Kicking dogs is bad, apparently.

I confused passion and lunacy.

Well then Dave. What’s that mean?

One thing you should know about me is my deep respect and reverence for all animals. In fact, I was reading back through my unused Twitter account and found a tweet I made 7 years ago where I was excited that I saved the life of a worm I found on the pavement.

Yeah, there’s more to the story Dave.

My friend, in a rush to get to work, brought me a hummingbird that landed on her windshield as she couldn’t deal with it. That day, me and my friend taught that little guy how to fly. I envision him having a happy life after that.

Ok Dave. But how did you . . . ?

I was driving up the road with my daughter. A bird caught my eye. So much it prompted me to turn around. I pulled up to the bird and picked it up. It was a baby crow I affectionately named Sydney Crows-Beak. Poor fella was young, couldn’t fly yet and sure wasn’t going to learn on that busy road. I moved him off to a safer place after taking some time to get to know him.

And . . . the group . . . ?

Me and my friend were walking around the neighborhood. It was dark and the night air was alluring. I heard it, something in the woods. I turned around and found a kitten. We brought it home to find it a home. Someone dumped it as evidenced by the dish of food and water left. After a half hour, I had a feeling. I had to go back. When I did, I found it’s brother/sister clinging to the side of a tree. We found homes for those little kitties.

So . . . then what Dave?

Me and some friends were building a cabin one day. I had to leave and I used a different path than usual. That’s when I saw it, a hawk running through the forest unable to fly. One of it’s wings were broken. After some unpleasantness between it’s talons and my thumb, we were able to arrange a pickup of the animal from a zoo the next day.

That brings me to how I got kicked from an Animal Cruelty Group. I joined it believing my beliefs were shared by the people of the group. For the most part I was right.

In honesty, I don’t have a “Fur Baby”, I have a cat. I have never had a “cute little puppy”, I’ve had a dog. I once had a bird named Pete Abdul Smith, but that’s another story. What I am trying to have you see here is that I see animals. Maybe it’s in my genes. My culture has always honored animals, not that I have been exposed to it. Anyone who knows me knows my love of animals and I want to pet them all. I just don’t baby-talk with them.

You would think this is why I got kicked. How dare I say their animals are just animals. They are people aren’t they? No, it wasn’t that. I resisted the fanatics in the group, which it turned out to be the people who created the group. Oops.

I started to notice a pattern. I loved the group members passion, however passion without rational thought is merely . . . psychosis. Yeah, I’ll leave that word there.

What started to happen is that people started to witch-hunt. The passions built up and then the threats against people, the plans to enter peoples properties and steal animals and the desire to publicly shame anyone who didn’t treat animals the same way they did their little furballs became . . . indignant. They attacked well known businesses run by people who loved animals more than me, they posted photos of animals and posted addresses of places where animals were “mistreated”. Once you were on their radar, you were in danger of vigilantism. I personally detested this. I attempted to provide them a better way to help other than these indignancies. I proposed getting into communication with the owners, offer them help, learning their stories and all around becoming a good neighbor. Being a good neighbor and handling these issues rationally became a bone of contention to say the least. Hundred and hundreds of replies fought me when I suggested being a good neighbor. No one in the group, save a small number that could not speak up for reasons that would become evident for me later, wanted to be a better person. They wanted to be a hero. Thinking back on this now is that they created a tragedy, or tried to, and then they would be the one who helped facilitate it’s solutions. They would have a feather in their cap, a hero.

I pushed. Please, help the owners they think are mistreating the animals. I offered to spearhead this and challenged the loudest witch hunters to step up and . . .

I was blocked. I didn’t see it coming because a family member was one of the admins. Not an immediate one, but someone new. That person blocked me and thus cutting me off from this group.

Oh, the injustice. I thought at the time.

I don’t know if anyone else has tried to speak up against these torch bearers looking to march on every unappealing photo posted of an animal online, but I am betting they are not. Save the animals at the expense of people, family pets, beloved farm animals?

So, yeah. I got kicked out of an Animal Cruelty group. I realized this is why good ideas do not get traction. Perhaps there is something to say about why well written articles on Medium don’t get more reads. We want groups of people who feed our points of view, not ones that challenge us to change our minds. Clearly, to pursue one of my missions I don’t need a group behind me. I can only deal with what’s in front of me and hope and pray others do the same as me, and not hurt others in the name of their aspirations of being a hero.