactured image of a fawning media, believe what they say about Obama and go “super nova” over hunters being filmed near dead turkeys. Although Patrick couldn’t stomach including my comment, this one sums it up pretty well:

The Palin video serves as a litmus test to determine which omnivores can deal with where their meat comes from and which cannot–that’s how I see it.

Say what you like about Gov. Palin’s politics, she is someone who knows where the meat on her plate comes from.

Poultry raisers know that the cone works well to calm and hold the bird before its throat is cut.

This interview will probably turn out to have been filmed at the organic turkey farm favored by Anchorage yuppies.

- Chas Clifton

In other words, it’s only a scandal if you’re a sheeple who doesn’t know where your food comes from and would prefer being lied to rather than down to earth honesty. Patrick thinks Palin isn’t ready for prime-time, and perhaps he’s right that she and every other Republican has proven ineffective at being heard over the media spin. But I’m confident she’s ready for game time. She, unlike Obama, actually has a record of reform, of bipartisanship, and of delivering the goods. People like Patrick hate her for it, but again, he prefers the appearance of competence instead of the actual proof.

Funny that he hates dog shows so much, he’d make a perfect spokesman for the industry.