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: 09/14/04 

Date: Tue, 14 Sep 2004 06:49:54 +0100

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

>>>> 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.
>
>I can't see any other direction that such a remark could be going, it
>is glib and fatuous.

Eh? It was a statement of fact. I have no idea how you got 'inferior'
and 'vote' into it, probably from your own prejudices.

>> Ah, so you are a class warrior perhaps.
>>
>> How terribly dated....
>
>So being class conscious is dated while being a land owner,
>fashionable and trendy is always in fashion?

Eh? You really do have a brain full of prejudices, don't you?
I have no idea why you think fashionable and trendy should come into
owning, or renting, land. I farm the land because its my job, its what I
do, and it brings me a living.

Being a class warrior is inciting divisions in society that should not
and in general do not exist. The few snobs I have come across have been
people from modest backgrounds now, for various reasons, into lots of
money; and the rabid communists seem to come from very comfortable
backgrounds but now fallen on harder times. Fairly understandable on
both counts, but not, IMHO, very laudable.

>That's a fine set of
>morals you have there. Who did you borrow them off, Dale Winton or
>Tara Palmer-Tomkinson?

You are simple stating your morals. Its hardly my fault if you aren't
happy with them. Try a change.

>>>> 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.
>
>Perhaps you should recommend it to members of the voluntary euthanasia
>society?

Its a tad tricky doing much else with wild animals like foxes. Livestock
are put down humanely when the suffering becomes pointless, and the same
happens with pets. I don't have a problem with voluntary euthanasia for
much the same reasons. In practice it happens all the time. You can't
force a terminally ill person to take medication other than pain relief
for example.

>>> 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.
>
>So basically your answer is no, you can't think of any concrete
>examples, you just think there probably are some.

Hunting happens in the states and in france and germany.
Hardly surprising, its been done for millennia all over the world.

>Of course natural predators seek out the easy kills, they are less
>likely to be injured chasing the sick, the crippled and the young, but
>human hunters do not, they seek out the stag with the most points on
>his antlers,

I'm not hugely familiar with deer hunting, but I don't think this is
right in general, certainly in the UK.

>as if shooting a bigger animal requires the possession of
>a bigger willy.

You really do have a lot of hangups, don't you?
It would probably be better if you didn't keep bringing them into a
logical argument.

>> 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.
>
>Remember I'm smarter than you are.

Really?

>Don't try "the remember trick" on me. If something is a new piece of
>information I cannot be reminded of it and therefore skip the stage of
>examining the evidence. If it is fresh evidence I have not already
>accepted the truth of it and you cannot simply "remind me" of my
>previous acceptance of your "fact".

I'm surprised you were not already aware of this, its been the case for
over a decade. Given you seemed to claim plenty of knowledge of the
countryside, and have pontificated enthusiastically on it, it didn't
occur to me you were not aware of it.

>>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.
>
>Ah, but they wouldn't have any bloody Range Rovers bought with EC
>subsidies, would they?

Hmmm....
Is that so?

In my village there are about 20 rangerovers, absolutely none of them
owned by farmers (I don't have one for example). That is, from
discussions we have had over the years on uba, the usual situation.
Given the rather small number of farmers (defined as earning 50% of
their income from farming) and the number of sales of rangerovers let
alone similar deluxe 'utility vehicles' from other manufacturers, its
hardly surprising.

>If modern society collapsed the land would be
>farmed and there would be barons running the place and controlling all
>the land, but I doubt very much they would have titles granted by
>Elizabeth Windsor or that the records of the UK land registry would be
>of any great significance.

Indeed so. Knowing how to farm would be a most valuable commodity,
owning a fair number of guns would also help. I would suggest farmers
would be in quite a strong position, wouldn't you? No shortage of manual
labour happy to work for food alone, or starve.

>>> 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?
>
>Me? You started it. I don't care much either way, whether an animal
>was here 1,000 years ago is one thing, whether it is a pest today is
>another. I'm quite happy to kill pests, you should see the shrivelled
>up slugs that try to eat Cooking Fat's Go-Cat by crossing the
>death-zone.

Hmm, you seem to enjoy this. How odd.

>At least I don't dress up in fancy dress and blow a horn
>so everybody for miles around can know I'm taking a little sadistic
>pleasure from vermin control.

Hmmm. Mor of your hangups surfacing.
Please don't assume that because you would feel a sadistic pleasure,
that others do to.

>>> 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?
>
>Either.

1) If its land owned in common, then the council of those commons can
ban them from access and sue them for damages if they trespass.

2) If its public land and the relevant has the power then they can be
banned from access and sued if they trespass.

This is all very simple and can easily be done if the authority wishes.
If the authority doesn't ban them, and/or they have permission then they
can hunt over these lands. Nothing difficult here.

>>> 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.
>
>Why are you treating me as the personification of everything that
>annoys you?

I was just pointing out that just because something annoys you you don't
have to get into a lather and ban it.

>I hate jumped up busy-bodies who think they have a right
>to wander wherever they want too, most of them are the sort who would
>complain if you parked your car outside their house on a public
>street.
>
>Any couples seen in matching cagoules should be culled and stuffed.

I think that would generally be considered somewhat extreme.

>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.
>
>You are not by any chance American are you? You seem to be suffering
>from some kind of irony deficiency.

You put together a sequence supporting your case.
There are people who would support some or all of your comments.
I did a reductio ad absurdum.

>My point was that the slippery slope argument is bogus. It always has
>been. People who are committed to a cause are usually too honest and
>keen to hide their true motivations. There are some loonies who want
>to ban shooting and fishing but they are not supported by any mass
>movement, they are a noisy minority with no power and no mass support.
>The fact that some of the hairiest hunt saboteurs are vegan shock
>troops does not mean that in six months time there will be a vote to
>ban eating meat and drowning worms on hooks. Even if such a bill were
>to find a sponsor it would be thrown out. The slippery slope argument
>is intellectually dishonest: fight today's battle, don't cloud the
>issue with what might (but almost certainly will not) follow.

Much of this is a stated aim of many.

My view on fohunting is primarily that it reduces cruelty to foxes.
I couldn't give a toss about people who see it as a class war issue, and
do not believe the majority get any particular pleasure from any
suffering the fox may or may not have.

Remember, I said originally that I rather like foxes, and a population
adequately controlled so it doesn't savage pets or livestock is
something I would wish to preserve. A hunt galloping over someone
elses's land is quite a sight that it would be a shame to loose for
similar reasons.

Pretty straightforward logic I would say. 

-- 
Oz
This post is worth absolutely nothing and is probably fallacious.
BTOPENWORLD address about to cease.      DEMON address no longer in use.
>>Use oz@farmeroz.port995.com<<
ozacoohdb@despammed.com still functions.

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