Cecil Was One of Us. No, Wait, He Was Just a Lion.

Column by Harry Goslin.

Exclusive to STR

The irrational, overly-emotional and childlike reaction to the killing of a lion in Africa is another example of why Americans will be forever in the dark about what’s important in the world and what’s not. It’s these kinds of silly, irrelevant stories that especially gets the lip-quivering left up in arms and unfortunately dominates the news for weeks at a time. It’s another low-IQ type of story that distracts and misdirects.

It has become a typical “progressive” reaction in the West. Indignation and outrage, calls for “something” to be done and sometimes, in this case literally, the guilty party be fed to the lions. We get similar reactions with “sweatshops.” You know, non-union wage earners, some of which might be “children,” making far less per hour than Americans. The self-righteous crusading crowd goes on an emotional rampage demanding that Americans boycott these products and, that failing, pressures government to embargo the country’s imports. Blah, blah, blah.

People that make this argument ignore economics and the needs of the people affected by the, “I need to feel warm and fuzzy inside so I’m going to ‘do something’ that makes me feel important and caring,” activities.

The wage argument really is an example of that old adage, comparing apples and oranges. You can’t just look at hourly wages and on that basis screech “Unfair!”. There’s more to it than that. Ah, but that requires thinking through the argument and that might compromise the good feeling one gets from “doing something” and demanding “change” or, even better, “action.”

Then there’s the impact on the people who would lose their jobs as a result of extremely ignorant but supposedly well-meaning progressives acting to assuage their own intellectually-vacuous guilty conscience. Putting people out of work in developing countries will never earn progressives their gratitude. Oh well. At least well-fed liberals will feel better about themselves, and that’s what matters most.

Regarding the dead lion in Africa--Cecil as he was known to his close friends on social media he would never comprehend (because he was just a lion)--most of the outrage has been expressed by progressives in the West. Believe it or not, Africans who live in proximity to lions don’t shed quite as many tears when a lion is killed. In fact, they tend to be more practical and thankful for the improved safety for those living in proximity to lions. But that’s hard for Western progressives to internalize. After all, the closest most of them ever got to a lion was a trip to the zoo. Not much threat in that.

Maybe giving the lion a cutesy sounding name makes it too easy to humanize a predator and proven man-eater (not Cecil, but lions, which he was). Why not call him Fang, Claws, Jaws, Shredder or something really cool for a top-line predator on the hunt, Ghost or Darkness (like the 1996 movie with Michael Douglas and Val Kilmer). “Cecil” makes the beast sound like he’s a just another loveable snob you could have a bite with, except you might end up being his meal (after all, he was a lion, not a jolly good chap).

If this story is still alive when school starts, and it will be so long as the media can milk it, children in the lower grades will be making sympathy cards for Cecil and sending them to Jericho, his companion lion (was Cecil “progressive” when it came to lion relationships?). They could build little shrines to honor his memory. Maybe some will go on mini-class trips to the local zoo to pay homage, like pilgrimages to Jerusalem. Sounds reasonable. Hasn’t Cecil been beatified in some sort of twisted way (or at the least “lionized”)? Animal deification is one of the pagan rituals of the progressive left.

Of late there have been strong demands that the “murderer” of this magnificent and possibly intelligent being (Cecil, if we only had more time to get to know you), former Minnesota dentist James Palmer, be extradited to Zimbabwe to stand trial for his heinous crime. The well-publicized screeds by celebrities and their equally-irrational “friends” on social media would love to send Palmer to Africa to be tortured or fed to the lions.

Ah, Zimbabwe, one of the current garden spots of Africa. Once held out as promising for its independence from white minority rule, it has become one of the more oppressive places in Africa. Robert Mugabe has ruled for almost 30 years and will die a de facto king, productive white farmers were stripped of land because they were white, resulting in near starvation for tens of thousands, and then there’s Zimbabwe’s ubiquitous currency, now a collector’s item. Zimbabwe has replaced Weimar Germany as the poster child of hyperinflation.

Getting back to the distracting element of Cecil’s demise, there’s those so non-progressive stories about Planned Parenthood and videos purporting to show staff members discussing potential profits from the spare parts of aborted fetuses. In a normal world, this story would be a newsworthy item that couldn’t be ignored, only preempted by other “news.” After all, Cecil was a living, breathing creature, not some unnamed, unviable tissue mass that failed to achieve full synthesis and consciousness. And, he was like Simba all growed up.

And that’s really the purpose of harping so much on the death of Cecil. Progressives don’t want others to be aware of the complete hypocrisy of their beliefs – that they’re anything but progressive. Killing’s okay so long as those terminated are not fit to live. And that includes people who haven’t been born yet and those who kill animals for any reason.

Instead of sending James Palmer to Zimbabwe to face trial, maybe this crowd should go into the wilds of Africa so they can protect all the remaining endangered and unnamed lions from bad guys with guns. Wouldn’t that be cause to feel all warm and toasty inside? Come on, do it in memory of Cecil, our friend, our brother (the lion).