Fearing that the mountain lion might find one of the local school children a tempting target, the police shot and killed the animal. Outrage against the police erupted up and down the San Francisco peninsula and as far away as Marin County, on the other side of the Golden Gate Bridge, more than 30 miles away.”
“Second-guessers always have easy alternatives. One protester against “the murdering of such a beautiful creature” said that it “easily could have been removed from the premises and relocated..."
The protester offered no helpful hints on how you “easily” remove a mountain lion from a tree—and certainly did not volunteer to demonstrate how to do it in person the next time the police find a mountain lion up a tree in a residential neighborhood.”
“Those engaged in moral exhibitionism have no time for mundane realities...The police, of course, have to deal with mundane realities all the time.
“What if the police had shot a tranquilizer gun at the adult mountain lion in the tree and missed? Would they have had a chance to get off a second shot at a swiftly moving target before he pounced on one of the hundreds of children that were soon to be leaving school near him?”
It would never occur to people with academic degrees and professorships that they are both ignorant and incompetent in vast areas of human life, much less that they should keep that in mind before they vent their emotions and wax self-righteous.”
“The cops probably haven't read Chaucer and don't know what existentialism is. But they may know what danger is.
Some Palo Alto parents of small children living near where the mountain lion was killed said that the police did the right thing. There are still some pockets of sanity, even in Palo Alto.”
Excerpt From: Thomas Sowell. “Ever Wonder Why?.”
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