No, I’m not equating government bureaucrats with rabid squirrels at a rave (that’s totally unfair to rabid squirrels). Yes, I am going to talk about the unnecessary and tragic demise of P’Nut the squirrel and his adopted brother, Fred the raccoon. As most of you probably know by now, a woman in Texas (yes, I’m sorry to say), got a stick up her ass about the Instagram videos P’Nut’s rescuer was sharing. She apparently decided that this was somehow an affront to all that’s good and holy in these United States. So, she filed multiple complaints with the New York state Department of Environmental Conservation regarding P’Nut. I am not privy to the details of those complaints, but I assume she claimed animal abuse or some such. Because a couple of nights ago, the NY DEC decided to RAID the house, with a SWAT team (as one does when confronting squirrel rescuers), tearing it apart (yes, they did, you can read the accounts), and kidnapping P’Nut and Fred, subsequently getting both animals euthanized.
Bear in mind – the guy had raised and taken care of P’Nut for seven years. Seven. With no issues. Additionally, he was in the process of filing the paperwork to be a wildlife rescue. Yet, the state of New York decided that wasn’t enough.
You should be really worried about a government agency that has the time and desire to go after a pet squirrel.
This entire incident screams government overreach and illustrates – with bells on – the easy and thoughtless ability of some Americans to turn in fellow citizens to the faceless and unbending bureaucracy for the smallest and most trivial of reasons. The woman who called in to complain about a squirrel living over one thousand miles away from her, did so with the highest confidence in her moral superiority over the guy who rescued the squirrel seven years ago after its mother was run over. If you’ve ever asked yourself how could ordinary Germans allow Nazis to come to power… here’s your answer: Because they felt morally superior to those they were condemning to the brutal hand of government bureaucracy.
If your reaction to this story is “Oh, c’mon. It was a squirrel and a raccoon. The dude shouldn’t have been keeping them as pets in the first place,” then you have to ask yourself how you would feel if the government, in the form of a SWAT team showed up at your door in the dead of night, made you sit outside while they ransacked your house, stole your pets, and then had those pets killed. Because if you think “that can’t happen to me” you have another think coming. This woman lived in Texas. P’Nut’s human lives in New York state. Do you post videos of you and your pets? Well, then, you’re susceptible to someone deciding that playing catch with your cat is abuse and they will call your state’s animal welfare/wildlife rehabilitation office and claim you are blatantly abusing your cat.
And the bureaucracy, filled as it is with people who relish the power of being a petty tyrant, will believe the caller and not you, despite the fact that you are most decidedly NOT abusing your cat. Why will they believe the one doing the complaining? Because bureaucrats LIVE to exercise their power over us garbage peons. It’s what petty tyrants do.
Is that clear? The government WILL BELIEVE THE CALLER. The bureaucrats who respond will justify their response by saying something along the lines of “better safe than sorry.”
Think about this possible scenario for a minute: You’re videoing a cute interactions with your child. Some random do-gooder wanna-be Karen sees the video and decides s/he just knows you’re abusing your kid. Said Karen proceeds to call CPS in your state and they come and remove your child despite any evidence to the contrary.
Remember Elian Gonzalez? Yeah.
Government overreach is a fact of life and I find that tragic. P’Nut and Fred’s untimely and unnecessary deaths are just the most recent and egregious example.
Bureaucracies are self-governing, and like the mythical hydra, grow another head every time one is cut off. Once a government department is created, getting rid of it is next to impossible.
How are bureaucracies controlled? Well, the U.S. Constitution gives Congress the power of oversight over the bureaucracy – if Congress decides to use that power. The President is the Executive and all federal bureaucracies are under the office of the President, they report to POTUS. Congress is in charge of creating and eliminating departments, again, if they choose to use that power. The bureaucracies are the “D.C. Swamp” you’ve heard tell about, and the swamp is pretty damn rank.
One of the things that Trump has promised to do if (please, God, when) elected is to “drain the swamp.” In this election cycle, he’s already mentioned that he’d put Elon Musk in charge of firing people and getting rid of various bureaucracies. I know people are going to hyperventilate over the thought of all those poor, overpaid government bureaucrats becoming unemployed, but I’m okay with that. After all, why should the feds be exempt from the pain of job loss?
The swamp most definitely needs to be drained. The Feds need to recognize that they are not the bosses of us, nor are they (by any stretch of the imagination) our moral betters. If anything, they are our moral inferiors. As are all the Karens out there who are chomping at the bit just for a chance to turn in their neighbors for morally suspicious behavior – however they decide to define that suspicious behavior.
Just a quick reminder… the US Constitution limits government action because the Founders had just fought an eight-year war due to government overreach.
If you want politics to leave you alone, you should be trying to limit government, not expand it. The deaths of P’Nut and Fred are due to an overexpanded government and nosy, do-gooder Karen’s who think everything is their business.
Rest in peace, P’Nut and Fred.
Squirrels are the bane of my existence, almost on the level of MSNBC. That said, this was an outrageous level of governmental overreach. That the woman who reported this was from Texas, is criminal. I hope she’s a transplant and not native born Texan, or I’ll lose all faith in my fellow humans.
I think that a government that can’t be bothered to take care of its state’s citizens but had the time and inclination, even to the extent of looking into the wife’s immigration status, needs some defunding and a realignment of its agencies.
There are a few quibbles.
The US Constitution describes the government and its powers and it writes of the limits on those powers and who gets to use them. However, and this is the important thing, We The People are the ones that limit the government’s power and that is largely why we do have the 2nd Amendment. There was a whole lot about Tyranny in the writings of the time but they were just talking about their government before they overthrew it.
I voted for Trump but I keep in mind that he is just this man, you know? He can do nothing to effect anything in the Government or bureaucracy without able and willing subordinates and right now he doesn’t have a single person like that in the Government or Bureaucracy. It will take him months to get started after he takes office.
Frankly, I hope he does a better job of picking the right people and getting them approved/confirmed by the Senate as quickly as possible.