When I was about eight years old my father took me and my brothers and sister to see Ringling Brothers\u2019 Barnum and Bailey Circus at the old Madison Square Garden in Manhattan.\u00a0 Before the performance, we walked through the menagerie and saw lions, tigers, zebras, a huge bored gorilla and most importantly the elephants.\u00a0 They were the stars of the circus and from the point of view of a little boy, the real reason to go to the circus.\u00a0 Now, don\u2019t get me wrong, I liked the other acts too, the tightrope walkers, the clowns, the lion tamers and the trapeze acrobats.\u00a0 They were fun and some were exciting.\u00a0 But what I wanted to see were the elephants.\u00a0 Watching these giants go through their routines and seeing the trainers perform their acrobatics on the backs and heads of these amazing monsters was thrilling.<\/p>\n
When I had kids of my own, I would bring them every year to the circus.\u00a0 At this point I preferred the Big Apple Circus because they provided a retro and more intimate experience.\u00a0 And of course, they had elephants.\u00a0 My kids loved the clowns and the trapeze acts but what always brought the oohs and aahs was the elephants.\u00a0 There weren\u2019t as many or as big as the ones I remember from my childhood but they did the trick.\u00a0 When my kids were a little older I decided to bring them one last time to see the circus.\u00a0 Much to everybody\u2019s surprise and disappointment there were no elephants.\u00a0 I assumed that the Big Apple Circus had fallen on hard times and couldn\u2019t afford them anymore.<\/p>\n
Over the last few years I had heard that animal rights activists were the reason that circuses had been forced to eliminate the elephants.\u00a0 They worked to get municipal laws passed making elephant training and control equipment illegal.\u00a0 They picketed the circuses and harassed the patrons.\u00a0 Among all the other outrages of the Social Justice Warriors I never considered how this particular campaign would impact the world I live in.\u00a0 A few years ago, I went with my grandsons to the Ringling Brothers show and there were the elephants.\u00a0 All was as it should be.<\/p>\n
Today I read that Ringling Brothers\u2019 Barnum and Bailey Circus was going out of business this year.\u00a0 The last performance will be this spring.\u00a0 Reading the article I discovered that the last year or two the circus finally caved in to the pressure and eliminated the elephants from the circus.\u00a0 The circus officials attributed the large drop in attendance to this change.\u00a0 The article said the Barnum and Bailey Circus was 146 years old and was actually older than baseball.\u00a0 So, the SJWs killed the circus.<\/p>\n
Well, that\u2019s about the perfect emblem of our era.\u00a0 Politically correct harassment and knee-jerk regulation strangled one of the most legendary symbols of happiness and childhood adventure.<\/p>\n
For the activists who supposedly did all this for the sake of the elephants, I think it might be interesting to consider what the law of unexpected consequences might have to say about this development.\u00a0 Now that children won\u2019t be thinking about elephants as much anymore there\u2019s a chance they won\u2019t grow up quite as interested in elephants.\u00a0 Currently, elephant populations are under enormous pressure in their native ranges.\u00a0 In fact, both Asian and African elephants are being decimated by the combined pressures of habitat destruction and poaching.\u00a0 A time may come when only a concerted effort by conservationists using heroic efforts will preserve a population of elephants.\u00a0 This would require a large amount of money on a continuous basis.\u00a0 This money will not come from Asia or Africa.\u00a0 I think it is entirely possible that if governments aren\u2019t in a position to underwrite something like this for political and financial reasons it will require the sympathy of individuals in first-world countries to make this effort possible.\u00a0 However, if elephants are no longer a popular or common concept perhaps there will be little interest in underwriting their well-being.\u00a0 So, if Dumbo isn\u2019t a figure that parents remember fondly, maybe they won\u2019t bring their kids to see the new version.\u00a0 And one day the kids will be unaware that elephants are any more interesting than sewer rats.\u00a0 And when they drop off the face of the earth the activists can rail against the callous ignorance and selfishness of people.\u00a0 And no one will know or care.<\/p>\n
In the weeks and months going forward President Trump may be able to make many American institutions and aspects of life \u201cgreat again.\u201d\u00a0 Unfortunately, I don\u2019t see any hope of making the Greatest Show on Earth \u201cgreat again\u201d or even making it again at all.\u00a0 And we are all poorer for it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
When I was about eight years old my father took me and my brothers and sister to see Ringling Brothers\u2019 Barnum and Bailey Circus at<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[26,105,106,107],"class_list":["post-747","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-events","tag-american-exceptionalism","tag-circus","tag-elephants","tag-sjws"],"yoast_head":"\n