Shooters and Elephants

In the papers on 12 April were several articles about the Shooters’ Party and their request for hunting to be allowed in NSW national parks. Accompanying one was a picture of Robert Borsak (Shooters’ Party MLC) next to an elephant he had just shot and looking very proud of himself. The stupid prick has even posted a whole gallery of pictures. (Edit - I had a link, but it's now broken. He appears to have taken many of his pics down. Here's a salient example of the arsehole and his work).

Good effort, you fucking dickhead! Why did you feel the need to kill it? You look like an absolute idiot, standing there next to your handiwork.

I suppose you think it an unreasonable imposition on your freedom to be denied the right to shoot a big animal for pleasure. Well it’s not. If some hungry Africans had killed it for food, then fair enough, but you killed it for fun, with no regard for its right to live … and don’t pretend that it was all OK because some Africans ate it later.

A measure of a society is the way it treats animals. Humans evolved to eat meat and it’s not unreasonable for an open, liberal society to farm animals for their meat and skins, as long as they are not neglected and abused.

The civil rights of citizens come directly from the structure and strength of their society. It is reasonable that a strong and open society agrees to certain civil rights for the animals under its care. This goes right to the heart of the interpretation of the principles of Liberalism: do we really believe that animals have zero right to even a fraction of the liberties and protections we claim for ourselves? I do not.

The animal rights argument originated on the far left of politics (and Peter Singer is as loony left as they come), but that doesn’t mean it should stay there. Not everything the left says is crap (a lot of it is, but not all). The idea of animal rights should be openly debated, without the shrill polemic of the anti-fur lobby and without the hijacking of libertarianism by the gun lobby.

Very few would suggest equality for animals, but there is a middle ground and a mature, open society should recognize it: you can kill animals for food and skins or in self defence, but not for pleasure.

The argument that elephants are growing in numbers and need to be culled appears to be self serving bullshit. Elephant populations are not as stable as some vested interests might have us believe. The only region where their population appears to be stable and well managed is southern Africa.

Farmers shoot foxes and rabbits because they are pests. I can understand some degree of satisfaction from an accurate, clean shot, or from a sizeable haul of skins for sale, however the shooting is done as part of earning a living.

I can also understand a sniper feeling satisfaction at shooting an enemy during war, helping save the lives of his comrades.

But what sort of person derives pleasure from shooting an elephant for sport?

It seems a rather expensive cure for erectile dysfunction.