“Humane liberalism” that makes Vladimir Putin look kind

While American animal rights activists busy themselves with legislation making criminals out of loving dog owners for tethering a family dog to the front porch, our smug anti-American neighbors to the north are busy skinning seal pups alive. This horrifies Canadian Jamie Glazov, and if you read his article and you’re sensitive to shocking scenes of animal cruelty, I’d suggest being careful about clicking on the video links.

The savagery of the Canadian seal massacre is completely unacceptable for any society that considers itself humane. Ninety five percent of the seals are babies less than four weeks old; they are still suckling their mom’s milk and have not eaten their first solid meal or taken their first swim. They are helpless on the ice. The sealers shoot these baby seals or use hakapiks, long, sharply hooked metal clubs, to bludgeon them, leaving them to suffer on the ice in pools of blood for extended periods of time. The baby seals are left terrified and crying from the torture, until the sealers return to bludgeon them once again and then skin them alive without even checking if they are dead. Oftentimes the baby seals are cut open with box cutters while they are still alive — inches away from each other and in full sight of their weeping on-looking mothers. Some seals slide under the ice and drown; others escape after they are shot or stabbed — only to die a slow and painful death.

It’s far more cruel than anything allowed in the United States, and I don’t understand why the Canadians tolerate it. And they do more than tolerate it. They subsidize it:

….the Canadian government not only continues to rubber stamp this savagery, it blatantly lies to the public, maintaining that the seals are killed humanely. All empirical reality discredits this pathetic falsehood. Watch any video on youtube about it; read the documentation provided by groups such as Sea Shepherd Conservation Society. Animal welfare groups have documented hundreds of violations of the Marine Mammal Regulations under the Fisheries Act that govern the seal hunt.
But the outrage continues. The Canadian sea hunt is coming up this spring and we will be seeing yet another unconscionable picture: the Canadian Coast Guard ships breaking ice and helping sealing ships to get to the baby seals…

Breaking the ice? What ice? I thought it had melted away because of Global Warming. Isn’t the unnecessary use of Coast Guard icebreakers a form of Global Warming denialism in addition to animal cruelty?
What’s with these crazy Canadians anyway? Apparently, there are also some interesting cultural features at play. Urban Canadian snots feel guilty about being snots, and they fetishize the working class sealers:

…we mainland Canadians – who live in cities and proudly wear our fleece winter coats made of recycled water bottles – feel almost as guilty about the man who clubbed the seals as we do about the seals themselves. But we would not wish to meet him in a social situation and would decline to shake his hand. For he has no money to speak of, and we understand that he has to earn a living, poor guy.
And this is why we let the seal hunt go on. We sentimentalise our working-class seal murderers. Okay? And it’s killing us inside! We’re weeping seal blood tears! We are a conflicted people. Are you happy now?
Humane liberalism is at the soppy, shameful heart of this indefensible seal hunt…

To that I would say that even Russia (despite its maniacal history of devotion to the working classes) has banned the hunting of these seal pups. The spectacle proved too much for Vladimir Putin, who pronounced the hunt a “bloody business.”
I don’t like or trust Vladimir Putin. But when he makes the Canadians look cruel, I’d say they have a definite PR problem.