Cecil the Lion is a Pretext for Expanding Extraterritoriality of US Law

Recent social media uproar over a dentist's alleged killing of an African Lion referred to by persons as Cecil, in honor of Cecil Rhodes. Cecil was killed outside of the sanctuary within which his typical range was in Zimbabwe, a country which was also once named for Cecil Rhodes. The story was picked up by the social media outrage machine and amplified by mainstream media organs.

Now that the initial round of noise has settled and sufficient outrage has been stoked editorials are appearing which call for expanding the extraterritoriality of United States Federal Law in still more cases that the United States Government already claims it. This first editorial proposes amending the Federal Endangered Species Act to explicitly feature extraterritoriality even though such extraterritoriality would not make the killing of African lions and the shipping of their trophies into the United States criminal as the United States does not recognized African Lions as threatened or endangered under the act at this time. There is an outstanding proposal floating around the relevant Federal rule making bodies to list the African Lion as a threatened species under the act, but such an addition would mean little in this particular case driving the hype. By the time African lions could be added to the list of threatened species Cecil's trophy will have had time to receive respectful treatment by a taxidermist for return to the dentist.

It is well known that federal laws in the United States are already so broad that persons physically residing in the United States may be assumed to be a criminal under the law. Further many Federal Statues apply even in the absence of Mens Rea meaning no criminally culpable state of mind, or awareness of the illegality of an action is required for prosecution. Further citizens in the United States wherever they reside thanks to extraterritorial application of laws face daunting challenges which impede them from accessing basic tools of fiat personal finance, at least if they wish to avoid exposure to criminal liability for both their self and their foreign bank. This same mechanism which leads to United States citizens being regulated out of foreign banking products is exactly the fate of jurisdictions like New York and the United Kingdom which believe they can somehow tame Bitcoin and humanity at large with regulation.

Further it must be noted that even abandoning United States citizenship is not a panacea which can prevent abduction and return to the United States at the whims of any United State's Attorney's office as Arthur Budovsky discovered when Preet Bharara was unhappy with Budovsky's centralized attempt at creating universal internet money. In spite of the apparent obstacles though an increasing number of United States citizens are choosing to renounce their citizenship not merely out of self interest but out of a need for self preservation.

As always, when government friendly media organs fan the flames of outrage in unison over a matter as routine as the sport hunting, it is necessary to cautiously search for the angle where pressure is going to be directed in order to expand government power.

11 thoughts on “Cecil the Lion is a Pretext for Expanding Extraterritoriality of US Law

  1. This one's not so routine. The hunters lured a famous tourist attraction off of protected land to skirt African anti poaching laws (9 year minimum prison sentence in Zimbabwe).

    • It was a wild animal of a species commonly hunted for sport. It had a scientific tracking tag as many such animals do. The only real breach here was one in etiquette as it is generally considered polite to report the taking of a tracked animal.

      • The breach is that they lured the animal off of protected land. That's poaching, not hunting.

        • That allegation really hasn't been publicly demonstrated. In addition it is an animal, which did leave the protected land.

        • Further note people in Cecil's jurisdiction don't really care. Almost all of the outrage is driven by Americans.

          • This is exactly correct. The local people in all these countries have a correct relationship with animals; they are a form of property and a resource, nothing more. Its only Americans and Brits, brainwashed from youth by Disney's "Lion King" and other entertainments who anthropomorphise wild animals to such a degree that they build shrines to them like animist savages.

            If this lion was hunted illegally, that is a matter of the law. The emotional fire-storm, with TV talkshow hosts like Kimmel crying like little girls and obese peroxide haired mothers saying the dentist is "finished" is nauseating. That dentist, who provides services for humans is going to be boycotted, killing his business and removing the possibility of humans having their dentistry done. This is the utter madness of Modern America; human beings are less important than animals.

            These morons don't understand that the lion population, and all others that are hunted legally are part of culls to manage their population. Rather than the State kill them and foot the bill, they use the market to do it. They charge rich westerners tens of thousands of dollars to do pest control for them. Who is the sucker in that picture?

            The same thing happens in Richmond Park in London. The deer population needs to be culled to stop them from overrunning the park. They are regularly shot by hunters, and there is nothing at all wrong with this.

            All of these problems would be solved in a society where there is no "public land" and every inch of a country is privately owned. John Malone's land in the USA is an example of this; he owns 2.2 million acres where nothing can happen without his say.

            http://fortune.com/2012/09/27/meet-the-largest-landowner-in-america/

            If the land where these lions (or any other animal) live was owned by Malone or Ted Turner, another big land owner, everything there would be protected. Private property and a Stateless society is the answer to this and every other problem caused by the State.

            Finally, these fat ignorant people need to watch a video of a meat factory where their bacon, beef and chicken are made. They would not last ten seconds watching a film of it, never mind being there to smell it. Watch these xeno oestrogen soaked pseudo men cry over the killing of a chicken:

            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFW5gPlSJcE

            these are the people calling for the death of this dentist. Of course, none of these people have ever seen a man killed; calling for his death is nothing more than infantile posturing.

            This is the face of democracy. All of these derps have a vote, and are calling for the violent extradition and even death of a man for accidentally killing a lion, an animal. Anyone who is for living in a "society" where these imbeciles have control over the form of law, justice and policing is certifiably insane.

          • Sez MP:

            You're thinking of animals based not on interaction with animals, but on interactions with human depictions of animals. Such as animals drawn by a person in a book, "animal" cartoon characters made to resemble people, people in animal plush costumes and so forth. All of this creates in you the false but deep seated impression that animals are residually a sort of people. This is not true. Animals are not at all a sort of people with different characteristics. Animals are animals. It's a thing into itself, not some anthropomorphized cuteness. Fundamentally, we could present the problem in saying that you're a furry.

  2. AHA! Never fear!

    This calls for intervention by none other than myself, a NIGERIAN PRINCE.

    I shall solve this, rest assured.

    >>his gbangan highness<<

  3. While walking along the uptown street in USian downtown, assuming that such things still exist somewhere in that vast land, you happen across a husband and wife strolling along the same promenade, taking in the sights and sounds just as you are. You can tell that they're deep in conversation, at least as deep as English-speaking monolinguists are wont to find themselves, as you overhear the snippet "There are people starving in the world, we have to DO something! Obama needs to…" Just as the wife's husband's sentence trails off, she notices her partner running a few steps ahead to help an elderly gentleman who's knelt down on the curbside and appears to be struggling for breath. She cries after her, "Don't help him, what if his family sues you !"

    The point being that, as domestic impotence increases, as it must necessarily under socialism – and for as long as the will to live and the will to power exist, no matter to how small a degree in how impoverished a mind – the lust for foreign intervention and "international justice" will ascend. Not that Obama can bring this to fruition, but there's always that dream. There's always jam tomorrow.

  4. Legal poseurs notwithstanding, lets ignore the fool who's earned our disrespect only as much as many other fools before him, and take a look at the real man: lion whisperer Kevin Richardson.

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