Rest in Peace, Fred and Peanut
Killing a Pet Racoon and Squirrel as the Latest Demonstration of Anarcho-Tyranny
As this piece is being written, much of the Internet is in a state of absolute furor over New York State euthanizing a pet squirrel and racoon, owned by a man in Elmira named Mark Longo and his wife. Their names were “Peanut” and “Fred,” respectively. Interestingly, there seems to be much more focus on Peanut, with far less mention of his racoon counterpart. Peanut, the squirrel, was a tiktok star with over one million subscribers. The outrage is palpable, with “Peanut” trending third on twitter as of this afternoon, Saturday, November 2, 2024.
This fiasco seems like a classic case of the conflict between the letter of the law and the spirt of the law. Racoons and squirrels are not typically pets. Racoons, although adorable, can be pests in densely populated areas. New York city, in particular, is known to euthanize any racoons they trap, as they are found in city parks or other areas. Animal rights activists and others concerned with the well-being of animals object that these creatures could probably be trapped and released in places where they would not pose a hazard. Instead, city and state governments just euthanize them because no live rabies tests are available for racoons. This is done even though there are behavior sets that indicate the likelihood of rabies, the absence of which suggest such a creature does not have rabies. Neither New York City or New York state or other county or municipal counties bother with such niceties, they just euthanize across the board.
Concerning the matter of “Peanut” and “Fred’ specifically, this needed to be handled a different way, particularly as Longo owned Peanut for seven and half years and Fred for a long time as well. Instead of weighing such facts, slavish adherence to the letter rather than the spirit of the law prevented New York officials from any such thing. Even if state officials were to refuse to make an exception to the laws that supposedly mandate this course of action and simply turn a blind eye, Longo could have been given an opportunity to find a place, ostensibly out of state, where Fred and Peanut could live.
Conservative, right-of-center, and even radical right commentators are using this anecdote to repudiate the twisted priorities of politicians in New York. This outrage was perhaps best expressed in this parody of Donald Trump, a fake statement expressing outrage over this.
New York state will facilitate the illegal alien crisis by putting the invaders up in what used to be posh hotels, will do nothing to stem the crisis of shop-lifting and other petty crime since the “Defund the Police,” “Black Lives Matter,” and other far left ideas gained currency with the George Floyd fiasco in 2020. They will not do anything about rising violent crime, particularly in the subways. But they will send a swat team to detain Longo and his girlfriend and forcibly euthanize a harmless squirrel and racoon.
Some of the reactions, which get it mostly right, This government does hate traditional Americans. Bur this is not the “reality of government” categorically, but the reality of this government. Instead of eschewing state power categorically, perhaps those opposed to the left need to reconsider the type of government we have.
Many conservative types, forever misguided, draw some mistaken lessons, namely that because this government in New York is imposing this sort of anarcho-tyranny, that all government, categorically, is this oppressive and onerous. Authoritarian states such as seen in Singapore (or regimes such as those wielded Francisco France, Augusto Pinochet) and others. The state in abstract is not the problem, but those in power in places like New York, California, and the federal government are. A more enlightened perspective is not to disdain all state power categorically, but desire the seizure and application of state power by interests more benign to our greater good, although far more malignant to those who seek to destroy Europe and the West.