A band of societal rejects filmed themselves this week harassing Chick-fil-A diners and releasing a fisherman’s catch without his consent — all in the name of equal rights for animals.
Members of the group Direct Action Everywhere stormed into a Chick-fil-A in Pinellas Park, Florida, on Tuesday, holding fake knives and covered in blood as confused onlookers participated in the restaurant’s Cow Appreciation Day.
Check it out here:
Animal rights activist Kayla Leaming, wife of the man who recorded the incident, told the Tampa Bay Times that Chick-fil-A is guilty of speciesism.
“It’s normalizing violence, and perpetuating the idea that one life is more valuable than another life just because of the body you’re born into,” she said.
That’s rights, folks. Apparently we’re “ists” if we think we’re more valuable than chickens. Granted, this group’s behavior is unhinged, annoying, intrusive, and self-defeating, but equally unhinged is the woman attacking the man filming and trying to grab his camera. Note to readers: If you find yourself in this uncomfortable situation, keep your cool and call the police, wait for management to intervene or leave. Your children aren’t going to be irreparably damaged because someone yelled “meat is murder” in their presence, but they are going to be damaged by witnessing their mother completely lose it. She should have used it as a learning opportunity to teach her children that those rabble-rousing losers are the result of years of personal failures, and that people who are happy, kind and secure with their lives shouldn’t feel the need to project their own irrational fears on a captive audience.
Activists with the same group later confronted a family fishing in Crescent Lake Park in St. Petersburg and threw the family’s freshly caught dinner back into the water without their permission.
The Leamings again proudly posted footage of the confrontation online, which showed them sending their young son in as a prop to spew their unsolicited propaganda on a family enjoying their afternoon outdoors. After nearly four minutes of loudly berating two of the men for fishing, Mike Leaming grabbed their tilapia and chucked it into the water.
Watch this:
One of the fishermen, identified as 35-year-old Bob Hope, called the police, but the activists were already leaving the scene when an officer arrived, police spokeswoman Yolanda Fernandez told the Tampa Bay Times.
Police have declined to press charges against the Leamings, despite being inundated with complaints.
“I only shared it on social media because the police officers did nothing to protect my rights,” Mr. Hope told the Times. “If there were people fishing all over the lake, and these people showed up, that’s a protest. We were fishing by ourselves when we were ambushed. That’s not a protest, that’s harassment.”
“By the way, that fish was an invasive tilapia,” he added. “They’re destroying the ecosystem and killing our bass population.”
See that, dummies? If you would have spent one minute chatting with the locals instead of breathlessly vomiting your garbage, maybe you would have come to some understanding as to why population control can be necessary and why you need to find joy in your life.
This video is trickier for me to analyze because I, personally, would be infuriated if someone did this to me. I’m not an expert, but once that fish is caught legally, it’s yours fair and square, and I would 100% consider this theft or destruction of property. But again, the fishermen could have dealt with these idiots a little bit better. Protect your catch, stand your ground and do not engage — not in the slightest. If the harassment continues, record them and call the police, but don’t get up in their faces and start screaming. It could lead to a fight or even worse, and at the end of the day, it is just a fish.
In the current political climate, when it appears everyone has reached their absolute boiling point, it’s a valuable asset to be able to calmly stop and ask yourself, “Is this really worth it?”
Jessica Chasmar 