Killing Cecil The Lion

[Reub]

So what's with these crazy rogue dentists these days?

[Xan]

Is there any other kind?

[dualstow]

Nothing but a rotten cavity in his soul.
I was expecting a post from MachineGhost about this. After all, while he can be pretty acerbic with regard to politicians, he's got a soft spot for the animals.

Some footage of Cecil the lion in his prime:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wknDxXnmRsQ

For those of you who want it, the tl;dr:

Cecil was a local favorite in Zimbabwe, I guess in some kind of nature reserve.
He was lured to a non-protected place where the Minnesota dentist, Walter Palmer, nailed him with a crossbow. Palmer is a sharp shot.
40 hour later, Palmer and his local guides found him and one of the guides executed Cecil w/ a gun and then they beheaded and skinned him.
Palmer says he had no idea that Cecil was a celeb lion, and that he entrusted the guides to find him a legal kill.
I absolutely believe Palmer. At the same time, I don't feel too bad about the internet backlash he is currently receiving.

[Reub]

So are crazy rogue dentists as big a threat as, say, Isis?

[dualstow]

It's your thread, O Snarky One. Go ahead and connect the dots in whatever way suits you.

Cecil was beautiful and it's sad that it's so easy to lure protected animals to non protected ground for the right amount of cash.

[Ad Orientem]

Color me conflicted. On the one hand I do think some animals need legal protection and should not be hunted. On the other hand this guy seems to be a big game hunter with a long track record that suggests he has been careful to stay within the bounds of the law until now. I think we need to wait for his side of the story.

On a side note; I don't hunt but have no moral objections to the practice, provided you eat what you kill and you do it as humanely as possible. I am not however a big fan of killing purely for the sake of mounting a head on your living room wall.

[Mountaineer]

You must admit, the focus on Cecil was a good way to take the focus on the Planned Parenthood mess.  Cecil makes a more heart wrenching story than selling murdered baby parts (if you have a certain agenda to push). 

... M

[Reub]

Why would we worry about Islamic terrorists when we have crazy dentists running loose?

[Mountaineer]

Needless to say, I am recusing myself from this thread. 

Pugchief, have you read Taleb's Fooled By Randomness, by any chance?  He often uses dentists in his examples of misguided investing.    Now that I think about it, I typically do end up talking about investing with every dentist I've seen.  Maybe all dentists secretly want to be hedge fund managers (or lion hunters).

I really liked the dentist scene in "Marathon Man"; much more realistic than the lion hunter thing.  I did not realize MangoMan was a talented actor. 

... M

[clacy]

This is an interesting subject.  On one hand I think hunting is certainly acceptable, given the condition that killed animal is used for food.  I'm not a big fan of kill animals only for the thrill, or to make a rug, fur coats, etc.

That is totally unnecessary in today's world. 

There's something much more sinister about a dentist paying $50k to travel to Africa to shoot a lion, than say a local African shooting the lion. 

I don't feel a lot of remorse for this dentist.  He at least has the right and ability to defend himself in the court system now.  Cecil didn't have that ability.  Cecil probably killed many animals in his lifetime, but he did it to feed himself and his family.

A dentist killing a lion just to say he killed a lion is just not OK, IMO.

The fact that this lion has a name, is probably part of the issue and why there is public outrage.

Either way, I guess I have other stuff that I have to lose sleep over besides this matter.

[Tyler]

I don't personally care for sport hunting.  Big game or otherwise.  I also find the facts of the case to be legally questionable, and it deserves investigation and possibly prosecution.

That said, I find the witch hunt for the head of the dentist to be insane.  The fact that this is the top news story around the world boggles the mind.  Planned parenthood is selling human body parts for profit, the US is pushing a secret deal with Iran with terms hidden from our own government, and the story getting all the coverage and outrage is the killing of a single lion in South Africa? 

The degree to which normal people willingly submit to petty distractions is truly depressing. 

Here's a different perspective:  What Lion?

For most people in the southern African nation, where unemployment tops 80 percent and the economy continues to feel the after-effects of billion percent hyperinflation a decade ago, the uproar had all the hallmarks of a 'First World Problem'.

[Xan]

I don't personally care for sport hunting.  Big game or otherwise.  I also find the facts of the case to be legally questionable, and it deserves investigation and possibly prosecution.

That said, I find the witch hunt for the head of the dentist to be insane.  The fact that this is the top news story around the world boggles the mind.  Planned parenthood is selling human body parts for profit, the US is pushing a secret deal with Iran with terms hidden from our own government, and the story getting all the coverage and outrage is the killing of a single lion in South Africa? 

The degree to which normal people willingly submit to petty distractions is truly depressing.

Agreed with everything you just said, Tyler.  I think Matt Walsh nailed it:

So when our culture decides to sit back and tolerate, or even revere and commend, perverse evils like abortion, pornography, the breakdown of the family, the persecution of Christians, etc., it begins to accumulate a kind of Outrage Reservoir. Deep down, we must feel like we oppose evil. We can’t laud the most insidious atrocities of our time, and then look in the mirror and face ourselves honestly. The righteous anger that should be poured out in response to these true horrors is bottled and contained, clogging up our souls like constipated bowels.

We search desperately for an acceptable target for our surplus of withheld scorn, and when we locate it, we unload like we just chugged a gallon of laxative. Suddenly, some guy who killed a lion in Zimbabwe receives all of the compiled disdain that should have been discharged on the abortionists and the pornographers and the persecutors. Our pent up rage and anger mixes with guilt and self-loathing, and together it creates this concentrated bile that drowns and destroys whatever tragic chump they throw before us to be devoured. It’s nothing personal against him, really. Walter Palmer is a sacrificial lamb. A punching bag, strung up and dangled in front of progressive America as a way for them to release their moral frustrations. He’s an object. A receptacle for their misdirected vengeance. It’s like self-flagellation, only minus the self. And next week they’ll be flagellating some other patsy, and nobody will even remember or care about poor old Walter Palmer.

http://www.theblaze.com/contributions/s ... ad-people/

[Greg]

I don't personally care for sport hunting.  Big game or otherwise.  I also find the facts of the case to be legally questionable, and it deserves investigation and possibly prosecution.

That said, I find the witch hunt for the head of the dentist to be insane.  The fact that this is the top news story around the world boggles the mind.  Planned parenthood is selling human body parts for profit, the US is pushing a secret deal with Iran with terms hidden from our own government, and the story getting all the coverage and outrage is the killing of a single lion in South Africa? 

The degree to which normal people willingly submit to petty distractions is truly depressing.

Agreed with everything you just said, Tyler.  I think Matt Walsh nailed it:

So when our culture decides to sit back and tolerate, or even revere and commend, perverse evils like abortion, pornography, the breakdown of the family, the persecution of Christians, etc., it begins to accumulate a kind of Outrage Reservoir. Deep down, we must feel like we oppose evil. We can’t laud the most insidious atrocities of our time, and then look in the mirror and face ourselves honestly. The righteous anger that should be poured out in response to these true horrors is bottled and contained, clogging up our souls like constipated bowels.

We search desperately for an acceptable target for our surplus of withheld scorn, and when we locate it, we unload like we just chugged a gallon of laxative. Suddenly, some guy who killed a lion in Zimbabwe receives all of the compiled disdain that should have been discharged on the abortionists and the pornographers and the persecutors. Our pent up rage and anger mixes with guilt and self-loathing, and together it creates this concentrated bile that drowns and destroys whatever tragic chump they throw before us to be devoured. It’s nothing personal against him, really. Walter Palmer is a sacrificial lamb. A punching bag, strung up and dangled in front of progressive America as a way for them to release their moral frustrations. He’s an object. A receptacle for their misdirected vengeance. It’s like self-flagellation, only minus the self. And next week they’ll be flagellating some other patsy, and nobody will even remember or care about poor old Walter Palmer.

http://www.theblaze.com/contributions/s ... ad-people/

I think that paragraph seems totally spot on. Look how much people are raking him over the coals on Yelp. It should be about rating his practice and his professionalism in the practice, not necessarily his personal life. Also my guess is a bulk of his comments are 1.) less than a week old, 2.) have never been a patient of his.

http://www.yelp.com/biz/walter-j-palmer-dds-minneapolis

[moda0306]

I don't personally care for sport hunting.  Big game or otherwise.  I also find the facts of the case to be legally questionable, and it deserves investigation and possibly prosecution.

That said, I find the witch hunt for the head of the dentist to be insane.  The fact that this is the top news story around the world boggles the mind.  Planned parenthood is selling human body parts for profit, the US is pushing a secret deal with Iran with terms hidden from our own government, and the story getting all the coverage and outrage is the killing of a single lion in South Africa? 

The degree to which normal people willingly submit to petty distractions is truly depressing.

Agreed with everything you just said, Tyler.  I think Matt Walsh nailed it:

So when our culture decides to sit back and tolerate, or even revere and commend, perverse evils like abortion, pornography, the breakdown of the family, the persecution of Christians, etc., it begins to accumulate a kind of Outrage Reservoir. Deep down, we must feel like we oppose evil. We can’t laud the most insidious atrocities of our time, and then look in the mirror and face ourselves honestly. The righteous anger that should be poured out in response to these true horrors is bottled and contained, clogging up our souls like constipated bowels.

We search desperately for an acceptable target for our surplus of withheld scorn, and when we locate it, we unload like we just chugged a gallon of laxative. Suddenly, some guy who killed a lion in Zimbabwe receives all of the compiled disdain that should have been discharged on the abortionists and the pornographers and the persecutors. Our pent up rage and anger mixes with guilt and self-loathing, and together it creates this concentrated bile that drowns and destroys whatever tragic chump they throw before us to be devoured. It’s nothing personal against him, really. Walter Palmer is a sacrificial lamb. A punching bag, strung up and dangled in front of progressive America as a way for them to release their moral frustrations. He’s an object. A receptacle for their misdirected vengeance. It’s like self-flagellation, only minus the self. And next week they’ll be flagellating some other patsy, and nobody will even remember or care about poor old Walter Palmer.

http://www.theblaze.com/contributions/s ... ad-people/

While I think Matt Walsh is the epitome of cherry-picked point-making snarky-partisan conservative douchebaggery, I think he's onto something.  Although his "perverse evils" border on ridiculousness (Really?  "Persecution of Christians" is a perverse evil?  How about "persecution of ANYONE?"  And "breakdown of the family" and "pornography" make the short list, too?)

But he has a point in there somehwere.  As humans, we like to think of ourselves as moral, and we'll let our gut attach ourselves tribally to whatever cause "feels right" without putting much thought behind it.  Conservative war-mongers love to "support our troops."  Abortionists love to "help families plan and care about women."  We'll attach to whatever cause doesn't speak to our individual flaws, or in some ways makes them not flaws at all, but positive traits (killing them so they don't come here to kill us!!).

Of course, at risk of offending some here, I think that this same convenient tribal alliance is why so many Americans become "Christians" instead of some other religion (or no religion).  I don't doubt that there's a chance Christianity is correct and that some people are generally experiencing the Holy Spirit, but there are masses that are just going to church cuz "that's just what you do."  This is my gut level opinion.  I have no proof of it, but if you let a psychologist design an experiment that told us what people's motivations were around religion, I'd bet a lot of money that you'd find it's based on the same tribal motivations that make a PITA (see what I did there?) activist go bat-shit nuts with her friends and threaten the life of a big-game hunter because he killed a lion.

Essentially, if you split all of moral philosophy into a few different camps, you have a few useful ways of looking at how people make moral arguments.  1) Authority 2) Utilitarianism 3) Rights-based 4) Selfishness-based.  Almost everyone, including Christians (when they have no specific-enough word from God they use the other models to justify their actions), seem to conveniently bounce between these things as they justify their positions and actions, when really it's just our gut instinct doing all the heavy lifting and our rational mind coming back later and explaining logically why we did it.

Too bad Mr. Walsh can't see how the BS he spews is actually part of the same problems he's kinda-sorta getting at here.



But here's the other thing... a lot of times, outrage is due to the over-arching problem that something symbolizes than the event itself. How animals are treated in factor farms, IMO, animal rights activists are dead-on right about the problem.  People aren't just angry about one lion, but what they see is a woefully unaddressed area of law and morality, which is awareness of the unnecessary and sometimes chronic/life-long suffering of animals.  I think it's dumb that people focus their anger in such odd ways, but that's human nature.  However, to suggest that animal rights as a general topic isn't one of the most pressing moral issues of our time is a stretch, IMO.  Factor farming as it is currently done is one of the most "pervasive evils" we're experiencing.

[moda0306]

I shouldn't have been so hard on Matt.  I should reserve that level of annoyance with folks who want to wag our collective dicks all over the Middle East while touting freedom.

[Pointedstick]

This is nothing more than the liberal outrage machine spinning up to counter and deflect attention from the conservative outrage machine's gaining traction over the fetal organ harvesting scandal.

The situation is actually a near-perfect pavlovian rage trigger for liberals: we've got the killing of a named and protected animal, sport hunting, guns, money changing hands, and a wealthy white person injuring the natural splendor of the third world for personal pleasure. The story was almost tailor-made for liberal outrage.

[moda0306]

Tenn,

I totally agree that it's mind-boggling what a big story this is.  If we're going to focus on animal rights at all, how about the tens of millions of cows in factory farms, for a start.  You can get a lot more good done by losing your $hit over that.

The one thing that is disappointing with regards to Iran coverage, from the limited amount I've seen, is that there is NO historical or balance of power perspective when the topic is discussed.  It's all discussed under the premise that the U.S. and Israel are the "good guys," and Iranians (justifiably considering our history there) chanting "death to America" are the "bad guys."  I'd love to see Glenn Greenwald dismantle the blowhards on the topic of U.S. foreign policy, but you don't see him on too often unless they're discussing Snowden.

So it seems like even when important issues are being discussed, it's all a bunch of bull$hit discussion, anyway.  Should we really be surprised when a lion takes over? Think of all the other dumb things that take over the news feeds. 

[Tyler]

I didn't know it was the top news story.  The other things you mention (Planned Parenthood, Iran) seemed to be bigger from my vantage point.  Then again, I don't have cable TV, so I don't see broadcast news.  Maybe Cecil was mentioned on the radio, which I listen to on my 20 minute commute to work.  If it was, it didn't register.

So maybe the fact that I *didn't* know that Cecil the Lion was the top news story in the world is more mind-boggling. 

In all fairness, my assessment is certainly slanted by social media and I use "news" loosely.  The story is freaking everywhere.  Even on an obscure investment forum. 

[Reub]

This story is at least as important as fighting obscure terrorists based halfway around the world. Isn't it? Maybe slightly below rogue cops but never underestimate the power of a violent dentist to hurt you in many different ways as well. What if they form a conspiracy?

[dualstow]

Fundadentalists.

[dualstow]

I don't think it's quite that mind boggling, given that people love animals.
Of course, it's got to be a revered animal (read cute, or otherwise attractive). If this were a hog-nosed bat...

Granted, it shouldn't be a *top* story. That rightfully goes to the baby organ harvesting, IMO, as others have suggested.

That this story resonates with a lot of people, though- I don't know why it has to be a liberal vs conservative thing. Animals can't help themselves. I am somewhat desensitized to news stories of people hunting people on most days. There are too goddamned many of us on the planet. We are victims of our own success.

...
The fact that this lion has a name, is probably part of the issue and why there is public outrage.

Almost certainly true.

[dualstow]

They're both good.

[Libertarian666]

Needless to say, I am recusing myself from this thread. 

Pugchief, have you read Taleb's Fooled By Randomness, by any chance?  He often uses dentists in his examples of misguided investing.    Now that I think about it, I typically do end up talking about investing with every dentist I've seen.  Maybe all dentists secretly want to be hedge fund managers (or lion hunters).

I have not, but I will say that most dentists and physicians are notoriously bad at investing and running a business.

Yep. I recall hearing an old saying that if you have an "investment" that even a doctor won't buy into, try a dentist.

[dualstow]

That's hilarious. When I was a kid, I found a yellowed 1950s book about Wall Street in my dad's home office. The first page I randomly turned to had several head-scratching paragraphs about doctors being lousy investors. I didn't know what to make of it. 

My own dentists, one a Taiwanese immigrant and the other a Frenchman of Armenian heritage, are both crazy for the stock market. The latter said he was ready to quit his job as a dentist just before the 2008 crash. Neither of them have been very good for my teeth.

[Pointedstick]

Neither of them have been very good for my teeth.

My own personal experience with dentists is that they can do more harm than good. My previous dentist for example was crazy about fillings--she'd drill and fill everything. My current dentist has had to redo a few, and says that small areas sometimes heal themselves, so being overzealous is pointless and expensive. Doctors, too. I definitely prefer to take care of myself as long as nothing's overtly broken. It seems that when you have the attitude of "check me out and find anything wrong!" the pressure to find something wrong is intense. I've been to see a doctor precisely once in the last 8 years.