Guest post by Lindsay Perigo
The fathomless fatuity of Faecesbook infantiles and their ilk on or off the Internet—not to mention the warp in their moral compass—has been abundantly evident this past week as they have gone into outrage-overdrive over the killing by a recreational hunter of Zimbabwe icon Cecil the Lion. It was the wont of Cecil, a tourist attraction, to roam around Hwange National Park, where he had protected status. On the occasion in question he was lured out by hunting bait. The hunter, American dentist Walter Palmer, was unaware of Cecil's identity and celebrity status. Having acquired, he claims, a legal bow-and-arrow permit, and the right to hunt with it, Walter shot Cecil. But not fatally. Cecil fled. He was found two days later, despatched with a rifle shot and beheaded.
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) co-founder and President Ingrid Newkirk released a statement that included the following:
Hunting is a coward’s pastime. If, as has been reported, this dentist and his guides lured Cecil out of the park with food so as to shoot him on private property, because shooting him in the park would have been illegal, he needs to be extradited, charged, and, preferably, hanged. [My bold—LP] To get a thrill at the cost of a life, this man gunned down a beloved lion, Cecil with a high-powered weapon. All wild animals are beloved by their own mates and infants, but to hunters like this overblown, over-privileged little man, who lack empathy, understanding, and respect for living creatures, they are merely targets to kill, decapitate, and hang up on a wall as a trophy. The photograph of this dentist, smiling over the corpse of another animal, who, like Cecil, wanted only to be left in peace, will disgust every caring soul in the world.
Hollywood bimbo Mia Farrow tweeted the address of Palmer's dental surgery, presumably so that deranged PETA-types would go there, do a Baltimore on his premises and do to him what, in other circumstances, Cecil might have done: tear him limb from limb. Or, perhaps, hang him.
Oscar Wilde characterised fox-hunting as "the unspeakable in pursuit of the inedible." It may be that Mr. Palmer did something unspeakable. There may well be a legal and moral case to make against him for the terrible suffering he inflicted upon Cecil; regardless, what he did was not remotely—or shouldn't be—a hanging offence. That, however, is not my concern here. My issue with the unhinged zealots rampaging on Twit-Witter and Faecesbook is that few of them have any business invoking "caring souls" in any of their ejaculations whatsoever since their stunning indifference when it comes to murder and torture perpetrated upon human beings by totalitarian dictators shows them to be as uncaring as it's possible to be when it matters most. By their conspicuous silence, these people support those despots!
The regime of the Marxist Mugabe in Zimbabwe itself is a classic case in point. Mugabe has the blood of tens of thousands on his hands, beginning in the 80s and continuing to the present day. Notwithstanding an exemplary new constitution approved by referendum (allowed by Mugabe under extreme duress) in 2013, laws remain in place that stifle free speech and suppress dissent. While it is nominally otherwise, Zimbabwe remains in reality a one-party state. Women engaged in political opposition are routinely raped by Mugabe's goons. Journalists who write critically of him are still likely to be beaten up by those same goons. In its latest Freedom in the World Report, the respected Freedom House still classifies Zimbabwe as "unfree" (its other two categories being "free" and "partly free"). Which champion of Cecil the Lion, which PETA assassin, has ever had a word to say about this?
Gay sex continues to be illegal in Zimbabwe. According to Mugabe: "It degrades human dignity. It's unnatural, and there is no question ever of allowing these people to behave worse than dogs and pigs. If dogs and pigs do not do it [sic], why must human beings? We have our own culture, and we must re-dedicate ourselves to our traditional values that make us human beings. ... What we are being persuaded to accept is sub-animal behaviour and we will never allow it here. If you see people parading themselves as Lesbians and Gays, arrest them and hand them over to the police!"
Not just mutual penetration, but hugging, kissing and holding hands by members of the same sex are imprisonable offences. When the US Supreme Court gave the nod to gay marriage, Mugabe mockingly sought Obama's hand. (Actually, it would be a good match. Economically speaking, Mugabe is merely Obamarx on steroids, without pesky constraints.)
What men may not do to each other in Zimbabwe, Mugabe has assuredly done to the economy. Years ago he confiscated the farms of 4000 white farmers and handed them to blacks who had no clue what to do with them, fast-tracking his country to basket-case status. At the time I write this, 1 USD = 361,900 ZWD.
Again I ask, where are the PETA assassins and their fellow-travelers in all of this? Nowhere in sight. In truth, if you pursue them on such matters, you find that typically they're sympathetic to the regimes of Zimbabwe, North Korea, Cuba, Iran, ISIS et al, since those regimes are anti-capitalist and anti-America ... and American capitalism, of course, is the origin of all evil, including cruelty to animals. PETA's hysterical hyenas may be up in arms about the posthumous beheading of Cecil, but where are they on the live beheading of humans by ISIS? People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals are remarkably unfastidious when it comes to the unethical treatment of people. Indeed, we might say of Ms. Newkirk and her ilk that they are "overblown, over-privileged little people, who lack empathy, understanding, and respect for living human beings."
Rights pertain to the species capable of conceiving them—human beings. Cecil had no concept of rights—just ask any zebra or tourist he might have eaten. Humans may arguably bestow honorary rights on animals incapable of conceiving them (or protect them via ordinary human property rights), and prosecute each other for their breach, but let's keep our empathy for Cecil in perspective. It shouldn't blind us to or trump—much less justify—man's inhumanity to man.
He can be found at his website, SOLO for Sense of Life Objectivists, his website LindsayPerigo.Com, and even—on occasions—at Facebook.
9 comments:
Hear hear!
People are commenting on Cecil because it is topical. By Perigo's logic no one should care about such issues as long as there are backwards regimes like Zimbabwe. That is ridiculous. But I suppose it can be expected from someone who uses such juvenile terms as 'faecesbook'.
They weren't just commenting. They were in an hysterical mindless lynch-mob frenzy. Nice blank-out.
It's hardly surprising that Perigo cares more about gay sex than endangered animals.
So why do you?
I suppose you could contemplate *why* it is topical when backwards regimes like Zimbabwe are not ... ?
Call me old-fashioned, but I'd choose a world full of exotic animals over a world full of gay sex.
Luckily they are not mutually exclusive.
Pretty simple: It's to do with why 'news' has 'new' in it.
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