Lessons in Health Care from the Edinburgh Zoo
Anyway, as I gazed at the chimps eating their leeks — which, rather to my surprise, they seemed to prefer to everything else — I was subject to a sudden illumination. One of the chimps, a female, was 48 years old according to one of the boards giving information about the whole troupe. She was in fine fettle from the look of her, by no means geriatric or in need of a walking/climbing frame. But chimpanzees in the wild have a life expectancy of only 15 years; a mere seven percent of them live to be 40.
In fact, I had already noticed that the life expectancies of all the animals in the Edinburgh Zoo were about double those in the wild, and that set me thinking. Captivity is good for animals, at least for those that can be kept in it.
Now it is a self-evident truth that all animals are created equal and endowed by their creator with unalienable rights, among them life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. But it takes little thought to know that of these three rights, that to life must be primary, for without it the others are null and void. It is perfectly obvious that you can’t be free or pursue happiness if you’re dead.
This surely means that, if you are an animal lover, you should try to reduce any animal that you see in the wild at once to captivity, at least of the Edinburgh Zoo variety. Failure to do so is de facto condemning that animal to an early grave. The animal will be better fed, have fewer parasites, and be sheltered from the bad weather if you capture him. Above all, he, or it, will have much better health care than in the wild. Indeed, in the wild animals are even worse off than Americans without health insurance.
What would Blake write now, knowing this?
A robin redbreast in the wild
Gets a Democrat all riled.
Does this mean I’m going to have to rattle my cage and bang my tin cup on the bars for my government-mandated daily calorie allotment, exercise enforcement and sin allowance or pay steep health-care demerits? Hmm. Yo, big bro, step off.
Oops. Whilst I was pontificating someone ate the newly sheltered wild animals. Tasty lil’ critters.
There’s a soylent green joke in there somewhere.
It has always seemed to me that the socialist view of a national health care program is close to that of livestock management: close attention during gestation and birth, training for chosen tasks, strict regulation of diet, , housing and exercise and reproduction, preventive care, protection from exposure to disease or injury, determination of end of productive usefulness and death. In some cases it has been extended to selection of blood lines and culling of defective genes. Records show that well managed livestock perform tasks better, are more placid, and live longer.
I know of no instances of protracted caging, however, except of those whom the State regards as a threat or resistant to training. The persistently intractable can be culled.
All things live and trainable,
All proletariat large or small
All citizens amenable
The nanny state cares for all.
This is why ramming a HealthCare program is so important to this administration: it is the first step to serfdom
Mr.Dalrymple has always been funny, but he’s been out-doing himself lately. Perhaps he’s broken free from the soul-deadening depression that must haunt any keen observer of modern British society.
The logical course, which I’m surprised you didn’t follow to the end, is that all creatures for their own good (including and especially human beings) should be put in cages. In this way their diet, exercise and any other activity can be not only monitored, but manipulated. Imagine, we could end obesity, addiction, war, hunger, illness et al by the simple expedient of encaging everyone, except the keepers of course. The elite, inteligensia who know more and are so much better than we the rabble.
Breeding programs could be set up to ensure that only those with “good genes” could reproduce, the lesser groups could be kept from breeding therefore flushing bad genes from the pool a la Margaret Sanger. Universal Health Care would no longer be a dream but a reality and when people get too old to be of use or they develop illnesses that can not be cured they could be humanly put down, just as they do in Zoos and Vet clinics all over the world.
It’s Utopia I tell you. Paradise is only one key turn away.
Oddly, the same people try to make me feel guilty that I didn’t yank my cat’s fingernails out and keep her indoors, where she may have lived another few years but would have been much more unhappy.
Wow. I guess it never occurred to Mr. Dalrymple that most of those animals that died early were prey animals to those higher up the food chain. That has nothing to do with health care.
Take as a prime example the Patagonian sea lions which no doubt eat many fish. He can talk about how the sea lions might live longer under these conditions, but that is only because he refuses to count the lives of the fish they consume.
Perhaps we should consider instead the merits of a life well-lived rather than long-lived.
An animal in a cage has a life, but what kind of a life is it? He is deprived of the ability to live the life for which he was designed and all for the gawking amusement of humans. Since humans are likewise caged in our offices, it’s no wonder we have no compassion for their anguish. Every time I sit in my office and watch the clock tick past, I feel their pain. But I’m alive, I suppose I should be grateful for that.
This must mean that we’d all “enjoy longer, healthier lives” as “liberals.”
It helps if you have actually observed animals in the wild. Generally speaking, they do the same thing in the wild that they do in the zoo, except, get eaten by other animals or go to the doctor. They have a territory that they inhabit and do not, unless they need to for food or mating purposes, go anywhere else. They do not explore unless there are no food or mates where they are and they do nothing other than eat and sleep. It’s what animals do. In a zoo even those animals who would otherwise need large territories to feed themselves, have no need for that, so they lie around and loaf, just as they would in the wild after a good meal. Some of the higher brained animals seem to like to have extra activities to fight the boredom induced by having food brought to them and no thrill of the chase, but certainly not all animals.
The only exception I know of is rattlesnakes who always refuse to eat in captivity (don’t ask me how they know) and eventually starve if kept, no matter how the enclosure is configured.
Pardon the current vernacular, but…
Like, DUH, Dude! WTF!
Of course they live longer in cages…controlled diet, execise and environmental conditions tuned to their specific health needs. Sure they live longer, I’d expect that.
But whats this “condemn them to an early death” nonsense if they lived their natural lives in the wild? I’m no left animal rights, free the lab mice whacko, but get real.
Life involves risk and random chances that any animal (myself included) would welcome in exchange for FREEDOM. I dont condemn zoo’s, but you’re not doing them any favors by making them healthy enough to live longer, in a “perfect” environment.
In my own circumstances, given the following choices:
Risk of early death from unauthorized tree, telephone pole, high tension tower, rock, hill, mountain, building, fire escape, and water tower climbing with NO equipment OR training…
Risk of early death from faulty non-building code approved structures erected upon said climbing hazards…
Risk of early death from numerous and unauthorized modifications of bicycles, sleds, carts wagons, baby carriages and “Big Wheels” utilizing the propulsion systems of lawn mowers and snow blowers, from which unauthorized “free air traverse” would occur, from, to, or between the above mentioned non-code structures…
Risk of early death from various Contact Sports…
Risk of early death from Military Service…
Risk of early death from Motorcycle Racing…
Or:
GUARANTEE me me long, long, LONG life, pumped up with “perfect” foods in a “perfect” environment to extend to the maximum the number of days my eyes are open and heart is heart beating, in a freaking CAGE…
I chose all of the above mentioned risks instead.
In fact, if as a child, I KNEW I was to be caged, and essentially “counter-euthanized” for as long as possible by well meaning agents of the Nanny State, I would have done a swan dive off the first structure I climbed tall enought to guarantee my demise.
Freedom is more precious than life my friends.
Life is not lived so we may lived arrive “safely” at death.
The premise of this satire is that liberals have the efficiency of at least zoo employees. If there was any doubt before as to this questionable idea it has been removed by the laughable fool currently in the White House.
Doubt eliminated, advantage to the zoo employees.
This will make cat lovers happy.
The 4th worlders have misidentified the problem. There is nothing wrong with American Health care. If you google nobel prizes in Medicine, you will find all the evidence one could desire to prove that the American health care system is the best in the world. From walk-in clinics to research hospitals, America has the best health care.
It isn’t perfect, just better then anyone else’s.
Citizens not having access to this world leading Medical care isn’t a medical problem, it’s a financial one. Having the best is expensive. Some people can’t afford that expense. You get what you pay for.
Health care expenses are a supply problem. Demand exceeds supply which is why it’s expensive.
By mandating insurance coverage, Government increases the Demand. By Legislating wages for doctors supply is being reduced. Increasing the demand while reducing supply isn’t going to help solve the problem.
The citizens have figured this out. The politicians of the 4th world haven’t. They will get another lesson this coming November.
Delightful piece.
But the communists had already thought all that and have already planned to put everybody in cages.
Just take a number and wait, soon it will be your turn to get in.
And they are not kidding.
Captivity is good for animals, at least for those that can be kept in it.
Even though captive animals may live longer than their wild brothers, captivity is death.
I worked in a modern “progressive” zoo for one year, where the idea is to re-create natural settings for each animal to the greatest extent possible.
(the water buffalo nearly ended my life prematurely during the mating season, he charged but pulled up at the last moment)
The chimp who’d been there the longest had problems with depression (they were considering animal Prozac). He had never mated with any females in the elaborate chimp enclosure and just sat around all day, eating those fabulous human provided greens and looking very glum.
I draw all kinds of parallels with the cradle to grave cushions socialists would provide us.
What good is life, even long life, if the spirit is dead ?
(the book Ishmael, Daniel Quinn, is a worthy read. I think the film “Instinct” (anthony hopkins, cuba gooding jr.) is based on it)
The penguins at the Edinburgh zoo have it best. They get let out of their enclosure every day to go for a walk. (It’s a huge tourist attraction.) Interestingly, not all of them want to do it.
16. tanstaafl:
(the water buffalo nearly ended my life prematurely during the mating season, he charged but pulled up at the last moment)
lol
too funny …like the Sienfeld episode with Krammer and Goerge’s father.
you could add that the suicide rate is very high in cradle to grave countries.
still I think our jailers wont be as nice as zoo keepers. more like the Stalin gulags.
just remember don’t be the first one to stop clapping at the mention of OBAMA
BREAKING NEWS !
New tape by bin laden, attacking America for global warming !
(Not kiddin’)
Will Al Gore co-opt bin laden in his CO2 business ???
(PS No, it’s not off topic, we were talking about zoos).
Yes, captivity. Or…civilisation.
regular nutritionally balanced meals, (they would cheerfully eat only ice cream), climate control, crime control, (particularly vicious animals are segregated), and I could go on
population management is a truism, one of the reasons I left the left, (there are no prisons in red china, where marijuana is legal)
You ideological challenged morons :: ))
The interesting thing is that socialism works, when, and only when it is entirely voluntary.
Visit any Benedictine abbey to see it in action.
Also the Panama Canal was built using a socialistic model. The corporation provided housing, medical care and inexpensive food. Everyone there was devoted to getting the Work done.
Unfortunately for us, a fairly large portion of our fellow citizens seem perfectly content to trade their freedom (and ours) for security.
That’s when you starting going into the cold dead hands territory.
Katherine
Here’s an example of what animals think of zoos, cos we don’t know, do we? The Johannesburg Zoo has been redesigned to make it more “people friendly” because that’s what’s important isn’t it, the paying punters right, and aren’t those beautiful animals mighty lucrative for the bottomless coffers of the city, oh yes! Anyway, it’s gorgeous their new enclosure, adobe walls and mosaic, lovely, but there’s a baboon in there who spends all day hurling himself at the metal doors of the enclosure. So there he is in his lovely artist-designed “enriched environment”, and all he does all day is swing on his swing and fling himself at these metal doors feet first because it makes a bang like a gunshot, guaranteed to get the local populace to pay attention (we’re so used to gunshots), his feet against that metal, all day long, bang, this baboon in his lovely artist-designed enclosure, day after day after day, bang, lovely enclosure, ka-ching.
The analogy breaks down completely when you observe that those “kept” in our society by left/liberal programs don’t have to put up with restrictions like cages, moats, lack of stimulation, forced social groupings, controlled mating, etc.
Want proof? Open all of the zoo doors and gates and see how many animals choose to stay. Now create human feeding and housing programs and see how many . . . never mind we already know this part.
“We the chimps”?
So is he fur* it, ‘r agin it?
*Hah!
23. Mike G:
well stated.
at this point they actually live better then many people with jobs so even less incentive to leave the cage.
Off topic: Who is this Theodore Dalrymple person? What an awesome name! The only name better would be “Theodore Dalrymple III”. I hope he’s rich, because I’m imagining him with a big tophat and a monocle.
Lily @ 10:
Dear Lilly – My now ex kept a Prairie Rattlesnake in captivity for over 20 years. It happily ate ‘pinks’ all it’s life. (Pinks are baby mice and can be purchased at most pet stores) All those mice in pet stores are not really meant to be pets, most of them, but have ‘other’ uses. So, no, not quite.
Hey, Mike G:
Miko,
Ordinarily, I just try to be a clown, bringing levity to these profound subjects. I thought I might respond to Mike G’s lines though.
First your want proof line. Mikey….please.
Concepts of freedom and captivity are human. Animals would leave or return to any place where they could find food and shelter, just as humans would.
One might say a horse that runs “free” on a thousand acre ranch and is only dressed up once a year in a marvelous costume for a parade is just as much a captive as a cart horse.
You might as well say someone’s three year old is a captive. LOL :: ))
Yes, people do not leave their homes and yes people shop at the same stores.
I am pretty sure everyone you know drinks for a government provided water supply.
Rich and poor alike eat from government approved food supplies and live in government approved housing.
This general, blame or vilify the poor attitude, and I am not addressing you specifically Mike, seems to me a defensive pose to insist one is ‘better than that” this “I am better than them” response to other’s is not restricted to either side of the political theatre. How often have we heard of poor or working class Whites referred to as Trash by stalwart liberals?
Gentlemen and Ladies, I hate to bare the burden of reason in these discussions. I prefer to maintain a romantic love for America.
Let us not forget, Chuck Berry, James Brown, Jimi Hendrix and the cheeseburger.
We are the government. We own the government. We determine the use of our government
So the next time you take a thousand mile trip on the best highway system in the world in the safest nation in the world and enjoy a cheeseburger anywhere you like confident you will not get food poisoning or waylaid by roving bandits, thank America.
Can’t we all just get along?