It almost pains me to consider Sarah Palin as a hero of anything, yet for her stance on meat, she is most certainly an Unvegan Hero. Unless you’ve been living in a hole for the past two and a half years, you know that Sarah Palin is an avid hunter and meat eater. We’ve all heard the stories, but it wasn’t until a recent episode of Sarah Palin’s Alaska that the world got to see it for themselves.
In the episode, Palin goes on a hunting trip with her father out in the Alaskan wilderness in search of caribou. For the most part, it’s essentially a father-daughter (and creepy father’s friend) camping trip, with a side of hunting. Eventually a caribou is shot and killed and eaten. To some, this episode was grotesque, but to Tea Partiers, this was probably a fond reminder of their most recent hunting trip. Yet, as a pretty liberal dude, I have to say this was one of the least offensive things I have seen Sarah Palin do.
Although many liberals scoff at hunting as though it is a terrible thing, I have a different stance. For starters, there truly is such a thing as overpopulation of certain animals. This is mostly true in areas devoid of natural carnivores. Of course, the carnivores are only gone due to hunting a century ago (which was wrong), but since we can’t change the past, we do want to make the present right. Without the balance of predator and prey, the prey grow too large in population, eat too much and end up starving themselves because of lack of food. In this case, hunting helps maintain a balance and helps protect the whole herd from painful starvation. But simply hunting and killing these animals isn’t right. The only way to make it right is to completely utilize the hunted animal.
Although I can’t speak for the overpopulation of caribou in Alaska, I can say that Palin seems to use all of the animal, or at least the food parts. She stores the meat to eat throughout the year and the meat is probably some of the safest and tastiest around. As someone who has eaten freshly slaughtered lamb in the past, I can definitely say that the grocery store isn’t a good substitute.
Would I want to hunt animals myself? Hell no. Do I support any of Palin’s politics (anti-abortion even under rape or incest?!) Not a chance. Do I think she is a smart woman (having another child at the age of 40?!)? Dear God, no. In fact, I have a personal boycott of her TV show just because I don’t want to give her the satisfaction of wasting any more of my time than she already has. Yet, I have to agree with her stance on hunting. When you eat, something has to die. At least Palin has the balls to look her meat in the eye and make it her own.
So for standing up for her meat-eating beliefs, Sarah Palin, you are a true Unvegan Hero!
But you’ll still never get my vote.
(As a side note, I really think the only way to hunt is to use a bow and arrow, because that puts you on a more even ground with the animals, but really if you are going to make complete use of the animal and don’t over-hunt, it is hard to argue against it. Also, I do realize there is an overpopulation of humans and don’t support the hunting of them.)