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The Social-Media Mob Bags Another Trophy
I don’t hunt and — at the risk of losing my conservative bona fides — I also don’t own a firearm and have never pulled the trigger on anything more powerful than a pellet gun. Furthermore, I agree that a distinction can be drawn between hunting animal populations that pose a threat when their numbers get too great and hunting rare or exotic animals purely for sport.
But even with no vested interest in the topic, I found myself rushing to the defense of Cecil the Lion’s “murderer,” Dr. Walter Palmer, a Minnesota dentist. Not because I agree with what he did, but because I disagree with what happened to him as a result of the story going viral.
For those of you who missed it, the short version is that Palmer enjoys big-game trophy hunting and paid more than $50,000 for what he believed to be a legal and properly-permitted expedition in Africa. As it turned out, there is significant doubt about whether Palmer and his guides acted legally, having allegedly lured Cecil off of a protected preserve in order to hunt him.
The bone of contention for critics actually isn’t the legality, but the death of a beautiful animal at the hands of an evil hunter. I saw comment after comment on all forms of social media calling for karmic justice to befall Palmer, with many going as far as to encourage others to do whatever they could to shut his business down.
The Yelp! page for his dental practice was flooded by terrible reviews based on his killing of this lion. Multiple articles from the heroes at Gawker Media and a few other lefty sites openly cheered the pitchfork-and-torch routine. Reports now indicate that his business is on hold (and the future of his practice is in doubt) and that Palmer has gone into hiding.
Several of the folks I saw commenting today openly rooted for Palmer’s death, while one person — who is actually a friend of mine — literally said that Palmer should be raped for killing this animal.
Raped.
Naturally, I told my friend that this was not only insane, but also that anyone who thinks someone should lose his business or his life for trophy hunting is more barbaric than trophy hunters are. Although my friend and I remain so, most of the people with whom I tried to engage — civilly and thoughtfully — were content to name-call and block when confronted with even a hint of an idea that didn’t mesh with their own view on the topic.
Again, I think being anti-trophy-hunting is an entirely reasonable position to take. However, the point where I jump off that train is when the anti-hunting folks think that someone who engages in this activity should not be able to make a living anymore, to say nothing of those who think he should be physically harmed.
In our fits of vengeance, we are far too quick to destroy people we’ve never met because they offend our sensibilities. Here, Palmer did something that many people find objectionable, but we’ve certainly seen similar things done to other folks who have done far less. The goal for most isn’t really “justice” in a traditional sense. Rather, despite their high-minded moralizing, they actually seek the brief, primitive euphoria of power coupled with feelings of superiority.
No regard is given to the life that may have been destroyed by these actions. And why should there be, after all? What is the life of this man compared to the life of a beautiful animal? Never mind that few even knew this animal existed before today. And never mind as well that many, many people get far more agitated over the death of a single lion than they do over — I don’t know, let me pull one example at random — the collection and sale of fetal body parts.
Thus, for the millionth time during the era of social media, the edges of what we might call “humanity” look just a bit more frayed tonight, and I am left to stick up for someone with whom I wouldn’t normally side.
Why? Because, even if I might otherwise oppose to trophy hunting, I’m much more strongly opposed to social-media mobs getting to decide who has the right to exist without fear of losing his job… or more.
Published in General
I don’t like Social Media mobs any more than I would have liked Lynch Mobs in the old West. From all accounts, the hunters in Zimbabwe have been arrested. Justice will have its day.
I think the larger issue here is whether anyone needs to hunt Lions for sport. My personal view is that it is necessary to kill predators who are threatening human life, such as the Tigers in India that kill villagers or Lions in Africa that are threatening villages. I am also completely on-board with killing animals for food. I must say however that killing for pure sport does not appeal to me. I see it as needless destruction of life.
I have a few friends who like to hunt deer and wild boar and I would not want to interfere with their right to do so as long as they obey any applicable laws. They do bring the meat home and eat it by the way.
So in summary, I don’t see a good reason for this Dentist to hunt a Lion in the wild but he does not deserve to lose his livelihood as a result.
I wonder whether the market will eventually correct not the pizza parlor or the dentist, but the mob?
That is, at the moment the phenomenon of instant electronic communication is new enough that people react to a thousand tweets as if it were a thousand letters to the editor or a thousand phone calls to their congressman’s office.
The medium is the message; if it’s easy and mindless to send, the recipient won’t (and needn’t) take it seriously. As I abjure my children every December 26th, even the most effusively grateful thank-you tweet will not convey what a hand-written, hand addressed, hand-put-in-the-mailbox letter can.
If you really want to threaten someone, pick up a pen.
No matter what the topic, you find a way to bring up Texas Tech cheerleaders. You have a true gift.
And yes, I remember that story. The fact facebook and twitter nonsense finds its way to the nightly news really makes one wonder about the state of journalism.
Also interesting to note that PETA has openly – and literally – called for Palmer to be hanged for killing this lion.
This is not hyperbole.
I wonder: Had we taken a poll of PETA employees even 48 hours ago, what percentage would have been opposed to the death penalty as a moral abomination? Eighty percent? Ninety?
Amazing how quickly some abandon their principles when they have an opportunity for vengeance.
Dude didn’t just kill a lion. Dude killed a celebrity lion.
Like it or not, it makes a difference.
What is missing from this discussion, although touched on by those bringing up how to preserve species, is what would have happened to the lion had there NOT been a dentist from Minnesota. (I assume here for the sake of argument that this was NOT a lion on an established preserve.)
The lion would have been killed by the villagers if it intruded on their area. If there is money to be made, the village will keep the lion alive.
My 2 cents worth: find out how many lions are killed a year by native peoples defending themselves or their neighbours. Put licenses on sale for, let’s say 50% of that number. Proceeds of sale go 90% to the villagers and 10% to nearest preserve.
The lion is a magnificent animal. But so is the wild boar. But only one gets the press interest. I would ask those who are so adamantly opposed to do a “what if” and consider that their objection is aesthetic rather than moral.
Celebrity Lion, is that a thing?
are you pitching a new reality show. :)
The sheer level of idiocy on a couple of these comments is profound.
What if the hunter had simply crushed the lion in strategic areas to kill it and then “harvest” his head for a trophy?
This.
Plus, this guy has a record of previous bad acts related to hunting:
“Walter Palmer, 55, of the Minneapolis suburb of Eden Prairie, pleaded guilty in 2008 to making false statements to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service about a black bear he fatally shot in western Wisconsin. Palmerhad a permit to hunt but shot the animal outside the authorized zone in 2006, then tried to pass it off as being killed elsewhere, according to court documents.”
“Kill” is such an ugly word. We are just harvesting tissue. who could complain about that?
Rename hunters “Lion Reproductive Health Specialists.”
I’m on the side of the lion – he was huge and obviously loved by the locals – and probably older and slower, so easy to bag. I may be conservative but hate guns and hunting. I’ll defend your right to have one, but I think our Constitution was meant for us to bear arms as a right to protect – that being said, guns should be used :
1. to defend yourself – (and I don’t think assault weapons created for military should be in the hands of civil society).
2. for hunting if you are hungry and need to feed yourself or family.
In a modern society, to kill an innocent animal to brag or put its head on your wall, or its skin under your feet to walk all over is just sick – sorry – but I have always felt that way.
If you are fortunate enough to experience a safari, and admire the beautiful animals, lucky you. If you have a desire to shoot one just for the thrill of it, there are plenty of virtual reality contraptions out there where you can leave real animals alone and still be “thrilled”. Don’t feel a bit sorry for this guy.
This is a picture I took at the entrance to the Matopos game reserve in Zimbabwe in 1997. It’s a little hard to read, but says suspected poachers may be shot on sight. And they mean it.
That’s a smaller issue, not a larger one. And if we are going to sit in judgment and limit human activities to things that humans “need” to do we are going to be a very repressive society, possibly the worst ever.
Do any one you posters denigrating the sport have the slightest idea what the industry means to the lives of people in Africa? Do you understand the sport itself? Do you understand that hunters are the biggest conservationalists on the planet? None if the detractors would willingly starve kids yet if they got their wish that’s what would happen? You think if legal hunting ended then Lions would be free? They’d be poached to extinction in a heartbeat with the money going to crooks. So your grand emotions, based no knowledge yet deep feelings, if executed will starve and kill Africans and end the species.
The same mental state that makes you distinguish between the killing of a celebrity lion and the killing of a less charismatic vertebrate probably means that you are a closet racist who thinks that killing Hollywood celebrities is bad but lynching inner-city African-Americans is no big problem. For some people, some mammalian lives matter more than others.
Also, population control. Lots of species’ breeding would get out of control if not for sport hunting.
Celebrity is not a race.
;-)
The guy lured the animal off of a game reserve by dragging a carcass behind a truck. For all intents and purposes he was a poacher, regardless of whatever legal permits he had obtained. Could and should have been shot on sight (see comment #44). And as I quoted in comment #40, this isn’t his first time being caught bypassing the game laws.
He’s a dirtbag, pure and simple.
This:
And never mind as well that many, many people get far more agitated over the death of a single lion than they do over — I don’t know, let me pull one example at random — the collection and sale of fetal body parts.
Thanks garrett for a great piece you speak for me
Typing w/ my fat peasant fingers on iphone please auto correct my punc & grammar
If that hunter did that act or has knowledge of how the animal was lured off then that hunter has no ethics at all and is a disgrace to hunters.
As far as his issue w fish and game, eh, not so sure. Some fish and game folks are pretty slimy but maybe this hunter is the slimy guy in that beat story ( probably ).
As far as people extrapolating what this guy may or may not have done to pontificate about hunting, the depth of their ignorance reaches the greatest pelagic trenches
I’m wholly with DocJay.
I don’t hunt, and don’t want to. But there is no denying that sport hunts keep people alive because it is an industry that Africa desperately needs.
I don’t think an unborn baby is a full human being. But ANY unborn baby human is worth more than some famous cat.
Dirtbags have rights, too.
And nothing is pure and simple, not even dirtbags.
I have a friend who runs a giant game area for hunting. Poachers killed a few of his elephants so he spent a week hunting them down and killing them. It was a tense week for his wife. Confused? Well that’s Africa.
I’ll have to remember that the next time I refer to Celebrity-Americans as a separate socio-ethnic group.
I rejected a fully paid for trip to hunt in Africa because I see no need to kill like that. I’d never dream of judging another ethical hunter’s decision though. That’s lunacy.
Building on some of the discussion above – another thing that I tried to challenge people with yesterday on Facebook and elsewhere (shame on me for trying, I know) was: What are the rules? If this weren’t a famous lion, should the dentist still be killed? What if he were trophy hunting, but it was a grizzly or a deer? These are also beautiful creatures, no?
The responses were, to put it mildly, intellectually inconsistent, bordering on incoherent.
First, I am sadly familiar with the mentality of the trophy hunter. My brother-in-law, an avid big game hunter, once said that he had heard that grizzly bears may soon be placed on the endangered species list. He hoped to bag one on his next trip before they were. Although I enjoyed the sport of quail hunting I never understood the thrill/challenge of shooting a deer grazing motionless in a field.
Secondly, is not the social media’s attack on this dentist typical of the liberal mantra today? If you disagree with someone’s position or actions you do not try to defeat them with honest debate. You attack them personally with every attempt to destroy them both professionally and financially. Further evidence of our culture’s loss of civility. Add animal cruelty sadist to the list of labels; racist, bigot, homophobe, anti-feminist, etc., with which liberals love to demonize conservatives.