Seal Protests
I don’t exactly know where I sit on the whole seal hunt thing that is being widely debated in Canada these days. I honestly don’t know even half as much as I probably should about the whole situation.
What I do know however, is that I really don’t like the actions and accusations of the anti-seal-hunt people — the group I know of as the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society (I will not link to them…they are stupid). On Saturday their boat was raided by the RCMP and the captain and first officer were arrested for their dangerous use of the ship in ramming a Canadian Coast Guard vessel.
Of course, as soon as the rest of the crew gets back to shore we hear stories about how they were all innocent, why, in fact it was the Coast Guard that rammed them! (Forgetting the evidence I’m about to describe, seriously, how likely does this sound?) After which their boat was taken into custody in, get this, an act of piracy!
So, watching the news last night they showed one of the boat collisions, taken by a crew member of the Sea Shepherd’s boat. And what could you clearly see, with only a modicum of common sense? If you watched the motion of the image, and the boats, with respect to the ice, you could see that the only boat that was even moving was the Farley Mowat (the Sea Shepherd’s boat)! So if only one boat is moving, and there’s a collision, who exactly do we think is responsible?
Just another case of the so-called peaceful protestors doing what they do I guess. But when you’re weilding a multi-hundred ton boat as a weapon, I totally support the actions of the RCMP.
Oh, and btw, McDonald’s totally needs to start serving baby seal on a bun — McFlubber! (This was thought of years ago by a group of us in J9, I’ve sent the idea twice to McDonald’s — no response yet.)
I don’t support violent actions in these situations, but let’s consider the assumptions inherent in your analysis.
You consider all human life to be far and away more important than any amount, of any other type of life. The seal hunt is responsible for the systematic murder of MILLIONS of thinking and feeling beings every year, yet their brutal and unnecessary deaths cannot be offered to weigh against the slightest human inconvenience, let alone bodily harm. So of course you condemn the activists for doing what they may-or-may-not have done, since the death of sentient beings is meaningless and the risk of death to a human meaningful.
What we should be asking ourselves is why some people are moved to action… perhaps frivolous products to drive our capitalist society are not worth the innocent lives of beings that are more like you and I than you’re willing to admit, and who clearly have an interest in not being murdered so that you can make cynical jokes with a bunch of narrow minded computer geeks while you munch on the corpses of beings who ought to have the right not be used as your commodity.
…Also I am aware of the irony of once having been one of those narrow minded computer geeks… but I was never much of a computer geek, and I’ve since come to terms with a lot of issues in my life
By the way…
I left a typical JonBen, scathing sort of comment, since… you know that’s who I am, and especially how those that read this blog remember me (I assume). I would have been less jaded otherwise.
Also after I thought about what I said, I realised that it’s not about open minds so much as open hearts, it’s actually a lot of both, but until you open your heart you can’t appreciate the mind part… or at least that’s how it seems sometimes.
Basically as a meat eater you must logically agree with the seal hunt, or at least you don’t oppose it on grounds of inhumane treatment. There are two clear logical conclusions, either the interests of animals matter, or they don’t. You’ve chosen the latter based on the majority of your actions. But everyone is so schizophrenic about these things, loving and caring about animals one moment and killing them without thought the next… Latching onto the moments of respect and love is usually the easiest way to understand how to extent it, logically, to all beings who think and feel.
You see, I’m very conscious of the fact that it’s you writing this. I was going to go all ad hominem on your ass, basically equating you (and by proxy, the stereotypical vegan) to emo Samples who spend your time chastising those who live a less ‘correct’ life than you all the while snapping pictures of the happy zoo animals.
Then I was going to throw in a little argumentative rhetoric, you know, like how I want to open an anti-vegan restaurant one day…and how the special entree is going to be called “1000 vegans crying”, just a basic freshly-clubbed baby seal lying on a platter and surrounded by an assortment of rabbit delicacies all nicely prepared on bacon-flavoured crackers and drizzled in the melted cheese of cattle who’ve never walked more than 10 feet in their whole lives.
But then you had to be all nice and I just didn’t feel right posting that. Good to have you around Jon…I’m sure we’ll argue on more than just this in the time to come.
Both of you are totally missing the point: that the innocent are suffering. Our modern “civilization” keeps respect for other beings at its center, using dialogue between opposing viewpoints to work out differences. But here where I see references to animal slaughter and the seal hunt, neither one of you has addressed the two ships that were injured in this incident. For shame.