The internet has blown up in rage at the recent capture and euthanization of a famous TikTok/Instagram Squirrel named “Peanut.” Peanut was rescued over 7 years ago by his owner Mark Longo. Since then, Peanut has become a hit on TikTok and Instagram where he garnered millions of views and support. But the State of New York has declared war on this little critter, as well as his companion, “Fred” the raccoon.
Mark Longo described in a TMZ interview:
Ten to twelve DEC officers raided my house as if I were a drug dealer. I was sat outside my house for five hours. I had to get a police escort to my bathroom. I wasn’t even allowed to feed my rescue horses breakfast or lunch. I was sat there like a criminal after they interrogated my wife to ask about her immigration status… then [the officers] proceeded to ask if I had cameras in my house… then proceeded to go through every cabinet, and nook and cranny of my house looking for a squirrel and a raccoon.
To make matters even more absurd, Longo describes how they got a search warrant signed off by a judge to raid his home and dig through everything in search of an animal that showed no signs of violence or disturbing anyone.
As if this story of a lost furry friend couldn‘t get any worse, Peanut had just been made the face of a brand new non-profit animal rescue. Now Peanut has been put down. Without the state, who would break into your home and kill peaceful animals?
This incident is a perfect example of the state destroying productive society in the name of bureaucracy. New York State law prohibits the keeping of what it deems to be wild animals unless one is a “licensed wildlife rehabilitator.” This process takes months. To keep domesticated wild animals, it would have to be registered as an “educational animal.” Peanut had not shown any sign of violence in any of the seven years that he lived with Longo. But rather than send an agent of the DEC to follow up on the complaint that launched the raid, they sent ten officers to confiscate and kill Longo’s pets.
If these animals pose enough of a threat to society, all that is needed to be done is to have the owners of these animals legally liable for any injury their animal causes. This keeps violent animals from being kept as pets and allows people like Longo to care for animals like Peanut and Fred. Instead, what bureaucracies give them is arbitrary codes that do not care for their specific circumstances and that make it difficult for the sane average citizen to reasonably care for animals like Peanut. Longo was not always running a non-profit organization.
But rather than go after those who have committed real violent and property crimes, the state chooses to go after perfectly law-abiding citizens. Sam Francis called this “anarcho-tyranny”: the allowance of crime against the average citizen and the persecution of the regular citizenry under arbitrary demands and edicts.
Nothing quite embodies the arbitrariness of our progressive overlords than the invasions of homes and killing of pets while pregnancy centers run by Pro-Life charities are vandalized and attacked. Without the state, who would destroy charities that care for animals while claiming to care for the environment? The state continues its inevitable deaths spiral of intervention into good society: a spiral that gets more and more absurd and more arbitrary.
Rest in peace Peanut & Fred, victims of state bureaucracy!
