When The Lions No Longer Write History
If you try real hard, you might remember way back to late July when many Americans developed a spontaneous affection for lions. You know, those four-footed kings of the jungle who make their living eating gazelles and occasional villagers? Animal conservationists, politicians & celebrities (known for their finely tuned moral sensitivities and deep compassion) expressed outrage over Minnesota dentist and big game hunter, Walter Palmer, who travelled to Africa, killed “Cecil the lion” and then “skinned and beheaded” him (as news sources repeated ad nauseum). So reprehensible were Palmer’s actions that he was labeled a sociopath by some who even called for his death, sending him into hiding. Late night talk show host, Jimmy Kimmel, got choked up on national television while speaking of Cecil’s death and was revered on TV & radio shows the next day for having done so.
I imagine that Cecil’s death, as tragic as we are told that it was, was a prized gift for Planned Parenthood. It provided a useful distraction from the breaking news of the first of several sting videos released July 14th by David Daleiden of the Center for Medical Progress. The video showed Planned Parenthood’s Senior Director of Medical Services, Deborah Nucatola, cavalierly discussing the illegal and immoral sale of fetal organs while swilling wine and munching on salad.
In a world where lions are held in higher esteem and given greater legal protection than preborn humans, we should not be surprised that a story about our neighbors’ children being killed and parted out like a junk car for cash would be eclipsed by the death of a lion on the other side of the planet. Nor should we be surprised that for defenders of Planned Parenthood the only lower form of life than Walter Palmer is David Daleiden.
But let’s be honest, no one cares anymore about Cecil. In fact, it’s likely no one ever did. It is August now and we’re done talking about him. His usefulness is all used up, at least for now. Feeling badly about his death made our cultural elitists feel good about themselves momentarily, but they’ve moved on. And who can blame them? Can we reasonably expect those incapable of expressing a millisecond’s worth of outrage over the dismemberment of some from our own species to muster more than a couple days’ worth of outrage over a dead lion? The death of real moral outrage in our culture has led to the fabrication of artificial, self-serving outrage. It appears that our culture’s tears shed over a “skinned and beheaded” lion were merely crocodile tears.
Speaking of lions, perhaps you’ve heard of the old fable, “The Man and The Lion” where the disconsolate lion defiantly declares that he will no longer be misrepresented “when the lions write history.” The fable’s lesson is a simple and often repeated one: history is written by the victors. This is the reason the fable is not titled, “The Man and The Lamb”: helpless lambs are not victors and are never afforded the luxury of writing history. Lambs merely provide the meat to be digested by lions, or in the case of the preborn, to be dismembered then sold off to the highest bidder. These little lambs cannot write their history; we must write it for them! Thankfully, David Daleiden has paid a great sacrifice in order to help us rescue the lambs being led to slaughter so one day they may live to write their own history. And when they do they will record in permanent ink the names of Planned Parenthood executives and abortionists next to the likes of Auschwitz’s Joseph Mengele who performed sick medical experiments on Jewish children and other prisoners.