So, I was watching TV yesterday and I ran across a show called "Whale Wars." It looked interesting enough to hold my attention. However, I became suspicious very rapidly. I had heard of this before. Green Peace attacking whaling ships sounded very familiar. Before I could continue watching the show, I decided to do some research on whether they were acting with legal authority or were simply being vandals. My suspicions were correct. The members of "Sea Shepherd", the organization on Whale Wars, are no better than self-righteous vandals.
I want to preface this with the fact that I like whales. Whales are beautiful and majestic creatures. To see them butchered brings a tear to my eye. Guess what, that doesn't make what Sea Shepherd is doing right. The old saying "Two wrongs don't make a right" jumps readily to mind. Let's look at it this way: I believe that abortion is wrong. It is murder. That doesn't make it ok for me to go and assault or murder abortion doctors. I do not have the authority to do that. Just as I don't have authority to "execute" an abortion doctor, so too does Sea Shepherd not have the authority to harass, assault, and vandalize, whalers and their ships.
On a brief tangent, these people care enough about whales sacrifice their lives and time in the middle of the ocean to hunt down and harass whalers but they stand idly by while people murder unborn children. Since when are whales more valuable than human beings? Oh, I guess we have a lot more humans than whales so what is a few dead babies? Sin is not logical.
The reason Whale Wars irks me so much is twofold. (1. These people are getting famous. They have a television show and are getting air time. (2. This is the typical attitude of people. If the other person is doing something bad, all bets are off. I can do whatever I want and it's morally justified. These people have become no better than the whalers! You have lowered yourself to their level. At least the people who are whaling are technically within the law. The law allows whaling for research purposes. On the episode I watched, Sea Shepherd was harassing a ship that is run by the Cetacean Research Institute. Sea Shepherd is the organization that is breaking the law! They have no jurisdiction or legal basis for doing what they are doing. YET, they are lauded and lavished with praise for their actions.
It is sad to see the state of our society today. We value vigilante justice. If we lived in a world like that, we wouldn't like it. Then why do we applaud those kind of actions? I repeat. Sin is not logical.
God Bless,
Stanley
Good post Stanley, and much food for thought. You are right; two wrongs don't make a right and no one has the right to self-righteously do what they want just because someone else is deemed 'wrong' in any way. There is NEVER a mandate to sin, for anyone.
ReplyDeleteHere in the UK we have Friends of the Earth, which I believe is similar to Sea Shepherds. I too deplore whaling, particularly by the Japanese, who uses their fins for an expensive delicacy (or is it from sharks they do this? Actually, it doesn't really matter which.)
ReplyDeleteI also get your point about abortion, and I fully agree with you, it is murder, but our society here in the UK accept it as a social convenience. There was a report recently in a newspaper that a certain Cambridge doctor (female) declared that abortion was okay because she believed that the fetus is still sub-human while still in the womb. We British worship the academic, and put them on a pedestal, yet she comes out with a statement such as this!!!
May God have mercy on her.
A very good post.
Really, there are only two ways to justify abortion. You can either elevate the rights of the women or you can devalue the life in the womb. Doing one usually implies the other but they are two distinct arguments. In America, many people say "The women has a right to her body" or the women say "You can't tell me what to do with my body." Then there are those who say that the baby is merely a blob of tissue. These are both simply untrue. The abortion fight is something that I have not felt personally called to pursue with the passion that others have, however it is one of the few political issues that I feel is extremely clear cut.
ReplyDeleteI've begun to use the phrase "It's like this is the A&E of X.", wherein X is something horrible. A&E is so hatable because of all the depraved and stupid reality shows, many of which my stepdad watches on a regular basis.
ReplyDelete-DJ