Anti-hunting advocates are off the rails

Anti-hunting advocates are off the rails

I get really sick of the anti-hunting rhetoric that passes as normal these days.  People seem to be quickly willing to denigrate hunting and hunters.  Many times these folks are vegetarian or vegan and often animal rights activists who are opposed to the idea of killing animals.  This position gets quickly under my skin because first off fishing (which I also support) seems to me to be much more horrible way to harvest an animal.  Catch and release programs are perhaps the worst of all from a moral stand-point.  Take an animal, hook it through its mouth, drag it through the water to exhaustion, pull it out of water til it is nearly suffocated then let it go.  By comparison hunting, NOT sport hunting, does not allow for this type of activity, you either kill an animal or you don’t.   To be clear I’m not in favor of sport hunting, you should only kill animals you plan to eat.

Secondly, animals and animal products are a fully integrated part of our existence and although I respect their right to attempt to not use animals in any way, I believe they have to also respect other people’s rights to use animals.  I do agree that animals should be used for food and products, not simply killed for sport.  I’m also in favor of treating animals with compassion, not humanely, as the root of that word implies we should treat animals as human beings, personally I can’t go there, that’s how we end up with people giving their dogs face lifts. 

The anti-hunting attitude has reduced hunting levels in the United States, correspondingly deer populations have exploded to the point of a really beautiful  animal becoming a pest animal.  They are hell on gardens, landscaping and worse they have become an extremely dangerous traffic risk in some parts of the country.  I personally hit three deer with my car when I lived in upstate New York and it can be a truly terrifying experience, not to mention a deadly one for humans and deer.

Recently what has gotten under my skin is the fury over a California official legally hunting and killing a mountain lion in Washington State.  He is being attacked because hunting mountain lions in California is illegal.  So effectively a man is being questioned for undertaking a legal act in another state.  This is beyond ridiculous and just shows how far off the rails anti-hunting folks have gotten.

 

 

To my surprise, I’m defending Sarah Palin

So apparently Sarah Palin shot a caribou on her reality show.  Unfortunately I haven’t seen the episode so I can’t speak to the manner in which former governor Palin carried herself but that doesn’t seem to be the issue that is getting headlines.  She seems to have been taken to task for the brutal concept of hunting, her response was basically that if you are wearing leather shoes, or sitting on a leather couch or eating a hamburger you’re being hypocritical for criticizing someone for hunting.  I have to agree with Sarah Palin, yes, I said it, I agree with Sarah Palin.  Now Aaron Sorkin took umbrage with former Governor Palin’s response and has said he’s ok with eating meat or wearing a leather belt but isn’t up for torturing animals.  You can see his comments at the link below:

http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/tv/2010/12/09/2010-12-09_aaron_sorkin_sarah_palins_alaska_is_a_snuff_film_and_exalaska_governor_is_derang.html

Now just by using his own words Aaron Sorkin is a giant hypocrite, unless of course the cows killed to make his burger, or his belt were gently lulled to sleep and somehow humanely killed.  Maybe Aaron Sorkin doesn’t actually know how cows are killed in the slaughterhouses, on the off-chance he’s reading this article, I’ve provided some information at the following link, fair warning, PETA freaks probably shouldn’t click on this link, it will be too much for your delicate constitutions:

http://www.fao.org/docrep/003/x6909e/x6909e09.htm

Dear Mr. Sorkin, as you can see on the link they fire a bolt into the cow’s head and then cut an artery and bleed it to death.  I realize in your eyes this is radically different from firing a bullet into the heart and then bleeding the animal, but I have trouble seeing the difference.  Oh wait, that’s it, the animal shot during hunting was living wild and free, the cow was restrained in a metal box and was assassinated. 

Now, I’m a carnivore and a hunter, I wear leather and I try in my life not to be a hypocrite.  If you are going to eat meat and wear leather, actually if you are going to eat at all you must recognize that we kill to live.  Yes, even PETA freaks, vegetarians and vegans, we all kill to eat.  We kill and eat plants and animals, the only people who don’t kill to eat would be someone who is fruitivorous and I don’t think I’ve ever met a fruitivore.

On top of that we all kill everyday, we destroy bacteria and viruses, we even step on bugs.  So let’s get off the hunter’s backs, what they do is more honest than what the rest of us can claim, they actually know where some of their food comes from.  Now to be clear, I’m talking about hunters who eat what they kill, not sport hunters who waste what they kill, which is a very small part of the hunting population.  As a matter of fact the Lyme Disease epidemic in this country:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyme_disease

is related to increasing deer populations which correlates with a reduction in hunting in this country.  Activists have succeeded in making hunting unpopular, but every action has consequences so the idea that stopping hunting has nothing but good implications is truly faulty.  PETA the largest hypocritical organization on Earth next to perhaps McDonalds, has been one of the groups who has actively tried to end hunting in America.  I’d have some respect for them if it wasn’t for the fact that PETA themselves actually kills animals, you can see more at the Newsweek link below:

http://www.newsweek.com/2008/04/27/peta-and-euthanasia.html

So let’s recap, Sarah Palin good, PETA bad, well at least on this issue, my conservative friends shouldn’t get too excited this is far from me endorsing little miss I can see Russia for president.

Why Thanksgiving is my Favorite Holiday

I love Thanksgiving, it may be the only holiday I truly love.  Why?  Well mostly because it’s unaffiliated, it’s not a religious holiday or a patriotic holiday, there is no abstract reasoning to this holiday.  This is a holiday that is solely about what is near and dear to us and an opportunity to say thanks for all of it.  I would point out that I’ve hosted, and been part of a lot of orphan Thanksgivings in my time, but never an orphan 4th of July or Christmas.  One of the beauties of Thanksgiving is that you chose who is your family that day whether they are blood relatives or not.

Another reason I love this day are the traditions that exist, happy get togethers, food lots of food and football.  For me when I was young the tradition was just a little different in that it started with deer hunting, and particularly when my grandfather was still alive, it was a day to go out and spend some time in the woods with him.  Now I know those of you opposed to hunting won’t get this, but a big part of the reason you’re out there is the quiet moments of the early mornings out in nature, and to have my grandpa along, so much the better.  So we would wake early, go out for a couple of hours, come home and eat a huge breakfast.  Then we’d walk in the mid-day and come home to warmth and football and a feast.  Being an Irish-Italian family that meant the standard Turkey dinner with  the addition of lasagna, meatballs, sausage and maybe a bit of venison thrown in, heaven.

I know that a lot of folks don’t like the excess of Thanksgiving and think this day of what might legitimately be called gluttony is obscene when people are homeless and hungry.  I disagree, I think if we always stay focused on people less fortunate you remain perpetually unhappy.  In my opinion taking one day a year to spoil yourself, eat too much and revel in whatever excess you have is not only sensible but necessary.  We have 364 additional days to help others, what would be wrong is if you didn’t take any of those other days to help.

So Happy Thanksgiving friends, enjoy your day, your family, your friends and your feast, relax it’s ok to be happy today.