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Culture War Roundup for the week of November 4, 2024

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He deserved to have his feral disease ridden animals taken because he is a degenerate pornstar and vain social media publicity seeker. This non story is total brain melting slop.

I'm sure every animal department has stupid policies where they needlessly kill tame housebroken foxes and let feral pitbulls continue to eat toddlers: https://slatestarcodex.com/2015/09/16/cardiologists-and-chinese-robbers/

  • -20

This comment is bad. It contains no insight, analysis, information, or content except the fact that you evidently don't like the guy and don't care about dead squirrels and wanted to express it in a belligerent fashion. You could have just not commented on a story you don't care about, or you could have put some minimal effort into explaining why you don't think it's a story worthy of discussion (though generally we take a dim view of telling other posters what they should or shouldn't be talking about, since obviously plenty of people did think it was worth discussing), or you could have added some content (like details, with links, about this individual and why you think he's unworthy of sympathy and therefore no one should care about his squirrel). Instead you just decided to uncork and spew. We do not like it when people do this. You have a history of doing this. Stop it.

I think he is making an argument. It's a bad argument in my view, but it's an argument accompanied by some sort of reasoning. Not going to win a quality contribution award, but not in violation of the rules either IMO. He is inviting a discussion and responding.

A plain reading of my comment is clearly that this policy is eminently reasonable, these things happen frequently and are mundane, and this story's notoriety is unrelated to its merit, but the man involved is flooding social media for personal gain. That's not enough analysis for a reply to a thread?

Your link suggests sarcasm, though this showed up in my filter feed.

Even if the owner murders babies I don't see how that justifies killing the squirrel. Seems like an unrelated issue.

Animals are property.

This guy says law enforcement spent five hours ransacking his property. And destroyed some of it such as his pet squirrel. That's the problem here. The anarchotyranny of a government with no time or resources to deal with shoplifting and car break ins, but apparently lots of law enforcement resources to crack down on unregistered squirrel owners.

So should we burn down murderers' houses? What's the point of destroying property as punishment for a "crime" (which in this case is not actually a crime and which no one has been convicted of yet)?

The squirrel bit a guy I think. If a murderer built a house that tries to punch your balls every time you walked by I'd probably want to demolish it.

it apparently bit an officer when they were in the process of seizing it. The same as incarcerating someone for resisting arrest without any other charge raised.

If the cops show up to my house for some stupid reason and want me to go sit in the squad car while they do whatever, and I thrash and kick and headbutt one of them like a BLM protester then yes, I do think it is fine to punish me for that, even if the original reason they were there didn't pan out. If you're more libertarian and completely disagree that the state and its agents should have some good faith wiggle room for mistakes or best practices that fine, but there's no sense in us spending 8 comments to reach that impasse.

wouldn't it be necessary for the cops to have a court order to ransack your home? I would assume that includes potential charges.

"If you're more libertarian and completely disagree that the state and its agents should have some good faith wiggle room for mistakes or best practices that fine,..."

I just find it hard to consider the killing of pets without recourse from the owner as a mistake.

The squirrel bit a guy who was trying to take the squirrel away. If there was a car that could punch your balls when you tried to steal it, a lot of people would probably want one.

The squirrel only bit the guy after they entered the house and tried to take the squirrel, which should have never happened to begin with.

So what is the reasoning behind infringing on this guy's property, then?

Probably that the animals spread disease and rabies and are more likely to bite their owners and have to be put down sooner or later anyway. Not sure though, the justification might begin with the negation that he was the right to own this specific property.

the animals spread disease and rabies

Source? Evidently the state does not know that, they killed it to test it for rabies in the first place.