Aaron Sorkin of "West Wing" fame, is a hypocritical pansy! Today he writes an article in the Huffington Post berating Sarah Palin for the hunting of a moose on her TV show "Sarah Palin's Alaska".
He posits that because he wears leather shoes and eats meat he is qualified to stand in judgement of her. That makes as much sense as a minnow saying he's a fish and thus can judge the actions of the shark!
Sorkin has probably never held a real gun in his hand, much less killed anything above a spider. How can he possibly think he can speak to the motivations of a hunter. He equates hunting to dog fighting and feels there is no difference between the two activities. He goes on to say he is happy every time he hears about a hunting accident and someone is shot. To me, this puts him much more squarely in the dog fighters camp than the hunter could ever be. He is finding pleasure in the pain of another creature.
The hunter does not hunt to inflict pain! The hunter has great respect for his quarry. In a hunters perfect world, he will kill his prey with one clean shot. He will inflict less pain to his prey than Sorkin wishes on all hunters.
Does the hunter "need" to hunt in order to survive? Of course not. He can go to the grocery store and buy meat just like the rest of us can. However, I would argue that a hunter is far less hypocritical than weenies like Sorkin. The hunter is willing to go out and match wits with his prey and do the actual killing and preparing of his meat for the table. People like Sorkin are really vegetarians who don't have the backbone to actually commit to it. They somehow feel that because they aren't directly involved with the act of killing what they are eating, they didn't have anything to do with it! Well, I call "Bullshit" on that. They are every bit as responsible for the death of the animal as the hunter is, they are just to lilly livered to do the job themselves. Do they think that people are just randomly killing these cows and pigs and that they are just helping clean up after these wanton acts of murder by eating the meat and wearing the shoes? If those woosies actually had the courage of their convictions, they would be living on bean sprouts and wearing their hemp sandals!
No, Aaron Sorkin is not anyone to listen to on this subject. As many or more animals go to their death because of people like him as ever do at the hands of hunters. The animal's life and death in this cause is much less noble than that of the one that dies at the hands of a hunter, after living it's life in the wild.
After reading this, you probably assume that I am an avid hunter. Quite to the contrary. I did grow up hunting, but switched from hunting with a gun to hunting with a camera when I was in my 20's. This was not done for any altruistic reasons or being anti hunting. It was because I didn't enjoy the taste of game any more than store bought, so I decided to skip all the extra work involved. For those of you who know me, "Yes, I was to damn lazy to get up early, tramp out in the cold and then have to cart and clean the beast." Instead, I could get up late, drive to the store and have a steak on the grill in an hour. Much easier for a slacker like myself. But I do understand that my hands are no less bloody than those of the hunter. The animal is just as dead either way and my desire to eat the carcass is the reason the creature died.
If you eat meat or use any animal based product or by-product, you are no more morally superior than the hunter, and in many ways, much less so!
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