Pat Boone vs. The Apes (The Loser? Comedy)

I can’t tell if Pat Boone is (a) trying to be funny and failing; or (b) being totally serious and failing.

Anyway, the crooner is on his (white) soapbox about — I am not making this up — "ape rights". Judge for yourself:

Well, if it weren’t for the close quarters and the sad deterioration of his bones and other body parts, Charles Darwin would be spinning madly in his sarcophagus.

Close quarters? Darwin is buried in Westminster Abbey in London. Pretty nice digs from what I hear. But please, evoking the decaying body of a scientist? Where are we going with this?

Spinning with hilarious joy, that is.

O.K. So this must be good news for Darwin, whatever Pat is talking about.

I’ve just read that animal rights activists in several countries are campaigning diligently for apes and chimps to receive virtually all the same legal rights as their supposed human descendants.

Wait a second. Is Pat suggesting that Darwin was an animal rights advocate? Where does that come from?

Yeah, yeah, Pat. Animal rights advocate, evolutionary theorist. They BOTH have to do with animals, so they’re BOTH the SAME THING.

By the way, I’m just guessing here, but I don’t think anybody is talking about giving legal rights to our simian ancestors. They are, after all, dead. I think we’re just talking about LIVING apes, from whom we most assuredly did NOT descend.

Yes, the Great Ape Project International, based in Atlanta, and other devoted simian lovers around the world, have rallied around a case in the European Court of Human Rights in Austria involving a 28-year-old chimp named Matthew Hiasi Pan.

And they’re cheered on by a resolution, adopted just last month by a Spanish parliamentary committee, that would give great apes, such as chimpanzees and gorillas, the right to life, freedom from arbitrary captivity and protection from torture.

Pat is mocking this? What’s his problem? Does he think chimpanzees should be arbitrarily killed, captured and tortured?

What kind of a sick fuck is Pat Boone, anyway?

If the Spanish court approves the resolution, as it’s expected to do, Spain will be the first nation to extend human rights to mankind’s closest "genetic relatives." If the European Court in Austria follows suit, it may declare Matthew the chimp a person, and entitled to a legal guardian and funds for upkeep. He already has a lawyer, Eberhart Theuer of Vienna.

Oh, Pat. Can you read? Or do you get your info from retarded email spam?

The theory behind GAP is a simple one: great apes differ from us in DNA by only 0.5% difference. The difference between a chimpanzee and us is only 1.23%. Human blood and chimpanzee blood, with compatible blood groups, can be exchanged through transfusion. We use chimps and other great apes to cure diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis, lupus erythematosis, multiple sclerosis, psoriasis, Crohn’s disease and asthma. Chimpanzees also contain unique advantages in evaluating new Hepatitis B and C vaccines, and treatments for malaria, again because of the similarity in their response to these antigens to humans.

But on a psychological level, the great apes are capable of rudimentary communication skills, feelings, rationality and self-consciousness. The typical great ape is, to put in bluntly, more "advanced" emotionally and mentally than thousands of mentally-impaired humans.

Even then, nobody is advocating that a chimp be "declared" a person. That would be stupid. The whole object is to acknowledge that they should be offered some of the same rights as a mentally-retarded person — like the right to life, freedom from torture and imprisonment, etc. Is that so silly?

[I can only imagine Pat’s response: "Yeah, but they’re monkeys. They throw their own ~~shit~~ excrement!" To which I respond, "Well, I’m sure many mentally retared people would, or do, too."]

And you thought we had problems with illegal aliens?

Get it? Monkeys? Dark-skinned illegal aliens? Making the connection? It’s okay if you didn’t; Pat just made it for you.

Matthew’s lawyer says he only wants his client to be treated like a human child, to be declared a person, and granted four of about 50 rights enjoyed by Europeans: the right to life, limited freedom of movement, personal safety and the right to claim property. And of course, a legal guardian.

"Four of about 50 rights"? So in your earlier paragraph when you wrote "I’ve just read that animal rights activists in several countries are campaigning diligently for apes and chimps to receive virtually all the same legal rights as their supposed human descendants", you were lying, Pat? Pulling something out of your arse there?

Or perhaps you lack basic reading comprehension, like our monkey brethren?

In this country, he’d be lining up for food stamps, health care, a driver’s license, unemployment insurance, registration to vote (Democrat) – and, maybe later, application for citizenship.

Okay. I think Pat is being tongue-in-cheek about a monkey getting a driver’s license in this country and voting for Obama. Well, maybe just the driver’s license part. So, let’s give him a hearty "Har har. Good reposte, old spot"

But underlying Pat’s sarcasm, he’s STILL making the racist connection between MONKEYS and ILLEGAL ALIENS (not to mention MONKEYS and OBAMA). Why is nobody calling him on this?

Why not run for public office? According to the Yerkes National Primate Research Center at Atlanta’s Emory University, chimps share 98.5 percent of human DNA – roughly the same as some career politicians!

And roughly the same as washed up 1950’s singers who got famous stealing music from ~~monkeys~~ dark-skinned people. Ain’t that right, Pat?

The same study claims the ape family shares many of the same characteristics as humans, but not capacity for written language or complex emotions, such as guilt or shame. Sounds perfect for some congressional seats, some court benches and chairmanship of some big oil companies.

*rim shot*. Thanks, ladies and gentleman. Pat is playing the Sands all week!

Of course, there’s still a bamboo ceiling; he couldn’t run for president if he weren’t born in this country. Arnold Schwarzenegger has been governor of California for two terms, and that’s as far up the food chain as he can go. But some chimps have already been movie and TV stars; over 50 years ago, Cheetah starred with Tarzan, Clint Eastwood co-starred with one, and J. Fred Muggs was a big-hit regular with Dave Garaway on NBC.

Don’t quite get the comparison there, Pat. Are you saying that Cheetah and J. Fred Muggs are higher up the food chain because they’ve been on TV, compared to Schwarzenegger, who has only been governor?

Are you just trying to show off your vast knowledge of monkeys-in-Hollywood trivia? And if so, why?

Still, some legal analysts warn of a danger in giving apes equal legal status because an animal’s rights could conflict or even supersede a human’s rights in future court rulings, says USA Today. Richard Cupp, at Pepperdine University’s School of Law, having written extensively on animal vs. human rights, says, "I’d call it a slippery-slope-plus."

I thought I would factcheck Pat’s last paragraph, and found the USA Today article in question. Here is how the relevant paragraph in USA Today reads, verbatim:

Some legal analysts warn of a danger in giving apes equal legal status because an animal’s rights could conflict or supersede a human’s rights in future court rulings. "I’d call it a slippery slope-plus," says Richard Cupp, associate dean for research at California’s Pepperdine University School of Law, who has written extensively on animal vs. human rights.

Why, Pat’s paragraph is almost word-for-word the same as the USA Today paragraph! It’s almost as if he’s aping the USA Today article in a monkey-see-monkey-do kind of way.

Or, as we humans call it, plagerism. Guess old habits (e.g., stealing songs from other people) die hard.

I guess so …next thing you know, the flaky California Supreme Court, already declaring that marriage no longer has to be defined as a covenant between one man and one woman, may quickly grant that status with all its benefits to a man and his chimp, a woman and her ape, or – God forbid – two male gorillas!

Okay. Evolutionists? Check. Illegal immigrants? Check. Gays? Check. Bestiality? Check.

What other rightwing bugaboos can milk off this lame topic?

Landlords and business owners, watch out! You may soon have no right to forbid occupancy or employment to simians, no matter your religious convictions, or even allergies.

Desegregation? Check.

Many researchers believe the AIDS virus mutated and originated in a certain type of African monkey, so hospitals may have a lot more to worry about than staph infections.

Because… huh? Ape rights will result in an increase in AIDS? I realize — well, I think — this is intended to be funny, but one wonders how Pat’s mind works sometimes.

And talk about that "slippery slope" – if primates are ceded human rights, why not cats and dogs? And other pets like hamsters and iguanas and snakes and birds? What if George Clooney’s pet porker sues him for alienation of affection?

*rim shot* ha ha ha ha… huh? Pat is not only suggesting that George Clooney fucks a pig, but that George Clooney cheats on the pig he’s been fucking.

Pat, that’s cooooold.

Hey, that great humanitarian Leona Helmsley not only left $12 million to her beloved white Maltese, Trouble, but it now turns out she earmarked virtually her entire estate, between 5 and 8 billion, for a charitable trust dedicated to "the care and welfare of dogs"! And not even she demanded that pooches be declared human and granted the same status as American citizens. Obviously, in her view, that would devalue them.

I’m not comedy writer, but somehow "in her view, that would devalue them" just doesn’t sound like a workable punchline, no matter how lengthy the set-up.

It occurs to me, at the risk of being shouted down by Matthew’s legal supporters, that a novel solution to all this might be: Leave all primates in their natural habitat, where they’ve always flourished, and quit dragging them into the confusion and turmoil of modern society! It didn’t work for Tarzan, and it sure didn’t for Cheetah!

Pssst, Pat! I think that’s what Matthew’s legal supporters are trying to achieve. So this whole time, you’ve been having fun at the expense of people with whom you actually agree.

I know this all sounds ridiculous, and it is. As ridiculous as former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor’s serious suggestion that we ought to look to Europe for some of our legal precedents and judgments.

Liberal judges? Check.

As if our unique and precious Constitution with its Bill of Rights didn’t provide Americans with the best and highest form of jurisprudence ever devised on this planet, creating the best and freest society in history.

Shhhyuh, dude. As IF.

Look to Europe?

That’s for the dogs. And now, the apes.

So sayeth Pat Boone, adding "I mean. Come ON! If pigs could fly! But that’s a horse of a different color! Hahahahaha! I crack myself up sometimes! Hahahahahah! Beeeern-a-diiiine…."