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If you live on Twitter/X (or any of the social media platforms), you will likely have heard the story of Peanut the Squirrel. 

Peanut has been a social media celebrity for seven years. An animal rescue nonprofit was built around him, saving hundreds of animals, from rodents to horses, from abuse, neglect, or simply bad luck. His story and his antics charmed millions of people, and helped people escape from the grittier and nastier realities of living in an unforgiving world. 

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Until the New York government decided to raid his home and kill him. They executed a search warrant, trashed a home, seized him and his buddy Fred the Raccoon, and executed them next. 

In the midst of the decisive election campaign of our lifetimes, why talk about Peanut the Squirrel? Aren’t there more important issues like the polls, turnout, shenanigans, and all the day’s news?

Yes, all those things matter. But the story of Peanut matters because it is a microcosm of what we are facing. A nameless, faceless, and merciless bureaucracy with no sense of proportion or empathy can, at a whim, upend people’s lives over what amounts to nothing. It can seize a beloved family pet, the mascot of an organization that does enormous good, just because some nanny-stater decides they don’t approve. 

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Peanut and Fred died over paperwork. 

The streets of New York City are filled with criminals and migrants, billions are spent on hotel rooms for illegals, drugs are ravaging our communities, and lawlessness is spreading in ways that degrade our civilization. Those are big problems that are difficult to deal with, so the government turns its Sauron eye to Peanut because it can overwhelm the little guy with no problem. 

Improving people’s lives is hard. Killing a squirrel is easy. 

We all get overwhelmed by the enormous challenges we face, but we can all understand the story of a squirrel. In our guts, we know what happened is wrong–what we need to understand is that this is how government works as often as not. The ostensible reason behind the raid and 5-hour squirrel (and raccoon) hunt in a man’s home is that Peanut could have rabies, and rabies control is a government function. 

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It is the government’s function to reduce the incidence of rabies (which is, thankfully, now extremely rare in America), but killing Peanut and Fred didn’t help it perform that function. Not just because they didn’t have rabies at the time, but because, as basically indoor animals, they never would be exposed to it. 

Fighting rabies in the wild is hard, and it is MUCH easier to euthanize a squirrel that lives indoors and could not possibly have rabies. Eight government employees can waste a day ransacking a man’s house, kill a squirrel, and call it a day without having to do anything that actually makes the public safer. Win!

Peanut’s fate is not a niche issue. His story has made it into the New York Times, CNN, USA Today, and news outlets worldwide. 

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This makes his death a teachable moment. You may not have heard of Peanut, but millions of people have and have had a visceral reaction to the casual cruelty of the New York government. 

Peanut was just featured a few months ago in an account I often use in Sunday Smiles. It was a feel-good story and now a feel-bad story. It’s a feel-bad story that tells you how casually tyrannical government can be. We need the government to exercise power to keep social order from collapsing, not to enforce meaningless diktats that shouldn’t apply. Sure, keeping squirrels as pets is a bad idea, but this particular squirrel in this particular circumstance, was helping, not harming society. 

This is why a lot of people have picked up on this story and linked it to the campaign. It is just another example of government bureaucrats out of control.

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Small stories often teach big lessons. Big stories often don’t, because they are too big and too complicated to get your head around. 

You might be surprised to see how many people online are furious about this and how many have linked the death of Peanut to government tyranny. It’s a small thing in a world with 8 billion people, wars raging, and an open border threatening our sovereignty. 

But it is also a big thing because in a world with all those crises, some jerk bureaucrats decided that this was the most important thing they had to do and mobilized enormous resources to kill a squirrel for no good reason. It was an easy thing for them. With the swipe of a pen they could upend a family, destroy a nonprofit, and bring a bit more sadness into the world. 

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Imagine, if you will, a neighbor complaining that your indoor dog or cat hadn’t had a rabies shot, and eight government officials storm into your home, take them away, and euthanize them. Technically, they are in the right, but it would still be an insane overreaction. A dog or cat who never goes outside will not get rabies miraculously, and there are much better things for those government officials to do. They have the power and authority, but they did this because going after actual dangers is harder. 

It’s like organizing a manhunt for a jaywalker or executing a search warrant for tearing the tag off the mattress. Going after dangerous criminals is hard; instead, go after the low hanging fruit of good people who won’t resist. 

Is it any wonder that people are tying this to Trump?

Not to me. This is an easily understood example of why government needs to be run by and for ordinary people, not those marinated in the use of power for its own sake.