Cecil the Lion

I'm with you completely!

Re: death threats
There is nobody so tolerant as he who will kill the "intolerant".

#1 mudbug on 2015-07-29 13:37 (Reply)

Well put.

You might try Scott Adam's "Dilbert" characterisation and call those morons "induhviduals." It's very satisfying to write.

#2 Assistant Village Idiot (Link) on 2015-07-29 13:37 (Reply)

It's not well put. It's painting in false dichotomies.

#2.1 Ten on 2015-07-29 18:09 (Reply)

I don't think that's a proper use of that phrase, but I think I understand your complaint.

I went back over the list and thought that most of them held up. Being "for the people" and getting $600 haircuts may not be impossible to reconcile, but it's close, just as an example.

#2.1.1 Assistant Village Idiot (Link) on 2015-07-30 12:08 (Reply)

Planned parenthood vs. Lions

What if we aborted lions?

#3 bd on 2015-07-29 13:44 (Reply)

Imagine the global outrage if people were caught sorting through tissue and bits from aborted lions. The horror!

#3.1 Portlandmermaid on 2015-07-30 11:18 (Reply)

Also, my dentist is killing me with bills.

#4 Bird Dog on 2015-07-29 13:51 (Reply)

The killing of Cecil was stupid and sad. The dentist's hobby doesn't much impress me.

But none of that justifies the death threats and the insane fervour of social media in invading the dentist's life.

(It would be perfectly legitimate to simply boycott his practice. Why help fund his big-game hunting if you don't approve of it? Find another dentist.)

#5 JJM on 2015-07-29 14:27 (Reply)

Certain people go to Africa all the time to hunt 'big game.' The only thing this dentist did wrong is hire the wrong guys to find him a lion. Where is the outrage about any and all Americans who go to Africa to big game hunt???

I don't understand the need to kill wild animals for sport, rather than for meat (such as deer, elk, etc.), but some people like to do it. There are some things the bring Africa a lot of money, and big game hunting and safaris are big $$ for them.

#6 MissT on 2015-07-29 14:44 (Reply)

BD, maybe we all ought to wear a nametag saying
"Hello. My name is OFFENDED, you rotten piece of garbage!"

#7 Sam L. on 2015-07-29 14:50 (Reply)

Lion Lives Matter. Justice for Cecil

#8 D2E on 2015-07-29 15:03 (Reply)

I have enough hatred to spread around.

while it is not my wish that that asshatted dentist be killed by lions, I hope he's hunted out of business and forced into some sort of witless protection program and his business destroyed by crowd-sourced persecution.

#9 Donny "The Bear Jew" Donowitz on 2015-07-29 15:25 (Reply)

I'd prefer to not have any hatred. I know I have some, but I'm trying to get rid of it. It's just plain unhealthy.

I am very tired of being told what's the latest "cause du jour" and how I should react to it. Cecil was a lion. A child's body in a dumpster is getting less coverage than a damned lion!

Talk about misplaced priorities.

#9.1 Bulldog on 2015-07-29 15:30 (Reply)

hatred does not always lead to the Dark Side, young padawan.

react to it or not, the media isn't making you do anything. the media isn't even making you pay attention to the media.

I'm not following your reasoning. are you saying that I should not hate the dentist because a dumpstered kid's not making the news cycle?

#9.1.1 Donny "The Bear Jew" Donowitz on 2015-07-29 16:38 (Reply)

No, I'm saying hatred is a strong word and usually the outcome of hatred is not a positive. Along the lines of the old Nixon farewell line: "Others may hate you, but those who hate you don't win unless you hate them, . . . . and then you destroy yourself."

I don't think the others have to even hate you. Just hating someone else destroys you because it darkens your soul.

Texan99 is closer to the truth - shun him, boycott his business. If I was friends with him, I'd give him a piece of my mind, but I'd still be friends with him unless he was unrepentant (he is quite repentant...he knows he did something stupid).

But hatred is a bad thing. I don't hate any of the idiots I listed (mainly because I know so many people who actually support that moronic behavior, living here in NYC - the second most politically stupid city in the world after San Francisco). I just think they engage faulty reasoning and thought processes. I can't hate someone for being stupid.

So hatred? Not so much since it's a call to negative action and thought. I try to avoid it. Strong distaste or dislike? It leaves me, and others, options for improvement.

#9.1.1.1 Bulldog on 2015-07-29 17:16 (Reply)

I'd further add this.
If I hated as many things as I presumably should, with all this stupidity in the world, I would be a very tired and discontented person.

Hatred takes a tremendous amount of effort, and I don't like being discontented. I'll speak my mind - that's part of why I like blogging here at Maggie's, it does provide some outlet for the occasional healthy venting.

But I usually let it go at that point.

Good Lord, I don't agree with most of Maggie's readers on the issues of Trump and immigration - I know most of them are just working from a position of bias or lack of information. But I don't dislike them for that. I agree with most on a host of other issues, so why should I let a guy with bad hair and a single political issue mess up the other things that are going well?

#9.1.1.2 Bulldog on 2015-07-29 17:20 (Reply)

I hate pretty casually, it takes virtually no effort on my part, other than cheering on the thrashing he, his business and probably his family are taking by this week's internet mob.

he's not exactly within my reach. if he were, I'd steer business away from his practice, and certainly blackball him from any clubs I belong to. that kind of boutique hunting hands us regular hunters a PR disaster, as should be obvious.

#9.1.1.2.1 Donny "The Bear Jew" Donowitz on 2015-07-29 17:42 (Reply)

Have to say I agree. Cecil's death - allow me to be the first here to point out the obvious - is the outcome of the unmitigated bloodlust in these jackasses and their deeply impaired character.

It's a throwback not to original survival culture, nor to heroic big game hunting - back in the heyday of great colonial western prowess - and not even to modern conservativism, but to serious dysfunction more disturbing than ivory or shark fin harvesting or whaling.

It's a sickness and frankly - as much as the punishment will be disproportionate in these Internet times - I hope the sentiment against it jumps those bogus old boundaries and afflicts every blood-lusting moron who won't see God's creatures as something to steward and not something to terrorize for yet another thousand years.

This, of course, labels me some anti-patriotic liberal moonbat (when I'm deeply more classically liberal than 95% of the dopes in the GOP calling themselves conservative.) So be it.

Bulldog paints in false dichotomies. None of the analysis above relates well and fully to the spectacular short-sightedness of the death culture man needlessly, cravenly inflicts on animals, creatures that man, in his vast glory, somehow simultaneously finds himself wholly superior to but yet unable to restrain his evident moral inferiority
concerning.

I won't be surprised when Heaven turns out to be populated with man's best friend and lions lying down with lambs. Judged by his character, and not so much the man-ape.

#9.1.1.3 Ten on 2015-07-29 18:25 (Reply)

There is no false dichotomy.

I like hunting. Not for sport, but for game food, which also provides enjoyment in the process. Cecil's death, while tragic and horrifying to some, is less so to me because it's not something really that important. In truth, this dentist's stupidity may have done more for conservation efforts I can support (voluntary donations, active outreach and education, etc) than most people who claim to be conservationists provide.

Passing laws preventing hunting creates criminals, raises risk, prices, and potential profit for being one. This means there is more poaching (take note, the ivory trade is still alive and thriving for this reason). Having a marketplace to support this subsection of people that I do not support (sport hunters), creates a motive for breeding and conservation to preserve a livelihood.

This guy is stupid. But I'm less pissed at him than I am at people who have the attention span of a gnat and a false sense of self based on misguided political assumptions. Passing laws to support your sense of culture and morality is the fastest way to bring it all crashing down.

#9.1.1.3.1 Bulldog on 2015-07-29 18:49 (Reply)

I don't hunt. I'm not interested in hunting, but I'm not against hunting. In the case of deer, we haven't been hunting enough, but I do not like the idea of killing animals for sport. I like it even less if their numbers are dwindling.

As far as passing laws to ban hunting, agree with you, Bulldog. The best thing we could do for the lion population is find a way to die many people's financial future to them. For example, if we decided to eat lions, there would be plenty of them.

#9.1.1.3.1.1 mudbug on 2015-07-29 19:21 (Reply)

Agreed. I hunt, but only game that I eat (hunting predators has no appeal to me). Prohibition of hunting is no safeguard for wildlife: http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/13573912.

#9.1.1.3.1.2 Gordon on 2015-07-29 19:37 (Reply)

Having a strong opinion without considering the facts or the issue at hand is how you end up upside down, Bulldog.

The hunter, a career killer for sport, paid $50,000 to bag a lion. His crew baited the lion, a 13 year old local celebrity of some repute and favor carrying a GPS locator, with a carcass tied to the back of a jeep and intentionally drew it out of the park. There they shot it with an arrow, and 40 hours later, killed it with a rifle, skinning and leaving the carcass and keeping the head, presumably to hang on some jerk's wall.

Eventually our hunter declared he thought the hunt was legal and proper. After trying to destroy the GPS locator.

The "hunter" has a history. He'd been convicted for lying about where he shot a bear - sound familiar? Yes, apparently there are laws and apparently some people are serial lawbreakers. He'd already killed another lion, an adult leopard, and a rino. Presumably to hang on some jerk's wall.

Let's step back for a minute and recall that personality disorders are commonly identified as having had a history of animal cruelty. The problem here, Bulldog, isn't that there are dead animals all over this freak's wake, it's that this sort of disorder is wrong. And it has nothing to do with other cruelty, assault, or killing.

It has to do with character. Which means that it stands alone - this instance, this person - as an indicator and that's why certainly a good percentage of people reacting against it, are. It has nothing to do with other injustice, it has to do with this injustice.

They say that forgiveness isn't for the forgiven, it's for the forgiver. It can't be for the forgiven if it's going to be forgiveness, obviously. Likewise the issue here isn't this odd devaluation we - or more commonly, the rick-ribbed, 30.30-totin' ostensible right, to go to your commentary on politics - inflict specifically on lowly animals - to go to your original valuation of other crimes deemed superior to these - but that evil is held and carried by those who long outlive their victims and as many times as not, have no redemption from it.

It is a false dichotomy. It contrasts acceptable but gratuitous and "stupid" evil against unacceptable, abhorrent evil and in so doing misses the point. The point is that God instilled morality and heart in man to work from and by, not to get a pass because we ourselves have warped the moral curve with some odd, unthought formulation about what's okay to wantonly slaughter just because it's dumber than we are.

#9.1.1.3.1.3 Ten on 2015-07-29 20:20 (Reply)

While the method involved was questionable, the kill itself was legal. I've seen no indication anywhere, at this point that it wasn't.

The problem they are faced with is poaching, but since the kill didn't occur in the sanctuary it's technically not poaching. The problem is the lion is well-liked.

I'm aware of every fact you posted, the luring, the methods. The attempted destruction of the GPS is meaningless, unless it indicates that the kill occurred in the protected area.

IF that's the case, then it is illegal. But it still doesn't change my opinion and it's still not a false dichotomy.

Here's the issue. We have way more going on here at home that we're constantly being bombarded with. We need to be concerned or 'offended' or 'do something' about all those items I listed. A freaking lion is meaningless to me (as is the bear). If he broke the law, 2 things need to be considered. First, he's a criminal and he should be punished. Second, we need to reconsider some of these laws and what they are attempting to do.

I agree that aberrant behavior is tied to animal cruelty, but hunting (even for sport) is not cruelty - except to some. While torturing and slaughtering animals for a trophy is not my idea of fun, and I'm not running out to engage it, I'm not going to concern myself with others who do it. In fact, I'm going to point out that IF there was a marketplace for this stuff (and there is, now) then the marketplace can effectively sort it all out.

Example - this guy's practice is, already, more or less shut down.

In other words, do you really need a judge and jury to sit there and tell this guy he's mean and nasty man? In all likelihood, he's going to have a difficult time making a buck in the future. Or he won't. Maybe he'll write a book about his experience and people will buy it.

So what? Either way, the public opposition at this point is significantly impacting him.

There's no reason to get my knickers in a twist over this guy. As Gordon points out, prohibition doesn't make the problem go away - it makes it worse. You can point to virtually any attempt to prohibit behaviors you may deem 'morally' or 'culturally' damaging and what you'll find, for the most part, is increases in those behaviors.

With the rise of the internet, there are more effective ways of letting these behaviors continue but shutting the offenders down.

No, there's no false dichotomy. You're just upset about what he did and you'd prefer to have laws to prohibit it, and you want me to be really, really angry.

I don't want laws to prohibit stupidity. You can't outlaw it. All you can do is accept it and live with it, and hope Darwin wins.

#9.1.1.3.1.3.1 Bulldog on 2015-07-30 09:29 (Reply)

Still missing the point: If punishment (for legal pathology, you say) is to be carried out by popular acclaim - making the poor dentist a victim and not a perpetrator - how do you justify the 15 year sentences and unpayable fines the locals involved in this sordid experiment in character disorder will have to pay?

Still sure it's all legal, as if legality perfectly reaches back and conflates with and extends prior morality? Tell the locals.

But I haven't been on about legality.

You're also wrong when you project your sensibilities at me. I'm upset (if that's the word) at the predictable, useless moral posturing that starts with a subjective devaluation of non-human life, issues from an ostensibly Christian platform, and somehow ends up in a vague neo-Libertarian sensibility: It's only a lion and it's in Africa, for crying out loud, so ... we can't have laws about it because they limit freedom.

Yeah, I'm aware of Ted Nugent too, and as with speech, I'd defend his rights as well as I expect he'd defend mine. Not the point.

Your formulation can't follow, Birdog, partly because you don't address the actual moral underpinnings I raised, partly because you replace them with projection and manufactured intent, partly because you actually did conflate morality and the law - even if tacitly thus bringing us back to that messy discussion of morality in this and similar contexts, especially per codified prohibitions against killing - and partly because the whole thing hangs from that subjective and therefore irrational and emotional appeal (to the customary devaluation of non-human life).

Again: Sociopathology is as it does. The point isn't if and how the left goes ape about the issue (or if it can even locate it, which is always doubtful and actually does serve your point), or if the Mighty Hunter ilk, for example, can paint vegans as nuts or some other tangential, misfit rhetorical trajectory that always gets attached to these things eventually, or if you can insist I want you to be really, really angry.

Get over yourself. I simply want to express a rational voice - if you must know - and I'm perfectly comfortable when you prove that in this case you don't entirely have one.

But you are right on one thing. The guy may very well write a book, sell a pile, and retire. And then staunch God-fearing Establicans can prove both their culture and that he was morally right all along.

None of which I'd ever expect a judge and jury to ever decide anything on.

Oh, and from the wiki:

A false dilemma (also called false dichotomy, false binary, black-and-white thinking, bifurcation, denying a conjunct, the either–or fallacy, fallacy of exhaustive hypotheses, the fallacy of false choice, the fallacy of the false alternative, or the fallacy of the excluded middle) is a type of informal fallacy that involves a situation in which only limited alternatives are considered, when in fact there is at least one additional option.

One of the third options here is that among ideologies, neither the traditional right or the progressive right are right on the core issue.

#9.1.1.3.1.3.1.1 Ten on 2015-07-30 12:34 (Reply)

Correction: "...neither the traditional right or the progressive left..."

#9.1.1.3.1.3.1.1.1 Ten on 2015-07-30 13:05 (Reply)

I haven't devalued any life. You have assumed I did. I simply don't care about Cecil as an issue - though I do care when people misunderstand what I wrote.
Is this guy a sociopath? I don't know him, but I doubt it very much. He may have some tendencies, and certainly being a dentist he must enjoy inflicting pain (actually, I like dentists and mine is really good, so that's just a joke).

You mention the locals the chance they may face fines and jail time. So what? Every nation has different laws - and sometimes laws those nations don't even matter if public outcry is sufficient to call for a judge to make a decision which supports public opinion. They MAY face these outcomes - they have not been ruled on yet. Either way, I'm skeptical of the claims until the proof this was illegal is presented - which I have yet to see. All news outlets point out the kill was OUTSIDE the sanctuary, which implies the only 'crime' is luring the lion out of the sanctuary. That's just asshole behavior, hardly criminal (though some nations do pass stupid laws that make being an asshole illegal...hell, we have plenty here).

I fail to see what rational voice I don't possess? What, exactly, is the problem you have with me not particularly being upset with Cecil's death?

I've stated I think it's wrong. I've stated I think the guy's a jerk. But I hardly think this is worth getting my knickers in a twist as you have. Where is my failure to make a moral decision? That I don't care about THAT lion? That I don't care about ANY lion? So what? Why should I? What rule says I must? How does doing so make me more rational?

I think you're thinking too much of yourself, and less about the rights of others to have opinions. I think it's wonderful you care so much - good for you! Pursue that line of thought. But I have no moral obligation to agree with you and in not agreeing, I am not better or worse than you - just different.

So, again, there is no false dichotomy. Except to you.

#9.1.1.3.1.3.1.1.2 Bulldog on 2015-07-30 13:33 (Reply)

I have no idea what the guy is clinically - and plenty will say there is no such evaluation anyway - but anyone can draw reasonable conclusions about character if someone flouts acceptable behavior and simple decency. From there you can fairly reliably conjecture approximate labels using terms from the various vernaculars.

Character and standards eventually lead to the nature of and interaction with the law - ideally it's a reflection of them. You seem to devalue local law here in order to vindicate what's merely unacceptable behavior - he's an "a**hole", you say.

I think legally protecting wildlife is morally good and proper and I've already expressed enough opinion about those who abuse protection and reasonably acceptable behavior. I think abhorrent and criminal behavior, especially as a pattern, shows bad intent and some degree of malignancy. In this and in at least one prior case, the law agrees.

So where's our moral compass pointing, and why. You have the open question of how to align moral acceptability with any number of standards. I don't see you doing that.

I also don't see any reason to tier killing on a moral ranking when only opportunism and cunning render it legal - which I think you have - or when it's by species. And I especially don't see cause to overlook chronic bad behavior.

Again: eventually you have to either tie morality to law or divorce morality from law and tie it to something else. What was the other piece on this blog? Custom, creed, or contract?

Anything else is a conditional rationalization and there's no firm morality in that that anyone can hold to, especially when both are argued together at the same time.

#9.1.1.3.1.3.1.1.2.1 Ten on 2015-07-30 14:04 (Reply)

Not all morality must be tied to law.
Not all killing is morally reprehensible.
I don't share your opinion on protecting animals with laws. I see no moral requirement for this. My view, which supports animals and cares for them, is not the same as others may have. I don't see why my moral code regarding animals HAS to be enforced by laws.

I don't like what I read about that hunt, but I fail to see why I should care. There is no problem with my rational functioning or my morality. That is simply how life goes, sometimes. There are tons of assholes out there. I can't throw them all in jail.

#9.1.1.3.1.3.1.1.2.1.1 Bulldog on 2015-07-30 14:10 (Reply)

Sure enough - after all, you established a moral dilemma in the original post because of it's factoring against all sorts of other moralities, so to put it, which then went meandering around w/o any firm foundation.

We mustn't really condemn safari dentists - except to vaguely call them a**holes - while we must certainly damn anything related to poor politics that we aren't giving ample thought and attention to, at least in the relative sense. And we mustn't ever, ever resemble the left in its hysterical, religious progressivism, all of which we know the left for.

I get the idea. I just find the lack of an underpinning thesis notable and I said as much. If something's wrong, know why, how, and when it's wrong, I ask.

Apparently not. Instead we learn you were musing - much as The News Junkie now is in another post on the same topic. But as here, it's a pose, not a position.

I guess the point was to muse about how we don't really know why we consider X, Y, or Z wrong, but let's make it topical that we do and look for either approval or, apparently, folks like me who put a finer point on it so we can assert all over again that we don't know why we consider what's right or wrong.

Except Obama or Hilary or whatever because those are demonstrably wrong. Didn't the right lost the last hundred years, Bulldog, because it took such a tack? Reacting instead of insisting on philosophical, even moral truths?

See, that sort of posturing is part of that axis of thought whereby we insist that norms and conformities exist because of who we subjectively are and not because of what we objectively know, with definition and reason. It's a kind of phariseeism, a posturing or preening about how others posture or preen, only in their case, wrongly.

Actually, wanton slaughter is wrong. Definitively and truly and factually and arguably. That other stuff on your list is no less or no more right or wrong than it, and it will be useful to define how in each instance. But the relationship each offense is strongly implied to have to the others is that false dichotomy; false because it excludes a sound rationale when it establishes an unsound subjectivity.

There is no relationship that can't be reasoned and identified. What's left is a kind of cultural virtue-signalling. I just happen to reject it because I find it doesn't hold water.

That killing was, after all, wrong. It was cowardly, illegal, unacceptable, abhorrent, and mostly it was indicative of a moral system where it passes as insufficient and incapable of rising to the level of some political folly du jour.

But why was it wrong. That's the question left unanswered. How about this: Like the political culture it was somehow compared to, it was wrong because it was wanton and egregious. It was a lie told about self and in the retelling, becomes a lie on those defending it.

There is no relativism. There's no glory in this act. And, as you insist, it's not a political question. Thing is, however, that that at the least makes it a moral question about humanity - not lowly lions - not enough traditionalists bother to ask. Maybe they're custom-based. I think they've failed creed and contract.

Is that too harsh? In some circles, undoubtedly. But at some point and to some degree, an assertion sufficient to constitute formal conversation one would expect to stand up to scrutiny and not just sit there happily unaware and moreover, incorrect.

#9.1.1.3.1.3.1.1.2.1.1.1 Ten on 2015-07-30 16:33 (Reply)

You focus on what you focus on.

You call that wanton slaughter. I see a guy out for a good time, however much I consider it to be not the kind of good time I would enjoy. We find our enjoyment in different ways.

I wasn't comparing moralities - you were. I was comparing various degrees of importance on topics we need to deal with. You turned it into a morality discussion, which is not even remotely close to being. Lots of people I know like to hunt. A few trophy hunt. I don't care. I'm sure you've got a few guilty pleasures, just like the rest of humanity. So rather than trying to turn everything into a morality discussion, I'd rather discuss what's really going to impact me.

Cecil does not impact me. In any way. Except that someone seems to think he needs to be turned into a discussion on morals where none is taking place.

Your lecturing is complete - it's also completely misplaced.

#9.1.1.3.1.3.1.1.2.1.1.1.1 Bulldog on 2015-07-30 17:26 (Reply)

Move goalposts much?

Morality is objective. You either have a foundational thesis and can defend it or your resort to postures and poses.

Face it, the core element here is that freaking lions in Africa have no moral bearing in minds who wish to conflate animal slaughter with God's right gifted to man.

Let me ask you this: If you're so utterly convinced there's no moral equivalency in the human babies vs lions meme the ostensible right has itself all consumed over, lay out the moral argument against human abortion.

See, I can't find words for the abhorrence of such, but you, surely, cannot define the morality that defends human life as the highest be-all and end-all. And from there - from that failure, as I'm pretty sure it'll turn out - you naturally cannot defend that idiotic dichotomy wherein the left are fools for calling out slaughter and low character but the right are on solid ground killing millions of innocents because they're not human.

And before you leap to another in your series of conditional demurrings, I'll remind you that your Bible's prohibitions against all killing are rife.

#9.1.1.3.1.3.1.1.2.1.1.1.1.1 Ten on 2015-07-30 18:06 (Reply)

You're so absolutely out of bounds here, I don't even know where to begin. But I haven't moved any goalposts. You just want me to play on your field. I won't because your field is full of single-minded absolutism. I'm not agreeing with you at all on that. Morality can be very subjective.

I feel adultery is morally wrong, as is divorce. But I know people who do not feel that way. You would spend hours of your day pillorying these folks, whereas I feel that it's their right to choose how they live their life. Passing a law against adultery and divorce is a path to societal hell.

I feel abortion is morally wrong. But I won't ask to pass laws against it because I know people who do not agree with me on this point. I think that two people dying in a backroom abortion clinic is far more horrid than one person making what I consider to be a terrible decision (two wrongs do not make a right). Better these people have the chance to face their conscience later in life and realize the damage they have done to their own souls than to simply smirk and say "they deserved to die for killing an unborn child."

I do NOT agree that there is a moral equivalence between a child's death and a lion's death. While God may or may not have granted us conservatorship of earth (some people don't believe in God, while I do, and I can respect their choice in this matter), He did give us dominion over the animals (supposedly, according to the Bible I am familiar with). Dominion, in some minds, means the right to do whatever the hell you damn well please. Sure, these minds aren't what I'd consider healthy, but some aren't totally psycho- or socio-pathic, as you assume. Some people DO engage in rationalization to support their views. That said, while I am of the mind that conservatorship is the proper view of wildlife management, passing laws to prevent people from doing things like huntiing is the single most stupid thing you can possibly do. Property is a contract. While God granted us a contract with the earth, and property ownership would imply we should be conservators, it does not necessarily mean we must be. Surely you have seen a neighborhood where owners have done a poor job of house management? It's not up to me to tell those people their job or responsibility - it's even less my job to tell them how to live their lives.

You can lecture and posture all YOU want. You're so morally and fundamentally correct, there can't possibly be a single flaw in your moral code? Well, I have news for you. We all have flaws in our moral code. It's called being human. I'm sure you have plenty. As a result, I don't have to defend anything - but you sure as hell have started throwing stones before you were sure you have not committed any sins.

So yes - maybe there is a little posturing, but I try to avoid it whenever possible. Maybe there is a touch of rationalizing, though I try to avoid it whenever possible. But I do know this. You're still not better than me simply because you think you have some kind of higher moral code. In being human, you have to accept that many humans have very different moral codes, that many societies have different moral standards. Can you sit in judgement of all of them?

If so, you must get very tired and God must truly love you for you are the single greatest human since Jesus himself.

Now, as for Cecil - no. A lion is NOT equivalent to a child. Not in the least. Not even close. I will willingly kill a lion for a trophy head LONG before I kill a child or let my partner have an abortion. Not that there is a trade-off here, because I don't have to kill, nor do I want to kill, a lion. But if the choice were put to me, it's an easy one to make.

That's not rationalizing. That's being honest. Animals are not worth LESS than humans, but they are not in any way equivalent when it comes to the choices we have to make toward them.

Trophy hunting used to be sign of manliness and virility. Morally it was inconsequential. Teddy Roosevelt and Ernest Hemingway, as well as a host of others engaged in it for many years. Nobody cared much then, it was not a moral question. It still isn't. It's just a popular thing to chat about, apparently.

I don't usually engage in censorship on these threads. I've never censored anyone, not even the ridiculous Zachriel. But I'm beginning to think I need to make an exception for you. I don't need you lecturing and hectoring me on morality. You are not better than I am, and I am not better than you. We are humans, and we have made choices on how we want to live our lives. You've chosen a strict - very strict - moral code. I have not.

But you're not God, and you're not even Jesus (that I know of). Maybe you are. On the internet, nobody knows you're a god. But you sure seem to think you are. That's the only swipe I'll take at you, though you deserve much more given the many swipes you've taken at me, all without support of fact, or knowledge of who I am.

Yes. All we have to do is call this guy an asshole. That's all he is. He's nothing more, nothing less. If there is a law he broke, however stupid and misguided that law is (and so far, it seems there is none), he should be punished in accordance to that law. But you can rest assured his punishment has already happened in the form of the pillorying that many oversensitive nitwits have already engaged in.

He's not my problem. Cecil is not my problem. A girl in a dumpster could be my problem, since I have kids. Hillary's haircut can be my problem if idiots continue to support her. Trump could be my problem if he somehow manages to win. There are many bigger and more pressing problems than worrying about whether a lion is important.

You may not like it, and it may not sit well with your strict moral code. But tough. Life sucks, and you've got to live with many more people like me than you would like to. It's just how life goes.

The funny part is this. I know lots of people whose moral codes I do not agree with. Tons. New York City is chock full of them. I like many of them and call many my friends. Chances are, depending on how strict you are, you'd probably do the same thing.

Which makes your ranting on here all the more absurd. I can't stand Zachriel's comments, but I'll bet he's a hell of a fun guy to go drinking with.

#9.1.1.3.1.3.1.1.2.1.1.1.1.1.1 Bulldog on 2015-07-30 18:53 (Reply)

You can lecture and posture all YOU want. You're so morally and fundamentally correct, there can't possibly be a single flaw in your moral code? Well, I have news for you. We all have flaws in our moral code. It's called being human. I'm sure you have plenty.

Aside from the rest of this kernel, caving baselessness - I make few such claims - this much I can agree with more than you can ever know. Flaws? We're molecularly constructed of flaw. That's the point.

So apparently something's gotten under you skin - although I reject that heatedness as validation. The basics remain:

1. Killing is wrong;

2. There is no moral code whatsoever in the Christian platform I ostensibly see at MF to circumvent this ethic and command, "freaking lions" "in Africa" notwithstanding;

3. The human baby vs animal dichotomy is unfounded per the above. In fact, it's preposterous because it pays no heed to the killer mind;

4. You and I cannot know the depraved, murderous mind, and THAT is the thing here, not some odd, relativistic edict where according to your God you are not only allowed, but you are enabled and possibly uniquely empowered to kill;

5. There is no practical reason to kill for agriculture. Animal agriculture is grossly immoral, terrorising, incredibly ecologically burdensome, utterly unnecessary, and should and must be obsolete;

6. This Cecil thing is only emblematic of how far afield ostensible conservationists, traditionalists, rightists, and various other approved idealogues go for justification that does not exist.

Morality? Ask yourself where it comes from. Where it's codified and why. How it rises to resonance and truth. Would you think this qualifies?

https://youtu.be/Nb6dWrace38

Choose your answer carefully, because unless you know God's mind - whether God is a pure projection of the average or better human collective conscious OR God is a real entity matters not - you can't vouch for what constitutes God's Word. I can cite scores of such teachings and I wonder if you feel qualified to really, truly, justly vet a fraction of it.

I know I cannot. But I do know moral resonance when it bestows itself. That we call grace.

Said rightist "conservatives" rightly excoriating the left's psuedo-morality have elevated bloodlust and hedonism to virtue, and cite God as the authority with which to do so. It's unmitigated bullsh*t.

Simmer down. I don't actually have a "strict moral code". I question moral codes, Bulldog. I would hope we'd examine all of them.

#9.1.1.3.1.3.1.1.2.1.1.1.1.1.1.1 Ten on 2015-07-30 19:23 (Reply)

Also, Bulldog, I'm not out of bounds and we both know it. Rather, I'm embarrassing you.

You're a relativist, and as such you can't but validate the claims against relativism. It's inherent: I'm just not fun to drink with, and you know, Teddy R. and Hemingway killed and nobody thought the more of it and everything.

And of course, what's important is what affects you.

So really, there isn't an over-arching principle at all, is there? Which means that gratuitous slaughter is fine and good when it doesn't happen in our back yards.

Yeah, I'd censor me too. Because of the inconvenience. But as you do so, know who didn't have a point at all except to dramatically rule the other guy OUT OF BOUNDS!

I bet you're a complete blast to get hammered with too.

#9.1.1.3.1.3.1.1.2.1.1.1.1.1.1.2 Ten on 2015-07-30 19:33 (Reply)

I haven't devalued any life. You have assumed I did. I simply don't care about Cecil as an issue - though I do care when people misunderstand what I wrote.
Is this guy a sociopath? I don't know him, but I doubt it very much. He may have some tendencies, and certainly being a dentist he must enjoy inflicting pain (actually, I like dentists and mine is really good, so that's just a joke).

You mention the locals the chance they may face fines and jail time. So what? Every nation has different laws - and sometimes laws those nations don't even matter if public outcry is sufficient to call for a judge to make a decision which supports public opinion. They MAY face these outcomes - they have not been ruled on yet. Either way, I'm skeptical of the claims until the proof this was illegal is presented - which I have yet to see. All news outlets point out the kill was OUTSIDE the sanctuary, which implies the only 'crime' is luring the lion out of the sanctuary. That's just asshole behavior, hardly criminal (though some nations do pass stupid laws that make being an asshole illegal...hell, we have plenty here).

I fail to see what rational voice I don't possess? What, exactly, is the problem you have with me not particularly being upset with Cecil's death?

I've stated I think it's wrong. I've stated I think the guy's a jerk. But I hardly think this is worth getting my knickers in a twist as you have. Where is my failure to make a moral decision? That I don't care about THAT lion? That I don't care about ANY lion? So what? Why should I? What rule says I must? How does doing so make me more rational?

I think you're thinking too much of yourself, and less about the rights of others to have opinions. I think it's wonderful you care so much - good for you! Pursue that line of thought. But I have no moral obligation to agree with you and in not agreeing, I am not better or worse than you - just different.

So, again, there is no false dichotomy. Except to you.

#9.1.1.3.1.3.1.1.3 Bulldog on 2015-07-30 13:33 (Reply)

For what it's worth, and then I'm done on this topic because I simply don't care this much about it:

1. Cecil's death is a tragedy. But so what? Wanna care? Be my guest, but stop making it cause du jour. I came home to my wife saying "je suis Cecil" - I laughed. She said "the dentist is an asshole and belongs in jail." I said "he is an asshole, but if he did nothing wrong, and I don't think he did, then he should be free. Let people bankrupt his business (as they seem to have done)."

2. The items I compared this to are legitimate comparisons. We have more issues here at home that are important to us, right now, than a lion. It's important to care about the environment or conservation - but like many of the other writers at Maggie's, I can guarantee you that we each do this in our own way. Not caring about a lion doesn't mean I don't care about animals or the environment. It doesn't mean I don't care about right and wrong. It just means "so freaking what? I have bigger fish to fry."

3. You're worked up about a false dichotomy regarding morals and right/wrong. I fail to see the false dichotomy. People pursuing personal agendas that are false dichotomies (Hillary, for example, or people claiming the Confederate flag is racist) are a bigger issue than an idiot dentist who killed ONE LION. Mainly because the other issues concern more of us than this one stupid dentist ever will.

4. The dentist has done more for environmentalism than anyone on this thread ever will. While he's a moron, in a way we can thank him.

5. Sometimes laws are stupid, and the marketplace works. Better to let trophy hunting be legal and managed by businesses for whom conservation is the preservation of the business than to turn it over to absentee groups like bureaucrats and volunteers. Volunteers CARE - but they turn their care into government pressure for laws that are usually pretty stupid. The ivory trade is not dying, but the laws prohibiting it have made the ivory trade more profitable than ever - producing more poaching.

I'm done on this topic, though. So respond however you want. I did no projection at all - you seem to think I did, but the fact you simply can't shrug and say "hey - sometimes people don't agree" rather than "I simply want to express a rational voice - if you must know - and I'm perfectly comfortable when you prove that in this case you don't entirely have one." Means YOU are projecting.

Not one point I've made is irrational. If I had the time to lay out the moral support for it - which is available anytime you choose to take the time to read in the works of Hayek, von Mises, or most other Austrian school economists (economics originally being 'moral philosophy' - and technically it still is). Spend some time on Cafe Hayek for more support of my viewpoint, all completely rational and supportable.

In saying this, I'm not saying you lack any rational support or moral underpinning. You just have DIFFERENT rational support and moral underpinning. Doesn't make you wrong - and I have never said you are wrong, though you keep saying I am.

#9.1.1.3.1.3.1.1.4 Bulldog on 2015-07-30 13:47 (Reply)

Ah, now I see. You decide on our behalf that this is despicable character emblematic of deep evil in our culture, then berate us for not hating it enough. If we regard it as a minor evil, that infuriates you.

You tried the mental health angle. May I remind you that some of us make our livings in that field and actually know something about it? Your attempt to tie big-game hunting to the cruelty to animals that some psychopaths show does not have any basis in evidence. It just feels to you like it should be true, so you throw out the accusation for effect.

You might hesitate to go much farther on this track. You are providing unsolicited evidence of your own character should someone decide to turn their mental health gaze on you and interpret for others what you seem to be trying to accomplish here.

#9.1.1.3.2 Assistant Village Idiot (Link) on 2015-07-30 12:23 (Reply)

Ah, now I see. You decide on our behalf that this is despicable character emblematic of deep evil in our culture, then berate us for not hating it enough. If we regard it as a minor evil, that infuriates you.

You're projecting. I don't much care what you think or do, but I do find it mildly deplorable how unthought so many of my fellow "conservatives" can be, especially when backstopping their ignorance with ostensibly Christian ethics (or in your case, your familiar, angry groupthink).

Because I see nowhere in the sane, rational, and yes enlightened interpretation of ancient code or contemporary civility, compassion, decency, and adult accountability where waving one's dick around on $50,000 safaris - in order to to violate those conventions - acceptable in the eyes of man or god. And chronically breaking society's otherwise valid prohibitions to do it is honorable.

Kindly care to remember at least some of your own higher sensibilities and drop the bullsh*t for a short moment.

You tried the mental health angle. May I remind you that some of us make our livings in that field and actually know something about it? Your attempt to tie big-game hunting to the cruelty to animals that some psychopaths show does not have any basis in evidence. It just feels to you like it should be true, so you throw out the accusation for effect.

You're still projecting and this episode of it isn't even as good as the last. I raised a likelihood and you extended it into a rhetorical position you can't actually support.

How it works is this (for the third time): If you're a chronic abuser of the law regarding which you delight in wanton slaughter, can you find a mental health professional who can diagnose you fit, sane, and normal among the broad human cohort - breaking the law and killing stuff and so forth - because this is normal behavior per the DSM?

Well then. So basically you made up some credentialed foolscap, hung it on the wall, and determined that you were then somehow an authority on something quite unrelated to it, didn't you, Idiot?

And that being the case, welcome to (failed) proofs by (projected) assertion, a level of professional expertise I suspect most would shy from if they had to, you know, charge by the hour for it.

Or are you saying that the good doctor is an expert on the soul and its depravity and the rest of us simply cannot be, regardless of cause or degree, clinical or otherwise?

You might hesitate to go much farther on this track. You are providing unsolicited evidence of your own character should someone decide to turn their mental health gaze on you and interpret for others what you seem to be trying to accomplish here.

No, no, that's not quite it I'm afraid. I welcome - nay, I relish - your best effort to thoroughly diagnose whatever malady it is that has a clear view of what's right and wrong ... and to be complete, too what poorly-reasoned boors may assert using fallacy and projection is so dysfunctional about laying them out in clear and principled terms.

Claim your own objective, self-evident authority where none yet exists, Doctor, at least not by the terms that just failed you.

#9.1.1.3.2.1 Ten on 2015-07-30 13:02 (Reply)

You may hate all you wish. It only affects you adversely. I doubt the dentist, right or wrong, will lose sleep over it.

#9.1.1.4 Thom on 2015-07-29 19:59 (Reply)

I find myself in the startling position of agreeing with you, Donny. The guy shouldn't be killed, but he certainly should be shunned.

There are a lot of problems in the world I don't know how to fix, but I'm completely confident of my solution to this one: killing animals for thrills is disgusting, and when they're as rare and threatened as lions, it's disgusting squared. The simple solution is: don't do it, and socially ostracize anyone who does.

If he can still find some buddies and clients to hang out with who think he's cool, then fine.

#9.2 Texan99 on 2015-07-29 16:54 (Reply)

give it a week and all this will be forgotten by the internet. there will be some lingering business and personal problems for which I have no sympathy and which are inevitable consequences of bad decision making.

he should stick with upland game. he's in Wisconsin, there's no shortage of that.

#9.2.1 Donny "The Bear Jew" Donowitz on 2015-07-29 17:29 (Reply)

Yeah, same with fisher persons. To get the finger these days all one needs to do is walk down the road holding a fishing rod.

#9.2.2 chuck on 2015-07-30 13:53 (Reply)

I don't care that hunters hunt for trophies. I'm not sure why anyone cares. These hunts are designed to keep the "herd" healthy and they kill off a few of the oldest before they die of natural causes. In the process they get a lot of money (the dentists spent $55,000 or so in Africa for this trophy) that is supposed to be used to help the rest of the animals. Most hunting works like that. The state decides how many animals can be or should be taken by hunters and then charges big bucks to the hunters. The money goes towards improving the habitat. A win/win. Seems silly to crucify the dentist for this.

#10 GoneWithTheWind on 2015-07-29 21:21 (Reply)

4chan shut down its dentist/lion threads, meaning it was pretty bad and that it's going to get worse.

he's going to wish he was mauled by the lion.

#11 Donny "The Bear Jew" Donowitz on 2015-07-30 02:37 (Reply)

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