If You’re Mad at the Navy for Hurting Dolphins, You’ve Forgotten What the Armed Forces Get Paid To Do
Y’all have seen this one on Facebook, right? Comes with an online petition so you can get your name on MoveOn.org’s spam list:
Apparently the United States Navy has some kind of sonar system underwater that messes with dolphins. So people are getting their activist on, and clicking “share” on one of those graphuck things on Facebook. Maybe even clicking through to sign an online petition. Shit just got real up in here. Because dolphins.
I’m wondering if anyone is pausing in their Facebook-indignation (never to be confused with the real thing) and contemplating the actual purpose of our military, which is to kill people.
That’s pretty much their thing. That’s what we pay ‘em for. They kill people. Pretty much every day! We are having a really good day as a country when we aren’t killing someone or other, with your tax dollars.
So color me a little surprised that y’all want to rag on the Navy for messing with dolphins.
Is it sad? Sure. Could we work on maybe not doing it? That would be great. But if you’re gonna get up in the military’s face about barbarism, dolphins can get in line behind the actual human beings.
Priorities, people. Even if it’s just some bullshit on Facebook, priorities. We do a lot of messed-up things as a country, and this is waaaaaay down the list.
Get aware, or at least be less aggressively and publicly unaware, because after all the tragedies great and small that our armed forces have been party to it’s damned embarrassing to have you rending your clothes over a bunch of dolphins.
Glad we had this little chat.
Some people are just like that about animals. I am still angry about all those pictures of boats rescuing pets right after Hurricane Katrina. A bunch of human beings were trapped in the super dome and animal rescue groups went out to rescue dogs. Priorities, people!
The following is entirely from my perspective as someone who shared this exact image on Facebook.
I am annoyed/indignant at this because it is an unnecessary loss of life. I am quite aware of the purpose of the armed forces of this country, having come from a family sprinkled with Army veterans. The thing is, their purpose is, ideally, to kill the enemies of the American people. Last I checked, dolphins did not pose a threat to the American people.
To your other point: I would be more indignant if something similar happened that caused civilian casualties upon deployment. And there have been some that would as well: remember when we first started hearing about torture at Guantanamo? Lots of Facebook indignation from similar folks, and those were “enemy combatants”.
You have to pick your causes; it’s not bad to care about a lesser cause just because there are more important causes out there. If you want to be constructive, write a piece on the bad things the military has done to humans – or do research and criticize the dolphin page based on its own merits and flaws instead of the existence of a related issue.