The Life of Me

*In the previous post, I mentioned that my flash drive's name is Darwin. I did NOT name it after Charles Darwin, the guy who said that a long time ago, my ancestors were monkeys. I just found the name kind of amusing.*

Now, I've always been aware of people who are really into environmentalism and everything, and I've got nothing against those people. I mean, I'm not like "SAVE THE TREES! DON'T USE PAPER EVER! SAVE WATER! STOP TAKING SHOWERS!" but I do agree that we so tend to waste paper and overuse water, and should be more careful with our resources.

But the other day, I was introduced to "The War on Humans." The link to the video used to show me this is below (You really only need to watch the first 10 minutes, but can watch the rest if you want to):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWcEYYj_-rg

I cannot believe this. I have never been more offended, ashamed, or shocked than I was when I finished watching this video. I've never accepted the idea of evolution completely... I mean, sure, it's possible, and I don't want to say it absolutely did not happen--though we can't say it absolutely did happen either. We can say "evidence suggests that this happened," but none of us were there. How can we know? But it's one thing to say that we evolved from monkey. It's entirely another to say that we are no better, and have no more dignity than an animal. Why are people so desperate to tear people down?

The reason that people don't have food in certain parts of the world is not overpopulation. Sure, there are a lot of people there, but there are a lot of people everywhere. There are a lot of people in New York, but they have plenty of food there. The reason that people are starving in far too many places on earth is uneven dispersion of food. That is not to say that New York is full of selfish freaks who are heartless, soulless monsters who don't care a speck about anyone but themselves. I mean, sure, there must be at least a few selfish people in New York, but there are selfish people everywhere. The problem is that people say "I care, I want to help you," but then they do nothing. Intention is not action. Life would be too easy if it were. I would love it if I said, "I'm going to work out this afternoon," but spent the afternoon sitting down blogging, and woke up the next morning 10 pounds ligher because I was planning on exercising. But that's not how life works. We need to give them food. We need to help them develop their land so that they can make food. They need help. They're not lazy; it's not like they're sitting on their butts waiting for us to feed them because they don't feel like farming today. It's that they don't have the resources to get what they need, and we do. We have a surplus of food and building materials and money and everything they don't have. They're all naked, and we're wandering through stores full of clothes. They're thirsty, and we're chugging down beers and Monsters and ice cold, clean water. Obesity is a major problem in America. People judge "fat" people, but they do nothing to help them.

(Helpful hint: Don't like it when people aren't thin? Don't insult them! A lot of people eat because they can control what they eat, and they can't always control their emotions. So, if someone says something that offends them, and it won't leave their head, they may go home and eat some ice cream so that they can feel that they are in control of something, since they can't control their head and get that nagging thought out. For goodness' sake, help them! Being overweight is a struggle. Losing weight is incredibly difficult for a lot of people, especially if they can't afford those snazzy surgeries and diet pills. It's not like they're loving the way they look.) 

So anyways, I've had this ingenius idea that will probably help pretty much everybody: GIVE SOME OF OUR FOOD TO THE PEOPLE WHO ACTUALLY NEED IT, AND DON'T JUST WANT IT! Honestly, we could probably send 75% of the food in America to poor countries around the world where children are dying with arms as thin as knitting needles, and we'd still survive. Sure, we'd miss all those McDonald's french fries--and don't you be all, "I don't eat McDonald's, 'cause there are so many calories in that food!" We all know you're lying.--but they. Need. Food. Abortion won't solve their problem, food will.

Speaking of abortion and children and babies, BABIES ARE NOT DISGUSTING. How dare you call them disgusting. Babies are precious. Babies are gifts. Babies are humans! I'll bet James Lee didn't want to die, but he'd be perfectly willing to massacre defenseless infants so that the world can surivive. Abortion is murder. Honestly, even if babies weren't humans while in the womb, they're going to be! Do women give birth to a bundle of chemicals? No, we give birth to humans. Where did that human come from? Oh, yeah, our wombs. But I thought the thing in my womb was just a ball of chemicals... Oh, well, the thing that came out of my womb is a human... Wait, was this the ball of chemicals? Oh, I guess it was... So, if I had gotten rid of that ball of chemicals, the world would be missing a human... (By the way, 1/3 of my generation is missing because of abortion.) (Oh, well, that's a good thing. The world would be so much more crowded if they had lived.) (Never has a sentence been more twisted and wrong than that was.)

I wonder how many of the warriors against humans were one of three children... I was. I am so thankful that the War on Humans hasn't been successful thus far. Raise your hand if you want everything taken from you. Did you raise your hand? Yeah, I thought not. What happens to those who have four children, or five, or ten? Are they murdered? Would my dad have been murdered? Would I not have existed? Would my best friend, one of eight children, be dead right now? Human extinction is not the answer to the world's problems. Now, as I said, we do need to take much better care of the world. We need to respect it, because if we waste resources, we will run out, and that could be fatal. But (do NOT twist my words here), I believe that the world is here for us a bit more than we are for it. But we are still here for it to some extent.

Now, according to some people, I am pretty much a salamandar, or a fungus. I'm just the same as that brown thing sticking out from a tree trunk. I am essencially a toucan, except that my brain may or may not be slightly larger. That is offensive. If somebody told me that to my face, I might just slap them. See? that proves them wrong! If you walked up to a dog and said, "You're an idiotic, insignificant blob of pointlessness no more intelligent than a blade of grass," the dog would not react. (Unless it's one of those wild, untrained ones that bites anybody who comes near it, like Hooch from "Turner and Hooch.") Dogs cannot understand English, or French, or Turkish, or Greek, or Italian, or Spanish, or Hungarian, or Scandanavian, or Chinese, or Russian, or German, or anything! All they can understand is what their instinct tells them, and some things that humans train them. If somebody doesn't understand the concept of sitting on command any more than you do, how can they train you to do so? In order to teach a clueless being how to do something, you need to have some understanding of the thing, don't you? Or at least, you need someone who does understand it to explain it to you. But you're a human, and only humans (and parrots, sometimes) can speak to you, and demonstrate it. So doesn't that mean that humans are smarter than animals?

Michaelangelo had no more talent than a chimpanzee. Monet was only as unique and should only have been respected as much as we would respect a cow. C.S. Lewis was equal to a chicken. Whales deserve the same amount of respect as we would give our leaders. (Granted, some people don't respect their leaders as much as they ought to, but... You get what I'm saying.) These people, and all people, are proof that humans are smarter, more developed, more talented, more respectable, and have more dignity than animals. Human exceptionalism is real. Humans are truly beautiful, amazing, honorable creatures. Sure, sometimes we do rather un-honorable things--murder, abuse, rape, theft, gluttony, drugs, try to demean people--but that does not make us any less honorable as a whole. 

Animals and plants should be taken care of. Animal abuse is an awful, awful thing. I don't see why or how anybody could do that. Honestly, I feel awful if I accidentally bump into a dog, and yet some people are okay chaining their pets to fences, beating them, letting them starve and freeze. It's disgusting, and it shouldn't exist. But neither should abortion. If people are animals' equals, why is it okay to kill babies and other humans, but not animals? Why is it immoral to pick a wildflower in Switzerland, but not immoral to make people dead? These people's arguments backfire on themselves. It's like saying "What is true for one person may not be true for another." The very saying contradicts itself: The "truth" that what is true for one person may not be true for another isn't true to me, so it makes no sense to make that argument. Same thing here: Humans are only slightly more advanced than animals and plants, if at all, but it's okay to kill them, as long as you don't kill flowers or cows. It doesn't make sense.

Why should animals be allowed to sue? What do they get as compensation for whatever they're suing for? Say the judge did accept the case with those whales who sued SeaWorld. The whales win... Does SeaWorld pay them? I'm pretty sure if those whales were given cash, SeaWorld would take it. Does SeaWorld give them extra fish? No, that's bad. Animals need their dignity. Fish can't die. Oh, SeaWorld! You can't feed your whales fish anymore! The whales die... SeaWorld, what have you done? (Again: the arguments don't match up.) What could you do for the whales? Do you release them back into the ocean, where they can eat and/or be eaten by other fish? That's bad, too. It is not logical at all to think that we can stop killing everything altogether. People need protein, whether than means killing cows or killing unborn chickens. People need vegetables. People need all these things, and animals need to kill each other and other plants in order to eat. It's inevitable. It's how the world was made. If we weren't meant to eat plants and animals, there would be another, much more obvious option. Yeah, it's sad, and it's hard to think about it for many people. I love cows. I love pigs. I love chickens. They're funny, cute little guys. But sometimes they have to die in order for people to live, so that we can make more cows and pigs and chickens. Tomatoes are beautiful plants, but they also give my body important nutrients.

So, let's end the War on Humans, and start the Peace on Earth. Let's stop blaming humans and start saving resources. Take shorter showers. Recycle. Donate to charities giving food to poor countries. Keep a bag of apples in your car to give to people on roadsides. (I don't like to give them money because unfortunately, I can't know whether they're really poor, or just want drugs. And I feel bad saying that, but the world, as this video emphasized, is becoming a little confused and messed up.) Let's put our heads on straight and accept the world, enjoy its beauty, and not go searching for flaws.

-Sue Donimm