Government Overreach Run Amok: NY State Kills Peanut the Squirrel

I admit it; I’ve grown especially fond of squirrels. They’re devious little brats, as they should be because they’re just trying to survive in a Charles Darwin world of survival. 

I have a bunch of them in my yard, and they are absolutely ingenious at stealing the bird food that I’ve set up for my feathered friends—they eventually figure out almost any device or measure I put out to stop them. (I finally found one that works: a reverse cone set up on the bird feeder that prevents them from jumping up on it. Thank me later.)

But don't tell that to the odious bureaucrats in Gov. Kathy Hochul's New York. They felt the need to take out Peanut:

Squirrels have earned my hard-earned respect, and when I open my office door in the morning as I get to work, and they're outside in the yard giving me that little cute-eyed stare, I'm man enough to admit that I’m kinda touched.

It is understood that, for some, squirrels are pests and must be eliminated. I get it—I had family members back in the day who lived in Wyoming, and although the myriad gophers, or "picket pins" as we used to call them, were cute, they were negatively contributing to the situation and had to be taken out.

So we did what needed to be done, and we took care of that. Sometimes reality is hard.

But was there any need for NY State to step in and kill this guy’s pet? You be the judge:

Peanut the Squirrel, of internet fame, has been euthanized after the pet was seized by New York state earlier this week, according to the Department of Environmental Conservation.

The seven-year-old gray rescue squirrel, commonly referred to as “P’Nut” on Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok, was put to death, along with Fred the raccoon, so that the animals could be tested for the presence of rabies, according to a statement from the agency obtained by WETM.  

Literally – why?!

After all, he was here legally, unlike so many other interlopers under the Harris-Biden regime:

Was this necessary? No.

“RIP MY BEST FRIEND. Thank you for the best 7 years of my life. Thank you for bringing so much joy to us and the world. I’m sorry I failed you but thank you for everything,” Longo wrote in a caption to the post announcing Peanut’s death.

Listen, I’m no snowflake, and I get that we are carnivores (or omnivores if you so choose), and I love my pork, my steak, and my chicken. And I’ve worked on a ranch—I have no illusions about how meat gets to our table. I once was tasked on a farm with getting the chickens ready for eating, and I admit, it was a sobering process. Taking a live chicken and making it ready for your fried hot wings does wake you up to some harsh realities. But there is a little thing called evolution that made us this way, and you can’t chuck it away based on a slogan. The reality is we are the ultimate predator, and we were made to eat flesh as at least part of our diet.

But somehow, that same evolutionary force bred kindness into our hearts, and many of us pray for the sacrifices of the animals that provide us our meals. We do not wantonly torture animals or hurt them for no reason, and in fact, we take millions of them into our homes and consider them family.

Was Peanut a threat to you, me, or anybody else? It certainly doesn’t seem like it.

What it does seem like it is a gross big government overkill that seems right out of Orwell’s "1984." I love my little squirrel family that dominates my backyard, and if anybody comes to try to say otherwise, be advised that I will take full advantage of my Second Amendment Rights.