The Judas Goat

But the cruel wretch said, "Then I will eat all Noman's comrades before Noman himself, and will keep Noman for the last. This is the present that I will make him."
--From "The Odyssey" by Homer [Translated by Samuel Butler]

Goat meat is making inroads with American consumers. The following excerpt from an LA Times story struck me as particularly relevant in regards to those trading in our liberty for perceived security:

Sbeta, a native of Libya, gets help from Poncho the Goat, a loyal ram who several times a day leads a small group of kid goats through a narrow alley to the slaughterhouse door. Poncho leaves the animals inside and trots back to a cozy corral while a worker slits the throats of his former charges. Their skinned carcasses are then placed in cold storage.

I can forgive Poncho the Judas goat. After all, he is merely a dumb animal, oblivious to cause and effect, and oblivious that one day, Sbeta, like the cyclops Polyphemus, will come for him, too.

What I can't forgive are the human Judas goats who are selling out our birthright, determined to leave those they lead as helpless as goats in the slaughterhouse. I don't want them trotting back to a cozy corral. I don't want them to be eaten last.