Re: Yesterday we received the great news that the Hunting Bill will be reintroduced to the Commons next week.

From: Oz (oz_at_farmeroz.port995.com)
Date: 09/11/04 

Date: Sat, 11 Sep 2004 18:23:41 +0100

Martin Willett <ignoredmailbox@ntlworld.com> writes
>Oz wrote:

>> 1) I don't ride a horse.
>
>Neither do I. I don't agree with animal cruelty, I can't imagine any
>horse enjoying carrying me around.

I'm sure there are horses that could happily carry you around.
They cope with surprising loads, you might even get to like each other.

>> 5) There is no doubt in my mind that horses love the hunt. Far too
>> many people who have had horses that have been in a hunt have
>> reported this.
>
>Who said anything about stopping horses having a gallop over some
>hedges? You're not suggesting the horses actually like to see foxes
>ripped apart, are you?

Very few people do, quite a few hounds do I expect.
I rather think my cat likes catching small animals too,
I hate to tell you.

>If it's all about fun for riders, horses and
>hounds then what's wrong with a drag hunt? Only nutters think drag
>hunting should be banned. Why is it so vitally important to rip a fox
>to pieces (or to have that as a possibility) to make it a worthwhile
>day out?

Probably because there would be few people who would not allow it.
Horses do tend to make quite a mess of the ground.

>> 6) In general the anti-hunt people seem not to be country folk and
>do
>> not seem to understand nature at all well.
>
>That's right, people who don't live in the country are an inferior
>species who shouldn't be allowed to vote.

I don't see how you got from what I said to there.

>You wouldn't catch Tory MPs
>from the leafy shires voting on matters concerning the inner cities
>would you? That would be hypocritical.

I think most come from cities anyway.

>Tory MPs from the shires never
>complain about what goes on in inner city council estates, do they?
>Class war is only a bad thing when the lower orders fight back, isn't
>it?

Ah, so you are a class warrior perhaps.

How terribly dated....

>> 7) Given the many and unpleasant ways that foxes would die in the
>> wild I believe the hunt is more humane than nature, and by a long
>> way. The natural way for a fox to die is slowly, thirsty and
>> starving, of disease, injury or old age. Quite frankly this is a
>very
>> slow and unpleasant way to die.
>
>So chasing them and tearing them apart is a mercy?

In truth, yes.
Nature tends to go for rather inhumane methods,
hunting is significantly more humane than nature.
Of course you already know that.

>Silly me, I was
>thinking fox hunters liked to chase the fittest fox that gave them the
>best sport when all the time they have been picking out the elderly
>and infirm foxes for mercy killings.

Whether its what they intend or not, its what they actually do.
Fortunately confirmed by another poster.

>They should get medals for their
>humanity. Do the RSPCA give grants to the hunts?

No, but they probably should, now you mention it.
After all nobody else performs this service.

>> 8) I have used a rifle on rabbits. Like soldiers who can operate
>with
>> missing limbs for a surprisingly long time, and seriously wounded
>> people who can live with serious injury for days it's quite hard (I
>> would say impossible) to guarantee to kill humanely with a rifle. I
>> thus do not believe that shooting is a humane alternative.
>
>Can you tell me, off the top of your head, you needn't be too precise
>here, how many countries have introduced hunting with dogs as a humane
>approach to culling problem wildlife?

It happens elsewhere. Of course in the wild (eg see african savannah),
predators incl hunting dogs do precisely this. Damned sight easier to
catch the old/injured/infirm than the healthy.

>> 10) The anti's seem to be uniformly in three groups:
>> A) Those that through ignorance believe differently to the points
>> above and who are relatively easily convinced otherwise.
>> B) The class warrior who has pretty well no knowledge of nature or
>> hunting but who sees the hunt as comprising the 'ruling classes' and
>> thinks by fighting the hunt he is fighting the ruling classes. This
>is
>> something the 'ruling classes' are very happy to allow to continue
>as
>> it keeps them out of their hair.
>> C) Animal rights activists who simultaneously want things natural,
>> want no introduced species and who oppose the removal of introduced
>> species. They are seriously ignorant, seriously schizophrenic and if
>> exposed to nature would soon leave the gene pool.
>
>And this accounts for the majority of the British population?

I very much doubt that the majority care a hoot much either way.

>What the hell is nature?

I would have hoped you would already know.
I think handling that question might sidetrack the thread a little.

>The natural state for the man is to live in a
>social setting, the number of lone hermits is vanishingly small.

Indeed.

>The
>modern agribusiness farm is no more natural than the suburban
>housewife who thinks food comes from Sainsbury's, neither could last
>very long on their own.

Indeed, to an extent. Farming has never been natural by most definitions
of natural. From the moment a neolithic farmer sowed the first seeds and
pulled out the first weeds its not been 'natural'. That's a fair while
ago mind.

The vast (overwhelming in fact) majority of UK farms are family farms,
remember there are far more farmers than farmworkers. If the farms
stopped producing then an awful lot of people would starve to death of
course. Then, I guess, farmers would be in a majority.

>What is inconsistent about opposing the introduction of new species
>and the removal of those which have already arrived? It seems fully
>consistent to me, if people don't like the idea of eradicating animals
>why wouldn't it make sense to avoid introducing one which might later
>give rise to a call for eradication?

Rather a non-sequitur. Do you have a bee in your bonnet on this too?

>> 11) I support the right (and it is a right) for people to do what
>they
>> wish on their own land so long as it doesn't harm other people.
>
>The very nature of a hunt is that it charges about the countryside
>willy-nilly wherever the hounds think the trail is leading.

Not from what I have seen. But likely it happens I guess.

>Hunts
>regularly trespass on lands they have been forbidden from hunting over

In my experience (about 30 years) they never have.
Of course they would have *liked to*.

>and foxes are chased and killed on common land

You mean common land as in commoners, or common land as in public land?

>or private land to
>which no hunting permission has been given.

If they do the latter then you can claim damages.
If you are really stressed by it happening on your land then you can
probably go for damages due to the stress and anxiety it caused you.
The usual thing.

>Very few actions have no impact on other people. Many people see the
>hunt as bloodthirsty and obscene. You simply cannot ignore twenty
>people on horses and a pack of dogs.

I can't ignore 30 footpathwalkers walking where there is no footpath
either. Or some lunatic cutting barbed wire fencing because he thought a
footpath was blocked when in fact he thought he was a mile away from
where he was. Had I not found him, there would have been dead people on
the road that day.

>> 12) Fishing and shooting is next.
>> Longer term the banning of livestock and pets.
>>
>
>Of course, it is the old slippery slope. First you stop hanging them,
>then you stop imprisoning them, then you stop discriminating against
>them and next week sodomy will be compulsory. It's amazing how quick
>we shot down that slippery slope from banning bear baiting and then
>*** fighting to banning fox hunting, isn't it? At this rate we'll be
>hearing calls for the banning of shooting by the middle of the twenty
>second century, maybe even sooner.

Maybe, that'll certainly cut wild bird and wild animal numbers.

>Remember the slippery slope arguments about the minimum wage,
>abortion, the welfare state, the National Health Service? No, most of
>them would be before your time. How about the slippery slope that
>started when votes were extended to servants? Why, before you knew it
>not even a century later they were allowing women to vote too. Good
>gracious. And then teenagers! Next week pets?

You are the first person I've come across that wants votes for pets,
and why stop there. Give the pigeons a vote too. 

-- 
Oz
This post is worth absolutely nothing and is probably fallacious.
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