Eating Alligator: The Circle of Life, and progressives don’t understand

There was some debate before my family went out to eat at the BallyHoo Grill in Gainesville, Florida about whether or not to eat alligator.  I had declared that I wanted alligator for dinner, where my wife and kids were dismayed by the thought.  “But dad, alligators are an endangered species.  We can’t just eat them for no reason.”

I contemplated the resistance and shook my head at the years of liberal propaganda that had been marketed at such causes.  It is true that alligators have been heavily hunted, and without some recognition of the animal, they would probably be hunted into extinction, maybe, only to be over hunted, or used in tourist locations as stuffed caricatures of danger.

But there is something more symbiotic going on with mankind’s relationship to the alligator, which stemmed from my desire to eat one.    I thought about why I was craving alligator.  I love dinosaurs, and the alligator is one of the few animals on the face of planet earth that is a reflection of that period, the Mesozoic Era which lasted about 150 million years and by eating the animal I wanted to participate in the spirit of the animal, even if in a small degree.  I wanted to be part of the alligator essence.  I wanted the cells in my body to identify the flesh of an alligator and mimic the structural contents of the tough meat and raw muscle.  Animals like cows and chickens are passive animals, and my body is used to such creatures, and takes them for granted.  So I wanted my body to digest a dangerous predator and to mimic its contents.

The next morning, after my meal, I got up well before sunrise and went to nearby lake from the hotel where we were staying at, and set up my camera hoping to see some alligators swimming, and even perhaps eating.  As I hiked through the woods teeming with insects, even in the morning mist, to the lakes edge, the surface of the water was inundated with tiny insects plucking the facade, some being eaten by fish.  Thus, in turn, there were alligators swimming about in the lake stealthily approaching their pry.  As the alligators would get close to where fish were eating the insects, the alligators were eating the fish.   

Much of the alligators consuming the fish were happening underwater leaving only ripples of splashed water on the surface to indicate the struggle.  This would happen for a moment, and then it would be done.  Yet, I continued tracking alligators with my camera as they purposely sought after pry. 

Near my tripod, where I had set up under the canopy of a grand oak tree draped in Spanish Moss a bird had landed on the shoreline to eat small creatures that had made homes in the soft mud.  I didn’t take the time to identify the bird because my eye was on a 7 foot alligator coming my way, with its eye on the bird.  The result of this predatory dance can be seen in this video of that event. 

As seen the alligator came on the shore to eat the bird, and it was so quick that the bird didn’t stand a chance.  The alligator ate the bird right in front of me and we contemplated each other.  Competition in nature had orchestrated this symphony of pain, radiating between pitches of survival and death.  The alligator had just eaten so it wasn’t hungry, plus it knew that I was a predator that posed a danger to it, so conflict with me wasn’t to its advantage.  I continued filming without moving away.

The alligator was a swift and cunning warrior, and that’s why I wanted to eat one the night before.  Once my family tried it, they all enjoyed the experience once they got over the initial feeling of betrayal in eating an endangered animal.  As I explained to them the night before it’s the circle of life at work here, and we are at the top and shouldn’t be ashamed of it.  I reminded them of our mutual love of dinosaurs, that life had lived on this planet for millions upon millions of years in this fashion, with the strongest eating the weakest, and life would continue on like this for eternity, because this method was built under a universal model of understanding.  Species would rise and become extinct regardless of interference and regulation.  And if the alligator wanted to survive, it would have to figure out how to beat humans as the superior animal.  Or, if humans wanted to continue to have alligators to eat, or make belts out of, then they’d find a way to farm them much the way we do chickens and cows.  If they go extinct it will largely be up to nature not the pathetic audacity of the human being.

There is another destination in Florida that is by our condo down there, it’s one of my favorite stores, and it’s called The Dinosaur Store.  In it you can see the ancestors of the alligator, and buy replicas of full dinosaur skeletons, which I think is fantastic.  It’s a truly magnificent store, unique in the world.  If you love dinosaurs like I do, this store should be your second home.  Humans are making themselves extinct with this hippie socialism that is unnatural in any realm but the human mind of a flower child.  It’s a fantasy built around protecting the weak by cutting the legs out from under the strong and it simply makes no sense.  In the modern progressive view of the world, humans are regulated from being the predators to protect the species of alligator.  Using the same logic, the alligator would be regulated by the human do-gooder to protect the fish, and of course the fish regulated to protect the insect. 

http://www.dinosaurstore.com/dinosaur%20store%20home%20page.htm

 

The hippie progressives that so disgust me do so because they are attempting to engineer all existence with their immature understanding of nature, rather than joyfully participating in the experience of living, both life and death with the same enthusiasm.  As I visit my favorite store from time to time, and look through the fossils, books, and statues that are for sale there, some species of dinosaur did go extinct, by way of a giant meteorite or just by natural selection.  But not all dinosaurs went extinct as shown by the dinosaur swimming in the lake eating a bird right in front of me. 

I’m glad I ate an alligator that night, because for me, it was the highest tribute I could pay to a creature of such magnificent quality.  I ate the animal because I wanted to feel closer to it.  I wanted to think a little more like the alligator, because I respect it, a sentiment confirmed when I watched an alligator spring forth with such quickness from a lake to eat a bird.  This did not happen in a zoo, or a park of any kind, but in raw nature, where a prehistoric beast through sheer quickness and strength beat a bird to flight for the prize of one more day of life.  And the alligator become such a dominate species because of competition, through fighting for survival.  That’s why I wanted to eat one. 

This balance of life between the alligator, the fish and the birds has been in place hundreds of millions of years.  All of human civilization has come about in a relatively temporary period between ice ages where a mass extinction of dinosaurs allowed a cerebral creature called man to emerge without being eaten, so that man could build tools and become the dominate species within just a few thousand evolutionary years.  Understanding this balance is necessary before ever speaking about extinction, or even right and wrong.  The modern progressive is a simple-minded creature that has not matured enough to understand that their existence in the scheme of the earth is meaningless; much like a child thinks its whole world is the domain of its parents.  The alligator does not care about global warming, pollution, or the cities of mankind.  It was here before the human being, and it will be here after, because it knows how to survive.

Rich Hoffman

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