It was inevitable really.  After almost two years of writing for this blog – about many, many different topics, including some controversial ones – I finally had my first encounter with an anti.  I’ve written many posts for this blog over the past couple of years, including a few that I would have fully expected some antis to comment on, but for some reason “E”, as she called herself, decided to jump in on a post that I wouldn’t of expected an anti to even care about – this post from last week.

My main goal of the post was one of independence – basically that I hoped Abby made up her own mind about hunting, firearms, and the outdoors without being persuaded to take another path by anti-hunting propraganda.  My main point was that I wanted her to become a critical thinker.  “E”, however, went a completely different path:

“Geez, I thought you were going to talk about how your child could accidently get hurt or worse.

But yeah it would be a shame for your kid to live a peaceful and humane life.

Yep, we have to make sure that the next generation contributes to the violence. We’ll destroy this world yet.”

At first I was a little perplexed, and figured that it was another emotional rant by someone who would never visit the site again….I was wrong about that, though.  The second part about the comment that really stood out for me was the reference she made to violence.  If you go back and read the post, I don’t remember mentioning anything violent at all.  Oh wait, I guess I did mention the words “hunting”, “fishing”, and “firearms”.  Apparently “E” automatically associates such things with violence.  I even included that as part of my well-thought out and respectful response:

“I honestly think you read the word “firearm” or “hunting” in my post and immediately turned a blind eye to anything else I wrote, and automatically associated those two activities with violence, which is very contrary to the truth.”

It wasn’t long before E was responding again, and this is where things started to get really interesting.  First, I was a little surprised that she was keeping tabs on the post, and actually checking back after her initial response.  I honestly figured I would get the one comment, like most of us get from anti’s, and that would be the end of it.  But E – and I was honestly happy about this – proved me wrong.  We continued to comment back and forth, and I was impressed that she actually took an interest in having a civil conversation with me.  Although our opinions are vastly different, it was nice to be involved in a conversation,  including two people from vastly different backgrounds, that didn’t involve name calling, swearing, or other such emotional nonsense; we were simply two adults engaging in a polite disagreement – and a respectful disagreement at that.

I honestly don’t want to re-hash the whole conversation, because it honestly started to get somewhat lengthy.  If any of you want to read it in its entirety you can do so here.  I would appreciate that, and you could put your two cents in as well.  But what I do want to do is point out a few things about the conversation that honestly frighten me.   Take these comments for instance:

“There is a misconception that has been passed down from generation to generation that it’s okay to kill others.”

“Whatever justifications you use to take another life, it’s doesn’t change the fact that hunting and fishing are violent activities. It’s no different than killing another human being. The difference lies in the species. The action is the same.”

“First, let me say that in many ways nature is more important than humans. Don’t get me wrong, humans are important too. But if you look at it from an anthropological point of view, and I hate to repeat myself, but, we are at the bottom of the dependence scale and the most smallest being is at the top. Again, If the smallest being disappears, all life would cease to exist. If man becomes extinct, than everything would grow back and flourish. So you see, the world does NOT need the human race. In fact, it would be better off without us.”

Note: The bold is all of my doing, not E’s.

These comments are utterly frightening to me.  I can completely respect choosing the vegan lifestyle, and being involved in something you are passionate about;  that I have no problem with.  The problem I do have, however, is when you start to believe that your own race doesn’t belong, and that a fly is of more importance than you or your family.  For me, that is a scary concept.  When one puts animals above themselves, and truly believes that the world would be better off without us, it honestly saddens me.  How can one have such a lowly view of human life, and the good that comes from it?

And going right along with that, E’s comments also point out that he/she believes that animals and humans are on the same level; that killing an animal for sustenance is the same thing as killing a human being; that animals have a soul and contain a moral code such as a human does.

The paragraph above is what honestly frightens me the most.  Animals do not have morals, nor a soul.  And they surely can’t rationalize and critically think as we humans do.  Animals act – no matter how crude or immoral the act is – and they do it in order to stay alive.  They don’t care about the preservation of other species, or the hurt they are doing at the time, they only care about their survival; not anyone else.  Can you say that about humans?  I think not.

In the end, and especially after realizing how different E and I really are, I decided that we needed to agree to disagree.  And as weird as it sounds, and despite our differences of opinion, I’m still grateful that she visited the site, and we were able to have our exchange.  Although it was “spirited” at times, our exchange still can be a lesson for a lot of people out there.  It shows that two people, from differing backgrounds and extremely different points of view, can have a rational conversation that is respectful and polite.

It would have been easy to dismiss the first comment, and not even send a reply.  And it would have been easy for E to not keep checking back to see what I wrote.  But we didn’t.  We replied, we conversed, and although not a lot of progress was made – because we are on completely opposite sides of the fence – we still did the most important thing of all – we debated and discussed.  Each of us gave in a little,  yet stayed true to our convictions, and had a little chat.

If more of us hunters would take the time to have discussions like these, I think it could go along way to defining our image in the future.  E probably will never change his/her opinion about hunters, firearms, or anything of that nature because when one truly believes something, as he/she does, it is very hard to change that.  But, and here is the important part, having conversations like this one, and having them be publicly displayed,  means you never know who might come across them and might be willing an able to change their mind.

Author’s Note: On a side note, I think it is interesting that the anti on my blog used the name of “E”, and an anti that Holly had a email sparring with used the name “J”.  What is with the one letter names?   Interesting!

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