I am on some weird-ass mailing lists, but I won't get off of them because it gives me an entertaining insight into what the lunatic fringe is up to. I also get a chuckle out of thinking that their tin-foil-hat shit is going out only to those who agree with them.
I don't know if that is why I got this "Rattlesnake Logic" email, or if it was because someone thought they could "convert" me to their way of thinking with this piece of airtight carefully-thought-out and totally logical reasoning as to why we need to kill all the Muslims.
Excerpt:
Here in west Texas, I have rattlesnakes on my place, living among us. I have killed a rattlesnake on the front porch. I have killed a rattlesnake on the back porch. I have killed rattlesnakes in the barn, in the shop and on the driveway. In fact, I kill every rattlesnake I encounter.
I kill rattlesnakes because I know a rattlesnake will bite me and inject me with poison. I don't stop to wonder WHY a rattlesnake will bite me; I know it WILL bite me because it's a rattlesnake and that's what rattlesnakes do. I don't try to reason with a rattlesnake or have a "meaningful dialogue" with it…I just kill it. I don't try to get to know the rattlesnake better so I can find a way to live with the rattlesnakes and convince them not to bite me. I just kill them. I don't quiz a rattlesnake to see if I can find out where the other snakes are, because (a) it won't tell me and (b) I already know they live on my place. So, I just kill the rattlesnake and move on to the next one.
I don't look for ways I might be able to change the rattlesnake to a non-poisonous rat snake...I just kill it. Oh, and on occasion, I accidentally kill a rat snake because I thought it was a rattlesnake at the time. Also, I know for every rattlesnake I kill, two more are lurking out there in the brush. In my lifetime I will never be able to rid my place of rattlesnakes.
Do I fear them? Not really. Do I respect what they can do to me and my family? Yes!! And because of that respect, I give them the fair justice they deserve...I kill them. As a country, we should start giving more thought to the fact that these jihadists' are telling the world their goal is to kill Americans and destroy our way of life. They have just posted two graphic videos on the internet showing them beheading Americans. They are serious. They are exactly like rattlesnakes. It is high time for us to start acting accordingly!
I love this country. It's the damn government I'm afraid of!
There's more to it, including a rant about the number of Muslims in Obama's cabinet (real answer: Like every president, even W and St. Ronald, a few advisers, no cabinet members) and we should BE AFRAID! BE AFRAID! LOOK OUT! THERE'S ONE BEHIND YOU!
If you do a Google search on "
rattlesnake logic Islam" you will turn up nearly 50,000 hits. A random sampling shows the vast majority of those sites seem to be of the "kill 'em all and let god sort 'em out" school of dealing with the "Islamic Question".
So it got me to wondering about the analogy itself. Are rattlesnakes to be feared as much as Tex claims (even though he says he
doesn't fear them, come on, who really believes that)?
I found a scientific article entitled
Control of Rattlesnakes, which, as the title indicates, is
not a brief from the pro-rattlesnake lobby. In it wildlife biologist Walter E. Howard says that there are only about 1,000 rattlesnake bites each year nationwide and of these only about
five result in death. In fact, you are actually
ten times more likely to die of an insect sting than you are of a snakebite. Because, you know, science...
Besides that, I hope he's prepared to adopt a herd of cats or else be overrun by rats and mice if his genocidal plan continues, since rodents are the primary diet of the rattlesnake. Nothing exists in a vacuum.
I grew up in
snake country, and the farm I lived on was literally crawling with poisonous snakes -- a pond full of cottonmouth water moccasins, a corral full of copperheads, and
five varieties of rattlesnake slithering around the whole 40 acres. But, as I was told as a small child and which still holds true today, "They are even more afraid of you than you are of them."
So much for your theory, Tex. In fact, you know what? I don't think there really is a "Tex" at all. Read that story over again. These are not the words of a West Texas rancher.
That rancher would know the facts about snakes and would not set out on a wholesale slaughter mission to erase every one of them. Nobody acts like that and nobody talks like that. Instead these are the flightful fantasies of a look-at-me-I'm-macho sidewalk-range-riding Clint-Eastwood-watching city-dwelling movie-cowboy wannabe, whose only experience with snakes was obtained watching Samuel L. Jackson and his
motherfucking-snakes-on-a-motherfucking plane movie. If I am wrong, somebody let me know and I will officially eat my size 7 3/8 hat (yes, I
do have a big head...). With a side of crow to go along with it.
Still, snakes
do creep me out a lot even now, even the strictly non-poisonous garden variety we have around here. I am not alone in this. Most people have an active revulsion to snakes, and fully
one-third of all humans have a full-blown case of
Ophidiophobia. That's is why this analogy, bogus as it is, carries such a visceral appeal.
Really, this whole thing is verging on a "
Final Solution" answer to the Islamic Question. Since there are nearly two million Muslims in the US alone, that's a
lot of rattlesnakes to dispose of. Just the landfill charges alone will be horrendous. And that's not to mention the 1.6
billion Muslims world wide. Oh, but it's different, they say. We are going to kill only the
jihadist rattlesnakes. Okay, that cuts it down to a workable number of ... how many was that again?
Funny thing, no one has an answer to that question. The jihadists don't wear uniforms or even
Old School Ties, so apparently the answer is "all of the Muslims". And, as Tex says, it's no big deal. Sometimes he will kill a non-poisonous
rat snake "by mistake". Yeah, it's way safer to take the "kill 'em all and let god sort 'em out" approach than it is to LOOK OUT! THERE'S ONE BEHIND YOU!
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