December 08, 2010
Aaron Sorkin is a Whiny Little Man-Bitch, Isn't He?
It's starting to feel like "all caribou, all the time" around here, but you take your litmus tests where you find them.
Sarah Palin's less-than-picture-perfect caribou hunt on her reality show has earned her some derision on both sides of the political spectrum.
On the right, critics find her gun handling and shooting skills suspect, as well as her decision to shoot a rifle that had been dropped earlier in the hunt. Not only did she fire it and complain about it missing high, she shot it five times before going to another rifle with which she finally dispatched what must have been one of the world's dumbest herbivores. Some doubt her authenticity as a hunter and shooter as a result of the episode, while some question her judgment as she continued to use a damaged weapon. By and large, these criticisms have all be rational.
And then there is the comically absurd commentary frothing forth from the Left.
I discussed Maureen Dowd's mangled attempt earlier, but shrill screenwriter Aaron Sorkin was so furious that he produced a self-parodying gem that simply must be read to be appreciated for it's stupidity.
Like 95% of the people I know, I don't have a visceral (look it up) problem eating meat or wearing a belt. But like absolutely everybody I know, I don't relish the idea of torturing animals. I don't enjoy the fact that they're dead and I certainly don't want to volunteer to be the one to kill them and if I were picked to be the one to kill them in some kind of Lottery-from-Hell, I wouldn't do a little dance of joy while I was slicing the animal apart.
"Torturing animals"?
I'd invite Mr. Sorkin to visit any commercial slaughterhouse of his choice, and compare the killing processes there against the taking of a game animal by a hunter. His belt and loafers lived a tortured life in a factory farm and died a tortured death in a commercial slaughterhouse. Palin's caribou lived free in nature, and died there.
I'm able to make a distinction between you and me without feeling the least bit hypocritical. I don't watch snuff films and you make them. You weren't killing that animal for food or shelter or even fashion, you were killing it for fun. You enjoy killing animals. I can make the distinction between the two of us but I've tried and tried and for the life of me, I can't make a distinction between what you get paid to do and what Michael Vick went to prison for doing.
Oh, what nutty goodness. As noted above, the commercially raised, slaughtered, and butchered animals that Sorkin exploits for his needs and comforts are done by others with cold efficiency, stripping the animals of their dignity along with their flesh. Palin's kill was explicitly made to fill her freezer. His argument that she, like millions of others in America and generations of mankind going back to the beginning of our species, should not find pride and an feeling of accomplish in one of mankind's oldest rituals merely shows how ignorant this pretender really is about the human condition... and it perhaps explains the thinned excrement he typically produces as entertainment.
Hunters hunt for many reasons, but the most common are to connect to our shared cultural past, to commune with nature, and feel the satisfaction of being self-sustaining. It shouldn't be a surprise that a parasite that derives his existence from mimicking the human condition is unable to relate to the authentic state.
I'm able to make the distinction with no pangs of hypocrisy even though I get happy every time one of you faux-macho shitheads accidentally shoots another one of you in the face.
Oh, the compassion of the faux compassionate. Sorkin, a cookie-cutter liberal, gives unrestricted sympathy to animals he finds adorable, exploits the ones that upholster his custom-made furniture and adorn his plate, and harbors hatred in his heart for those who can do what he cannot... provide for themselves. You can almost hear his testosterone-deprived raisins shriveling with anger as he rages.
So I don't think I will save my condemnation, you phony pioneer girl. (I'm in film and television, Cruella, and there was an insert close-up of your manicure while you were roughing it in God's country. I know exactly how many feet off camera your hair and make-up trailer was.)And you didn't just do it for fun and you didn't just do it for money. That was the first moose ever murdered for political gain. You knew there'd be a protest from PETA and you knew that would be an opportunity to hate on some people, you witless bully. What a uniter you'd be -- bringing the right together with the far right.
I should not have to point out the fact that animals have been used for political gain since the very beginning of human history in the form of tribute, sacrifice, and of course, political symbolism, but Sorkin is off the rails on a rant; facts, reality, and the expanse of human history be damned. That Sorkin can't tell a moose from a caribou is also a symptom of the left. They want to pay lip service to environmentalism, but don't expect them to spend enough time in the natural environment to identify anything in it.
(Let me be the first to say that I abused cocaine and was arrested for it in April 2001. I want to be the first to say it so that when Palin's Army of Arrogant A$%holes, bereft of any reasonable rebuttal, write it all over the internet tomorrow they will at best be the second.)I eat meat, there are leather chairs in my office, Sarah Palin is deranged and The Learning Channel should be ashamed of itself.
Sorkin thinks the distant past needs to be dredged up for us to mock him or find his perverse sense of morals and manhood cheap.
That he is a living parody simply wouldn't cross his mind.
Update: And can someone please explain to these idiot liberals the difference between a moose and a caribou?
Well, that is what you get snorting cocaine while writing West Wing scripts, isn't it?
Posted by: Gunpowder Chronicle at December 8, 2010 06:03 PMLong ago Robert A. Heinlein taught me that, yes, if you eat meat you are the moral equivilent to the person who does the slaughtrering.
And I lurves me some steak.
Posted by: Lazarus Long at December 8, 2010 06:48 PMIn defense of Palin's shooting, if you have ever shot a scoped rifle that has been dropped, there is no way except flying dirt to tell where the shots went. It was obvious that she knew how to shoot when she was given a dialed in rifle and scope. Without seeing where the shots went no one could have guessed where the misses were going and corrected for the error.
Posted by: INSPECTORUDY at December 8, 2010 07:19 PMExcellent response to Sorkin but I have one nit- pick:
"His belt and loafers lived a tortured life in a factory farm and died a tortured death in a commercial slaughterhouse."
I take exception to your characterization of livestock experiencing a "tortured life and death". I grew up working on our hog farm. One that would be characterized by PETA as a factory farm. Those hogs lived a charmed life compared to what their experience would be in the wild though their lifespans were predetermined for them. Stressing an animal is counterproductive to efficient growth and meat quality. They are treated very well.
"Factory farm" is as much a fabricated term as "assault weapon". It was fabricated to elicit a similar emotional response. I wish you wouldn't use it.
Posted by: Hat Trick at December 8, 2010 08:39 PM"On the right, critics find her gun handling and shooting skills suspect..."
Yes, Bob. Only conservatives know how to handle a rifle or a shotgun and have ever hunted. And "suspect" is putting it mildly. She is no more a hunter than you are a US Marine.
Is it possible that Sarah Palin is, with total calculation... coldy, deliberately, forthrightly trying to drive her opposition nuts? (a mighty short drive, I acknowledge)
She is doing stuff that she knows is going to cause the media and cultural elites to show us all (again!) exactly how pathetically out of touch they are with the rest of us, and the real world as a whole. And if those people were half as smart as they tell us they are, they wouldn't take the bait.... every single time. But they do, again and again.
Litle puppets on a string. It always makes for a great show, on and off of TLC.
Posted by: Andrew X at December 8, 2010 10:24 PMHat Trick,
That's a fair complaint.
I should have written:
His belt and loafers lived a "tortured" life in a factory farm and died a "tortured" death in a commercial slaughterhouse.
I can't speak to the quality of life of hogs and chickens and turkeys, but I do know that I've seen them grown in a fairly confined conditions. Torture is too strong of a word, but a good life? I rather doubt it.
Confederate Yankee,
I'd say that our hogs had a life though shorter that was as good as or better than the dogs and cats that live out their lives in our local "humane" no-kill shelter.
Posted by: Hat Trick at December 8, 2010 10:43 PMThis type of commentary is not surprising. Methinks that a fairly large proportion of people living in urban areas, particularly those born there as well, have watched too much of the Hollywood products such as cartoons for many years featuring funny, cuddly, wholesome, and intelligent talking animals, to not be predisposed to think killing one is evil or backwards, or both. Toss in your points regarding the reasons for hunting both as sport and self-sufficiency and you only confuse urbanites who neither hunt nor know of sports outside of arenas.
Many people around my home hunted and fished as both sport and significantly for reducing the family budget deficit, or at least increasing the disposable income for such things as clothing or books, cookware or gifts, charity or grace.
I guess these aren't considerations in Hollywood.
Posted by: Robert17 at December 8, 2010 10:47 PMI can't make a distinction between what you get paid to do and what Michael Vick went to prison for doing.
Therein lies the danger of animal cruelty laws. When city boys get to make the rules about what is cruel and what isn't, everyone in the animal harvesting business is only one judicial ruling away from being a criminal. Shooting a Deer = not cruel. Shooting a dog = cruel. I have a horse and have spoken with other horse owners. If my horse becomes injured in the field (stupid critters are always hurting themselves), I have to let it suffer until a vet comes to put it down chemically. But if I lived further away from people with urban mentalities, I could do the job myself, quickly and humanely and from a safe distance so the distressed animal didn't hurt a human while thrashing around.
Posted by: Professor Hale at December 9, 2010 09:54 AMI took my first deer this weekend. It was very fun. I was a single shot to the vitals, and it only made it about 10 yards before it quit. I field dressed it myself under the instruction of my uncle. It took me about 5 minutes. Pulling it back to the truck over a rough Iowa field revealed that I needed to work out a bit more. I now understand why people hunt. It's great.
It's too bad that Liberals like this Aaron fellow wanted my uncle to shoot me in the face, or worse yet, for me to murder him.
Posted by: brando at December 9, 2010 11:00 AMAlso, Lazarus Long is an awesome username.
Posted by: brando at December 9, 2010 11:01 AMThe caribou looked to be young, not much of a rack. It reminded me of the scene in "Dances with Wolves" when "socks" was trapped between the soldiers shooting at him and the Indians on the other side of the hill. I wonder what was the distance of the shot? Shooting uphill at 400 yards is a tough shot. May have been an "canned" hunt but the outfitter earned his money. Sarah is putting money in the local economy. Go Sarah.
Prof. Hale,
I had not realized that it had gotten that bad. I am appalled that you have to wait for a vet now. You are absolutely right that shooting a horse on the spot is the only humane thing to do.
I worked on a ranch in Wyoming as an older teen breaking and training horses. Once a 2-year-old fell over backwards as it was rearing up, and banged its head pretty hard.
It was writhing, and screaming -- that's the only word for it, and it tears me up now 45 years later.
The head wrangler ran and got a rifle from his truck, and shot that poor animal in the head.
I had to do the same for a deer by the side of the road years later when I was a Deputy Sheriff.
NO ONE in their right mind who had been at either incident would have called either anything but a kindness to the animal.
NO ONE in their right mind who had been at either incident would have called either anything but a kindness to the animal.
Now it would be called "discharging a firearm within 50 ft of a public roadway" or even "child endangerment" if any of them were present. Of course, as a deputy sheriff, you can get away with a lot more.
Posted by: Professor Hale at December 9, 2010 02:30 PMWe raise cattle in western kansas, and we take damn good care of our stock because to do any thing else would be counter productive.
Posted by: bman@ucom.net at December 9, 2010 07:03 PM
