BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!

Subject: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: *Laura*
Date: 13 Nov 04 - 05:15 PM

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: Rapparee
Date: 13 Nov 04 - 05:15 PM

Well, okay....

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 13 Nov 04 - 05:29 PM

What ban is that? Some book not liked in Boston?

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: Ima Gittin'
Date: 13 Nov 04 - 05:35 PM

well then,I shall endeavor to give it my best attempt to.....
er.........what are we doing again?...I'm gonna go home to Mother.She can calm all my doubts and fears.Seclude me from the strangeness that surrounds me Mooooooothhhherrrrrrr!

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 13 Nov 04 - 06:34 PM

No! Be different! Bite the fan!

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: Rapparee
Date: 13 Nov 04 - 06:43 PM

Following the advice of my Leader, Bee-Dubya-Ell, I bit the fan.

Now my dentures are whirling around, stuck to the blade, and making an E-flat whistling sound as they go round and round and round round and round and round round and round and round round and round and round round and round and round round and round and round round and round and round round and round and round round and round and round round and round and round round and round and round round and round and round round and round and round round and round and round round and round and round round and round and round round and round and round round and round and round round and round and round round and round and round round and round and round round and round and round round and round and round round and round and round round and round and round round and round and round round and round and round round and round and round round and round and round round and round and round round and round and round round and round and round.

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: Ima Gittin'
Date: 13 Nov 04 - 06:45 PM

shudda got thet new-fangled goop.....densure grip....
poor,poor Rapaire.

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: Blissfully Ignorant
Date: 13 Nov 04 - 06:49 PM

Is this the smoking ban?

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: George Papavgeris
Date: 13 Nov 04 - 06:52 PM

P'raps it's a gay ban. Bugger me if I know.

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: Rapparee
Date: 13 Nov 04 - 06:56 PM

I tried fighting the ban once, but the drummer beat me up.

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 13 Nov 04 - 06:58 PM

Perhaps it's really "Fight the Band", and it should be up among the musical threads.

But is this a folk band that needs fighting? And anyway, what is a folk band...

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: Blissfully Ignorant
Date: 13 Nov 04 - 07:01 PM

Perhaps it's been truncated and should read fight the bandages...i heard they've started a right wing militia group and are attaking left feet.

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: Jeri
Date: 13 Nov 04 - 07:11 PM

(El Greko, just so you didn't think it was wasted - haha.)

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: Ima Gittin'
Date: 13 Nov 04 - 07:12 PM

Or meebe it's left feet attakin' right wings...... run birdies....RUN!

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: Ima Gittin'
Date: 13 Nov 04 - 07:16 PM

or....militant chickens fighting a roving band of bodrhánians .....

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: Peace
Date: 13 Nov 04 - 07:20 PM

I shouda done more stuff in the '60s.

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: Ima Gittin'
Date: 13 Nov 04 - 07:27 PM

or....
Religious,
RIGHT-winged,
bandaged,
gay,
militant chickens
with dentures
and two left feet,
fighting a roving,
minority band of
smoking bodrhánians
who are all thumbs,
reading books in Boston
on the ill affects of Fan Biting.



.......... oh Mother where art thou?









I need some aspirin.

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: freda underhill
Date: 13 Nov 04 - 07:55 PM

Pick a prejudice, pick a cause...


Iranian gay activist - Iranian Green party site

big is beautiful

Who is Shirley O. Liquor?
(be out there or be outraged!)

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: Ellenpoly
Date: 14 Nov 04 - 01:04 AM

That last website was fascinating, freda!

Once again you've turned me on to something (someone) wonderful.

Much obliged..xx..e

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 14 Nov 04 - 09:06 AM

I hope it's not the eagerly awaited [by me] ban on smoking in enclosed places which we in Scotland will be enjoying soon.
Giok

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: Piers
Date: 14 Nov 04 - 09:18 AM

I believe this meaningful slogan comes from the Countryside Alliance in reference to the ban on fox hunting. The 'last' fox hunting season has just started. They are waving placards with it on.

Piers

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 14 Nov 04 - 09:47 AM

Quite right too!
Giok

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: Piers
Date: 14 Nov 04 - 11:00 AM

I meant to attach an air of sarcasm to the word meaningful.

Piers

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 14 Nov 04 - 11:09 AM

Or then again it might be to do with obesity, and not over-eating, and it's really "Fight the Bun"...

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: Piers
Date: 14 Nov 04 - 11:49 AM

No, it really in Countryside Alliance tossers.

Piers

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 14 Nov 04 - 12:25 PM

Ah Piers how nice it is to have your cat, your chickens, your lambs, or even your child's pet rabbit ripped to pieces by a fox. How nice it will be to see mangy injured foxes, whether it be by vehicle or mis aimed shotgun die slowly and painfully by the roadside. Then all these well meaning class motivated ersatz socialists can pat themselves on the back and say, "Look at all the suffering we've saved thesee poor cuddly little foxes from"
Giok [who doesn't suffer from anthropomorphism]

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: Piers
Date: 14 Nov 04 - 01:01 PM

I'm sure it is very distressing to have your pets/livestock killed, but the evidence doesn't support the idea foxes have a major effect on agricultural production or that fox hunting has a significant effect on the fox population. Specifically, I cite the 'Report of the committee of inquiry into hunting with dogs in England and Wales' (2000) and 'Effect of British hunting ban on fox numbers' published in Nature (2002).

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: George Papavgeris
Date: 14 Nov 04 - 01:13 PM

John, I agree about not allowing foxes to become pests. So - cull them, like we cull deer. Get some gamekeepers, some good shots, organise a posse, cull them. But I would not want any death to become a sport.

We kill animals for food, sure. We are omnivorous by nature. No problem there. But we don't chase cows around the abbatoir before we kill them, blowing trumpets and dressing up for the occasion. We'd consider that inhumane treatment for cows. Why not for foxes?

And we hunt too, of course we do; you might call it a "sport". I don't, but as long as the game killed is used as food and quota are observed, I have no problem. Shooting is a humane way of killing.

Foxes can become pests, I agree there too. It's the whole rigmarole around hunting them and the pitiful excuse that it is "to keep their numbers down" that I find ridiculous.

And let's not have that "tradition" old saw dragged out either. It was in our tradition to test witches by dunking them tied to a chair. Guess what - we know better now.

If it needs killing, kill it. Pure and simple. Without a song and dance. And without cheery photos taken and its tail presented as trophy. The countryside does not need to be turned into a latter day Colosseum for entertaining the bloodthirsty.

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 14 Nov 04 - 01:20 PM

Statistics are always a blunt weapon, but if hunting makes little or no difference why ban it? It's just petty and mostly urban class warrior MPs, and their inability to differentiate a social activity, and a living tradition, from their socialist desire to drag every body down to the same level. Foxes will continue to die in circumstances we'd rather not think about, it all boils down to pettiness on the part of the Labour party, and prissiness on the part of the professional bleeding hearts of this country.
Giok

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: George Papavgeris
Date: 14 Nov 04 - 01:21 PM

As for the "well meaning class motivated ersatz socialists"....

Woah there.... I don't know everyone's politics and whether they are ersatz or not. So I don't bandy labels like "class motivated" around - they tend to stick where you don't expect them to.

But I mean well:-)

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: George Papavgeris
Date: 14 Nov 04 - 01:24 PM

...or labels like "prissy professional bleeding hearts" and "urban class warriors" either. I call you no names. Could you extend me the same curtesy?

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: Piers
Date: 14 Nov 04 - 02:26 PM

If there are any 'socialists' or 'class warriors' in parliament they are keeping a very low profile. I can also assure you that being a socialist is not in anyway about bringing everybody down.

I think you'll find that rather than the CA's conspiracy theory about Labour MPs being prejudical to last vestiges of rural aristopiggery the simple truth is that they are doing what politicians do, courting popularity. Despite the CAs fraudulent claims (they got done by advertising standards) the majority of people are in favour of banning this unnecessary, pompous and cruel relic of the past.

I disagree entirely about fox hunting being a living tradition (no pun intended, eh!). It arose as a popular sport only in the 16th and 17th centuries and only until very recently did it become popular with all sections of society rather than just the well to do (although there are local variations). It is the 'GENTLEMEN who take delight in hunting bold Reynard' as the song says. Fox hunting as a popular tradition is a fallacy.

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: *Laura*
Date: 14 Nov 04 - 02:26 PM

what about all the hounds they have to kill if they ban it?
and don't give me any rubbish about being able to have foxhounds as pets.

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 14 Nov 04 - 04:51 PM

El Greko your first post appeared while I was typing my last, and wasn't aimed at you or Piers, it is aimed at the jumped up shop stewards who having achieved the ultimate in the gravy train stakes by getting elected to parliament. These vermin have monstrous chips on their shoulders, and only because the Labour party has such a large majority are they able to push through a bill that is not on their party manifesto. Tony Blair doesn't want it because it will lose him votes, and probably dislikes Tony Banks even more than I do, and that's saying something.
As an afterthought, how old does something have to be before it qualifies as a tradition? ;~)
Giok

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 14 Nov 04 - 05:27 PM

So was it that you were on about *Laura*? You could have been a bit more specific about it.

Here are some figures for fox deaths from a BBC site -

Before the breeding season, there are 250,000 foxes in Britain. The number doubles when the cubs are born, and over the following year it falls back to 250,000. This means 250,000 foxes die each year.

The 250,000 fox deaths each year include death from natural causes, roadkills and about 100,000 killed by shooting and snaring. The hunts say they account for 16,000 foxes.

In other words, the idea that hunting is a significant factor in keeping the number of foxes down is not really very well founded. In fact it would probably be much closer to the truth to say that hunting is a major factor in reserving the rural fox population. (The urban foxes are doing pretty well, without the help of hunters. And they don't eat cats either. Not worth the hassle involved. Cats can fight back and climb trees and all.)

If the fox-hunters had any sense, that would be the argument they would be trying to put across, and it would actually have been more likely to cause people to be hesitant about banning fox-hunting. But I've yet to see a poster saying "Save the Hunt - Save the Fox". If they could convince people that was true, there are many who would be willing to sacrifice getting rid of the hunting fraternity, if that was the only way to helpmthe foxes survuve.

But they've left it a bit late to switch tack like that.

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 14 Nov 04 - 06:07 PM

If the number doubles when the cubs are born, then the 16000 that the hunt don't kill when they've been banned becomes 32000 the following year using their figures. Surely this will make the problem worse. They will eat cats if they can catch them, and not all of them are fit enough to fight back or climb trees, logic says they must kill a few.
Giok

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 14 Nov 04 - 06:28 PM

Sixteen thousand out of 250,000 means statistcally pretty insignificant. Take out the hunting and the difference just wouldn't be visible -it'd just mean a few mre foxes killed in the roads.

I find it hard to comporehend why the people trying to continue hunting have fallen into this trap of pretending that they are controlling the fox population. The opposite argument is both far more consistent with the evidence, and far more likely to appeal to ordinary people who haven't made their minds up.

Nobody tries to pretend that people go out shooting gamebirds in order to keep down the population of gamebirds. So why the pretence about foxes?

I suppose it must be that "keeping down foxes" has been used for so long to justify the disruption caused by hunting to farmers who actually don't like foxes too much, because protecting livestock from them can be costly. I suppose, if the hunters came out and said "Actually, if it wasn't for us, there wouldn't be anywhere near as many foxes as there are" that might not go down too well with some farmers.

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: Peace
Date: 14 Nov 04 - 06:50 PM

If the hunters would just come out and say they like to kill things, that would be refreshing. I have hunted for food, but not that way. Do any of these heroes eat the fox they kill? Wouldn't think so, because if you can afford a horse, you likely aren't tightening the belt too much. Besides, horse tastes better than members of the dog family, IMO.

BM

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: Peace
Date: 14 Nov 04 - 06:53 PM

If a fox is getting at your livestock, shoot the fox. Riding a bloody horse and shouting, "Tally-ho the fox" is something very different. Something sick that comes from sick people, IMO.

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: Rapparee
Date: 14 Nov 04 - 07:03 PM

I agree with brucie on this. The idea that foxes or anything else shouldn't be shot merely so that aristocrats can have their fun is, well, repugnant to me.

Once, years ago, I shot a fox. Bob and I were out cruising the countryside, simply talking and enjoying the night, when he hit one. He braked the car and backed up to where the poor thing lay thrashing in the ditch, most likely with its back broken. We had a .38 revolver with us (we'd been target shooting earlier), and I did what needed to be done. No, I don't feel back about that, anymore than I feel badly about helping to shoot up a pack of feral dogs (although I'd rather have shot the shit-for-brains who had abandoned them).

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: Blissfully Ignorant
Date: 15 Nov 04 - 02:11 PM

Regardles of whether or not it's a good idea, how exactly is it prejudicial?

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: Blissfully Ignorant
Date: 15 Nov 04 - 02:13 PM

And is nobody else worried about the mental state of someone who gains pleasure from killing?

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: Chris Green
Date: 15 Nov 04 - 02:23 PM

I cannot believe that the issue of fox hunting is receiving as much press as it is at the moment. You hunters and animals rightsers want something to get angry about? Try Darfur. Try Iraq. Try the fact that thousands of people in this country don't have anywhere indoors to sleep at night. Try the Israel/Palestine conflict. Try the fact that we have child poverty levels to an extent that would shame most other civilised nations. If all the people who marched for and against fox hunting took up these causes in the smae way... anyway you get the idea.

Sorry if I sound abusive (I don't intend to be!) but frankly I think think there are rather more pressing things to get worked up about.

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: Blissfully Ignorant
Date: 15 Nov 04 - 02:28 PM

It's perfectly possible to be angry about sveral things at once. In fact, quite often it's possible to be incandescant with rage at the whole world and all it's inhabitants, and still be able to wash the dishes at the same time...:0)

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: Rapparee
Date: 15 Nov 04 - 02:29 PM

I think so too, dueling.

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: Chris Green
Date: 15 Nov 04 - 02:49 PM

You're right, BI, it is possible to be angry at lots of things at the same time. I'm pissed off about everything I mentioned above. I'm also pissed off that the Safeways round the corner from me is out of Fiddlers Elbow. What I'm talking about, though, is priorities, and it just seems to me that whether foxes get hunted or not doesn't even begin to compare to some of the problems our own species face.

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: GUEST
Date: 15 Nov 04 - 02:53 PM

It matters to the fox.

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: Blissfully Ignorant
Date: 15 Nov 04 - 03:01 PM

Nah, i agree, actually. It is quite interesting, though...just wait until someone brings class into it! Oh, hell, here you go. I'll do the honours...

I'm neither a hunter nor an animals rightser. It's just that all the hunters i've met have been over-privileged, arrogant, bloodthirsty morons who would be in a mental hospital if they weren't so wealthy. I'd be happy to meet some that weren't...but at the same time, i have a healthy mistrust of people who enjoy killing things. Maybe that's just me.

On the other hand, all the animal rights protesters i've met have been over-priviled, arrogant, morons with a totally a**e-about-face set of priorities...

Please note that in both cases i said all the ones i've met. I'm sure there must be some out there who are perfectly lovely people...:0)

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 15 Nov 04 - 03:34 PM

You've been going to the wrong sort of hunts, a large percentage of the hunts in England consist of farmers, gamekeepers, their sons and daughters. People who work on the land and know that the fox is vermin, and dangerous vermin too.
Giok

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: Chris Green
Date: 15 Nov 04 - 03:40 PM

To be fair, I've never knowingly met anyone who hunts or is actively anti-hunt. In my personal opinion, yes fox-hunting is cruel and from what I can see un-necessary. I stand by my original post, however - I can't see that it's a burning issue that must resolved by Parliament when they could be doing other more important things.

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 15 Nov 04 - 04:01 PM

So, Giok, you'd dispute my suggestion that hunting actually might tend to preserve the fox population, by making sure there are coverts and so forth?

From the New Scientist:
"Areas where fox hunting is common often have more hedgerows and thickets which benefit other wildlife besides the fox. These would disappear if hunting were banned."

One thing that puzzles me is why drag hunting isn't seen as an acceptable alternative by people who enjoy hunting. They always seem to say that what they really enjoy is the experience of riding after the hounds and so forth, and it's possible to see the appeal in that. So how would that be in any way diminished if it didn't end with a fox being killed (which, of course, many times it doesn't in any case.)

It's rather as if people said that Morris Dancing wasn't any good, since these days it doesn't end with the dancers beating somebody to death with their sticks. All right, I wouldn't swear that that was how they did it in the old days, but I'd not be at all surprised if it turned out that it had been. And bonfires are still fun even if we don't stick a live heretic on the top any more.

Is it that the farmers, convinced that hunting actually is a way of keeping down "vermin" foxes, wouldn't cooperate in allowing drag hunts?

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: Peace
Date: 15 Nov 04 - 04:04 PM

I feel like breaking out with "Turn, Turn, Turn".

The fact I think that hunting for 'pleasure' is barbaric does not mean that I don't think starving people to death in the Sudan is not barbaric. Andd if I had a choice of feeding the fox or the human, the human would be fed. In fact, I would shoot the fox to feed the human. Thing is, I wouldn't take any pleasure from killing the fox. And I sure as hell wouldn't turn it into a 'sport'.

Bruce M

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: *Laura*
Date: 15 Nov 04 - 04:09 PM

sorry I wasn't more specific. I wanted to see what your opinions were without adding mine first.
I wouldn't say I was pro-hunting, I'm just anti-ban. I don't have a problem with hunting - most people only do it to go galloping round the countryside. I'd do it - only I think I'll stick to planned courses cos I'm not very brave!!
And foxes are a big problem in towns - what are the town people going to do when they have trouble with foxes knocking over their bins and screaming all night (ever heard a fox scream? horrible sound - shudder)?? We have enough trouble here with badgers, but I imagine it's worse with foxes in towns.

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: *Laura*
Date: 15 Nov 04 - 04:13 PM

and.. sorry to follow myself up... here's what originally swung it for me - there are literally thousands of hounds bread for hunting. they don't make good pets, they aren't hous trained or lead trained or anything like that. they need lots of space, lots of time, they'll disappear into the countryiside given half a chance.
the RSPCA won't want them all - what will happen to them????
they'll get shot thats what. :-(

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 15 Nov 04 - 04:30 PM

The hounds will only get shot because the hunters don't seem interested in continuing to ride to hounds, but doing it without a fox being killed kill at the end. Drag hunts need hounds just as much as fox-hunts do. It seems to me that the hunting fraternity seem to be using the hounds as a kind of hostage - "do what I say or the hound gets it"

As for town foxes, we've got good few of them in Harlow, and they are no problem. My impression is that when people find a fox is frequenting their garden they are generally pleased and flattered, and may even put out food for it. And no, they don't eat cats.

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: Blissfully Ignorant
Date: 15 Nov 04 - 04:33 PM

I've never been to a hunt...i've just had hunters riding over my garden in pursuit of a fox. Naturally, i told them where to go...at which point they started coming over all high and mighty saying , and i quote, 'YOu just have no respect for authority'. Which is strange, considering they had no authority; they just assumed they did because of their psuedo-aristocratic birth, with me being but lowly peasant scum....long live the feudal system, eh?

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: *Laura*
Date: 15 Nov 04 - 04:39 PM

maybe they're not a problem yet - but what if they increased?? Yeh a fox in the garden can be quite nice (so long as it doesn't scream - right outside your bedroom window! ahh!) but how about a whole family of foxes at your dustbins?
And you'd need to retrain the hounds for drag hunting. They're trained to follow certian scents. not everyone has the money to do this.

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 15 Nov 04 - 04:49 PM

Well, the foxes been here since before the town was built, and they haven't had a population explosion yet. And of course, that's without the help of foxhunters.

The suggestion that it'd be too costly to train the hounds to follow soem other scent just doesn't make much sense to me. There's all these hunt employees who are said to be destined to lose their jobs if the hunting stops (more hostages) - what's to stop them putting their heads round the job of retraining the hounds?

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: Blissfully Ignorant
Date: 15 Nov 04 - 04:55 PM

And how hard is it to make something smell like fox?

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: *Laura*
Date: 15 Nov 04 - 04:59 PM

But that's what I mean! Foxes don't have any natural predators - if the statistics of here are correct then they'll increase quite significantly once hunting is banned! (as, I am resigned to the fact, it probably will be)
And most people who hunt are not 'posh' but just farmers or people with horses who enjoy the speed!
I don't actually agree with deer hunting, hare coursing... any of those really. I know deer can be a pain in the garden and orchards and things - but I think with foxes it's a bit different. They can be a proper pest and they don't have any natural predators.

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: Blissfully Ignorant
Date: 15 Nov 04 - 05:05 PM

It just seems like blatant emotional blackmail on a grand scale...and it's guaranteed to work in a counrty that gives more money to animal charities than to childrens charites. I'm sure some of the incredibly wealthy individual involved in hunting could do something humane with the hounds...if they actually cared about them. Seems to me they're just playing the old 'cute dogs in danger of getting a lethal injection' card so they can go on killing the not-quite-so-cute wild dogs.

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: Rapparee
Date: 15 Nov 04 - 05:10 PM

First off, I think that riding around through people's gardens and such is just plain silly. Secondly, I'd have the riders up on trespass charges at least. Thirdly, I'd make it nasty to ride through my garden.

As for making something smell like fox, how many bottles of fox urine would you like? It's sold here as a scent coverup for deer hunters. But why use fox scent? Dragging a lure dipped in fox pee could lead to the hounds being distracted if they crossed a real fox's trail. Better to train them to trail something else -- perhaps one of the riders....

I guess, as someone who does hunt, I just don't see why you'd want to kill something you wouldn't eat. As an American who hunts I intensely dislike such aristocratic "sports" as fox hunting, or shooting farm raised pheasants driven by beaters, and so forth. Tracking a deer, or waiting patiently for one in an area you've scouted, knowing that you might not be successful; walking through the field with your dog, hoping to stir up wild grouse or pheasant but knowing that you might come home empty handed -- these do take skill (and even more if you use a single shot muzzleloading rifle or a bow, as I prefer).

Another difference between the UK and the US, I guess.

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 15 Nov 04 - 05:16 PM

" if the statistics of here are correct then they'll increase quite significantly once hunting is banned!"

You mean the statistics that indicate that out of 250,000 foxes killed each year, only 16,000 are killed by hunts? I wouldn't call ttabthe makings of a significant increase.

I'd say a much stronger argument for hunting would be the worry that an end to hunting might endanger the fox population by getting rid of the very people who need foxes and value them, because they like having them there to hunt.

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: Blissfully Ignorant
Date: 15 Nov 04 - 05:19 PM

If these people are just doing it for the fresh air and excercise, then why do they object to drag hunting so much?

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: BanjoRay
Date: 15 Nov 04 - 05:29 PM

I wouldn't go hunting because I don't fancy mixing with Hoorays, and the custom and costume seem fairly bizarre - but I don't see that hunting with hounds is crueller than shooting, or snaring or any other way of controlling the fox population. The hounds either catch it, or it gets away. If they catch it it's dead before many microseconds pass, the hounds don't muck about. The hunting fraternity have merely put something above the fox in the food chain. Shooters can easily screw up and wound the fox, giving it a far worse time than would be administered by hounds.
Now battery hens - that's a REAL problem.
Ray

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: *Laura*
Date: 15 Nov 04 - 05:41 PM

Firstly - I don't actually hunt myself. I'm not brave enough.

Secondly - why won't people understand?!?! Most, in fact, the majority of people who hunt are just normal people who happen to own a horse and want to enjoy the thrill of galloping and jumping at high speed across country in a group of like-minded people. farmers/office workers/cleaners/students/gamekeepers/folk singers!!/landlords/teachers - whoever! That's why the appeal is so wide. People from age 6 to 60 can do it.
It doesn't matter.

Apart from your first point, BanjoRay, I agree with you completely.

Blissy - I don't actually know why some people object to drag hunting. I don't personally. I don't think they do really - I think it's more that drag hunts aren't organised as widely so normal people don't get the chance to do them. After all someone has to employ the professionaly runner, and advertise it - it's a lot more complicated than just turning up at your local hunt every weekend. And that a lot of people, such as myself, are more anit-ban than pro-hunt.

xLx

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 15 Nov 04 - 07:28 PM

"...normal people who happen to own a horse and want to enjoy the thrill of galloping and jumping at high speed across country in a group of like-minded people.

I can quite see why people could like doing that. But why spoil the day by killing a fox? That part of it surely can't be enjoyable for any normal person.

So why don't they just cut it out, and welcome the ban, as a way of ensuring that their days following the hounds aren't spoiled by ending with a kill? Unless they actually do enjoy that bit.

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: Blissfully Ignorant
Date: 15 Nov 04 - 07:44 PM

"But why spoil the day by killing a fox? That part of it surely can't be enjoyable for any normal person"

That's the part that gets me. If they didn't enjoy it, then they would be perfectly willing to switch to drag hunting...and i find it perverse and rather frightening that someone could gain pleasure from killing.

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: Blissfully Ignorant
Date: 16 Nov 04 - 02:06 PM

I'd still be in favour of a ban if it wasn't posh folks doing the hunting, for the reason stated above.

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: Chris Green
Date: 16 Nov 04 - 02:33 PM

Is it worth pointing out that most of the traditionally working-class blood sports have already (rightly) been banned? Cock-fighting? Badger-baiting? Can't see the pro-hunt lobby throwing their weight behind reviving them. So why is fox-hunting any different?

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 16 Nov 04 - 02:39 PM

what about all the hounds they have to kill if they ban it?
and don't give me any rubbish about being able to have foxhounds as pets.

Oh, c'mon, please!Anyone who knows anything whatsoever about dogs will know that they don't care what they are chasing - as long as they chase something. Watch your everday mongrel with a stick or a ball. It'll keep em happy for days! Fox Hounds are no different. Hunts often go out without killing anything at all, which also points out how inefficient they are. Do you think the hounds are any less happy because they have not killed anything? Quite simply - no.

This having to put dogs down business is complete and utter twaddle. The CA's spin doctors know very well that the people of the UK love dogs and most of them will have the same reaction as Laura when they say all these dogs will have to die. Fortunately most people, including Laura I hope, can see past the obvious fallacies put about by them. Do you think Irish wolfhounds hunt wolves anymore? Do you think mastifs run alongside coaches to protect the passengers? Do you belive that all the collies who are not looking after sheep are deprived in any way?

Keep the dogs, keep the horses, keep the chase. Just loose the kill. Leave the killing to the professionals who know how and where to cull vermin effectively as well as which ones to leave alone!

Fight predjudice indeed. Support the ban!

Cheers

Dave the Gnome

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: Blissfully Ignorant
Date: 16 Nov 04 - 02:46 PM

Because fox-hunting is supported by the cream of British society.

" I say! We can't have an Empire, we can't keep slaves, and now those bloody peasants want us to stop killing things? This country has gone to the dogs..."

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: Chris Green
Date: 16 Nov 04 - 02:50 PM

Cream? Is that the rich, thick stuff that floats to the top? :)

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: Blissfully Ignorant
Date: 16 Nov 04 - 03:00 PM

It is indeed:0)

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: Chris Green
Date: 16 Nov 04 - 03:02 PM

I used to teach at a private prep school where the headmaster was known behind his back as "Mayonnaise". I finally had it explained to me that it was because he was rich, thick, oily and smelt faintly of eggs!

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: Blissfully Ignorant
Date: 16 Nov 04 - 03:07 PM

Lol! Did he hunt?

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: Chris Green
Date: 16 Nov 04 - 03:12 PM

Dunno. I didn't last long there!

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: *Laura*
Date: 16 Nov 04 - 03:14 PM

why don't you understand???
the majority of people who go hunting aren't posh!

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: Blissfully Ignorant
Date: 16 Nov 04 - 03:20 PM

Well, i'm only speaking from personal experience, and all the hunters i've met (more than i would have liked) have been incredibly posh. I'm sure there are some who aren't, but as i said before i still find their actions deplorable.

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: *Laura*
Date: 16 Nov 04 - 03:22 PM

In that case I apologize to you for their behaviour. I am very sorry. People like this are giving hunters, and 'anti-ban peeps' a bad name.

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: Blissfully Ignorant
Date: 16 Nov 04 - 03:38 PM

Hey, there's no need for you to apologise :0)!

I'm not talking about their behaviour towards me, personally, (although without fail, it's been obnoxious) i'm talking about the whole 'enjoying killing things' bit.

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: *Laura*
Date: 16 Nov 04 - 03:52 PM

:-) - alrightey BI.
Well - I don't know where people stand on that front. And, like I say, I think if people made the effort to increase drag hunting lots of people would go. But I've never seen one advertised or heard anyone talking about going to them.
So...... I expect we shall see... i doubt it will take long now.

By the way - it's not completely irrelevant but just out of curiosity - how many people have heard a fox scream?

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 16 Nov 04 - 03:53 PM

Someone once said that the origin of cricket (and baseball for that matter) was a kind of public stoning, but it had got rutualised into a sport. Lacrosse used involve genuine bloodshed in which people got killed.

These things develop. Even when you take the killing out of pastimes like this, they can still be fairly entertaining.

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: Blissfully Ignorant
Date: 16 Nov 04 - 04:13 PM

I've heard a fox scream...i quite like it, really. There's something primal about it that appeals to me. It's just another sound in the night...i hope wolves are re-introduced to Scotland, just so i can hear them howl at the moon!

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: *Laura*
Date: 16 Nov 04 - 04:19 PM

True - but it can be helluva freaky too!

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: Blissfully Ignorant
Date: 16 Nov 04 - 04:30 PM

Well, the only way i'm gonna be scared of an animal is if it's running at me with foaming mouth and bared teeth...the thing to remember is that all animals, unless they see you as food or are rabid, won't hurt you unless provoked. If they're just making a noise, there's nothing to be scared of:0)

Cats scream like demons when they're...um...procreating...they sound almost human, it can be quite chilling...but they're not going to hurt anyone...:0)

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: *Laura*
Date: 16 Nov 04 - 04:36 PM

True, true. Oh wise one. :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: Blissfully Ignorant
Date: 16 Nov 04 - 04:37 PM

This thread just reminded me of something...foxes can be tamed.

My grandfather once brought home this cute, if rather odd-looking puppy to my gran. Well, she called it Hamish and took care of it for weeks before she realised it was actually a fox! Hamish continued to stay with them, although he ran free most of the time...he came when his name was called, accepted food, allowed himself to be petted... behaved just like a domestic dog. If you don't want to hear the sad part, look away now...he was shot by a farmer. Just another angle on things...

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: The Shambles
Date: 16 Nov 04 - 07:10 PM

It looks as if last minute attempts to have - licensed hunting with dogs - has failed and there will be a outright ban.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4015075.stm

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: The Shambles
Date: 16 Nov 04 - 07:43 PM

On TV tonight were some female pro-hunt demonstrators - chaining themselves to the railings and claiming to be the 'new' sufragettes.

They seemed to have misssed the point that these fine ladies obtained the vote that has finally enabled the will of the majority of the nation's voters - to democratically bring and end to this disgraceful practice and its 'sham' defence.

The fact that the Lords can be still used by a small but still effective, and priviliged minority to prelong this cruel activity has only added to the shame that this is bringing upon our country.

I am not too sure of the wisdom of using the Parliament Act to overule the Lords but perhaps it is time for this body listen to what all the people of the land are saying. In allowing itself to be used in this way - it has pehaps sealed its long-term fate?

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: Blissfully Ignorant
Date: 16 Nov 04 - 08:01 PM

Perhaps it is time to abolish the House of Lords. It flies in the face of democracy to have a body of people who are in power by virtue of their birth in to an obselete aristocracy.

As for pro-hunting protestors comparing themselves to the Suffragettes? Ridiculous...painfully and obviously ridiculous.

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: The Shambles
Date: 16 Nov 04 - 08:15 PM

Oh and the Conservative spokesman said tonight that should the Parliament Act be brought in and an outright ban imposed - the next Conservative Government would overturn this ban!

Not too sure how this would have gone down with the many Tory MPs who (given a free vote) voted in favour of a ban?

Of course by then - all the animal loving hunters (if they are to be believed) would have been forced to send their 'hunters' to the knackers yard, destroy all the dogs, be living in abject poverty and sold their hunting 'pinks' for a crust of bread - which they would have to compete for with the millions of rampant foxes that will then be over-running the countryside.........

I'm sure the 'new' sufragettes will still be chained to the railings.

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: Blissfully Ignorant
Date: 16 Nov 04 - 09:14 PM

Well, really...if they still have an overwhelming urge to kill things, they can always get jobs as gamekeepers...two birds with one stone!

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 16 Nov 04 - 09:21 PM

I've more regard for foxhunters than the people who shoot "gamebirds". At least the foxes aren't hand-reared to be shot, and the hunters do risk falling off their horses. They even break their necks occasionally.

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: Blissfully Ignorant
Date: 16 Nov 04 - 10:01 PM

You kiddin'? Some of those birds are vicious! Teeth THIS BIG!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 16 Nov 04 - 10:04 PM

Birds with teeth? This is something the New Scientist ought to be informed about!

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: Blissfully Ignorant
Date: 16 Nov 04 - 10:08 PM

I'm sure they already know, clever folks they are! Haven't you ever heard of hen's teeth?

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: Ooh-Aah2
Date: 17 Nov 04 - 05:16 AM

Gods this is a hard one. I am normally completely, viscerally, opposed to hunting ANYTHING, even for food. But I think I dislike a majority telling a minority what they can and can't do even more. I have only seen one foxhunt and the bugles, wild beauty, skill and dash took my breath away; England will be a poorer place without that. OK, why not just drag hunt and not kill anything? It is completely against my principles but I understand why very well why the POSSIBILITY of the kill is an emotional neccessity, and it is not because hunters in general like the act of killing (if this was the case they could nip down to the pet shop and buy a year's suppy of hamsters to inventively dispose of in the privacy of their own homes).

If the monstrous cruelty of battery farming, intensive beef lots and especially mass-production piggeries was gone then fox hunting would seem more like the monstrous evil of the 'antis' hyperbole. As it is, in terms of cruelty to animals the rage against fox-hunting seems an absurd red-herring. Against my usual principles and with deep misgivings about some of the people I am aligning myself with I oppose the ban. Freedom must come before foxes. Sorry about sounding pompous.

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: Paco Rabanne
Date: 17 Nov 04 - 05:22 AM

99

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: Paco Rabanne
Date: 17 Nov 04 - 05:24 AM

As a shooter I claim the 100th post for the pro hunting lobby, because if they lose, we will be the next to be banned by this Nanny state. Could I also take this opportunity to thank Pip and Merry for the excellent hare we had for dinner last night.

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: GUEST
Date: 17 Nov 04 - 06:14 AM

"what about all the hounds they have to kill if they ban it?
and don't give me any rubbish about being able to have foxhounds as pets."

What about all the hounds the hunt kills regularly? All hunts kill foxhound cubs who are not deemed suitable for hunting after the cubbing season. They also kill hounds at about 7 years of age (half their average life span) when they become too slow to keep up with the younger hounds. The hunts themselves kill thousands of hounds every year, but they don't publisize it for obvious reasons.

I know someone who has two ex foxhounds, and they have made excellent pets. Once again the hunt wants to perpetuate the myth that foxhounds are unsuitable as pets for their own ends. The pest control argument doesn't hold water anymore, so they're going for emotional blackmail and sob stories about killing thousands of hounds when they know full well they do it themselves anyway. They like killing animals, why don't they just admit it?

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 17 Nov 04 - 08:53 AM

Too true, Guest of 06:14 - Exactly the point I was making but made better! Any idea how many horses die in hunts btw? I don't but seeing as a number die every year in the 'hunt' races I guess there must be some in the field as well?

Another point I had forgotten - How can these people say it is natural when they often both block up all the natural sanctuaries the fox may have and keep captured foxes in a sack to release just before the hounds? And how natural is it for horses to hunt foxes anyway? If the hunters were to use their own feet to run 20+ miles and then give the fox a fair chance of escaping I think they might carry more credence. As it is I have heard nothing but utter nonsense from the pro-hunt lobby.

Cheers

DtG

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: The Shambles
Date: 17 Nov 04 - 11:49 AM

Freedom must come before foxes. Sorry about sounding pompous.

You will of course be supporting this freedom by voting for the Conservatives and chaining yourself to the railings along with the 'new' sufragettes and I will be able to come along and continue this argument with you there.

I have studied your argument and it really boils down to - that the hunt should continue - because the hunters like it - and you like to watch it. You should both be permitted this freedom but the fox should be denied its freedom to feed its family - who may all possibly starve as a result of your enjoyment.

All the build-up and hyperbole is coming from the pro-hunt lobby. As many have said - if their argument was simply that they enjoyed dressing-up and riding around the countryside - many would accept this.

But over a long period they have been trapped into trying to justfy it by fox hunting having some effect of fox numbers and the loss of hunting with dogs being the death of the countryside as we know it etc.

Your idea that for the hunters "the POSSIBILITY of the kill is an emotional neccessity," is worrying, especially as the ban is now set to come into force. However, there is some truth in this for some possibly, but most of those involved in the hunt never see a kill or even a fox and drag line hunting would still provide most of the enjoyment that the hunters require and keep the local economy going.

The practical need has long gone - but I agree that there still does seem to be a need for some of us to involve ourselves in some form of hunt. To provide us mainly with the thrill of an uncertain outcome, in pitting our skills (and sometimes our super efficient 21st century weapons) against animals.

This is partly satisfied in most of us now by simply taking photos, keeping lists and treking around to find certain species. The need to stalk our prey is still there but we do not have to kill it, to satisfy this need. Is this not the way forward? Or do we go back to the days when the Roman Games, things like bear and boar baiting and public hangings were thought to be good to watch?

It is only sad that a ban ever needed to be imposed. If certain small sections of our community did not feel that it remained their God-given-right to judge others and never be subject to any judgement themselves - this sad and cruel relic would have died a natural death long ago.

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: *Laura*
Date: 17 Nov 04 - 12:55 PM

There will be debates as to how appropriate it is to use the Parliament act anyway. It has only been used 3 times since 1949, 4 if you include using the 1911 Parliament Act to force through the new one in 1949 - some would argue that this makes it invalid.
But it seems stupid to use it for this - it's supposed to be used for really important things. Like the Sexual Offences Act 02 (most recent) and the Defences against Terrorism Act and stuff like that.
Not the flippin' hunting ban!
If they can use it on something like this - then what else will they start forcing through?

The parliament act should be saved for emergencies and emergencies only.

xLx

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: The Shambles
Date: 17 Nov 04 - 01:43 PM

Had this Bill started its life in the Lords - the Parliament Act could not have been used.

That was why the Licensing Act 2003 could have be scuppered by the Lords. Because as it was started there - the final word lay with our Peers. The Lib Dem Peers continued to speak against it - but voted with the Government.........

Some would argue that when an unelected House threatens to overturn the will of the democratically elected one - that it is an emergency.

This kind of thing does tend to make hypocrites of us all - I would have been quite happy for the Lords to have overturned what became the Licensing Act 2003 but not at all happy if they had suceeded in throwing out the Bill to ban hunting with dogs........

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: The Shambles
Date: 17 Nov 04 - 01:45 PM

I suppose I can always claim that the hunting ban was the result of a free Common's vote?

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 17 Nov 04 - 02:11 PM

It is completely against my principles but I understand why very well why the POSSIBILITY of the kill is an emotional neccessity.

I don't understand it. Explain, Ooh Aah - you must be seeing something there that I am missing.

Other sporting and social activities manage without a ritual killing at the end. Animal sacrifice is no longer a part of most religious ceremonies.

But I quite agree that factory farming is a far greater scandal than foxhunting.

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: The Shambles
Date: 18 Nov 04 - 12:29 PM

They [peers] have behaved like turkeys - voted for Christmas

Alun Michael
Rural Affairs Minister

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: Blissfully Ignorant
Date: 18 Nov 04 - 02:45 PM

The very existence of the House of Lords is contrary to the system of democracy the terrorism act is supposed to be protecting from the Islamic fundamentalist bogeyman.

Frankly, i don't know why they objected to it. I would have thought they'd have loved the idea of removing all our civil liberties...but no...

Please explain how killing could be an emotional neccessity, i just can't get my head round the concept :0)

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: Peace
Date: 18 Nov 04 - 03:01 PM

If the act of killing IS an emotional necessity, then maybe people could kill mosquitoes. Yeah, mosquitoes. They could ten satisify their need to 'off' a creature and do the world some good at the same time. West Nile virus-carrying mosquitoes. Yeah, that would work.

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: Blissfully Ignorant
Date: 18 Nov 04 - 03:03 PM

And midgies... although, maybe the poor confused murderous little darlings see blood and gore as being emotional neccessities. Not much blood and gore on insects...

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 18 Nov 04 - 03:25 PM

Not that there's anything particularly democratic about a House of Commons in a voting system where it's possible to get fewer votes than the other side, and come through with a landslide majority.

Meself I'd like a House of Randoms, where the names were pulled out of a hat, and it was a bit like a jury system. In a rough and ready way that would mean it reflected public opinion.

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: Peace
Date: 18 Nov 04 - 03:29 PM

As a by the way:

When I was about 18 I hunted a family of raccoons for a farmer. I killed the mom, dad and three young. I realized I enjoyed it, and I have never hunted like that again. I have since put a few animals out of their misery and occasionally hunted for food to feed myself or others who couldn't feed themseklves--but never again for the "thrill" of the hunt. Killing is and should be serious business. No more and no less, because it is a great responsibility to be the judge and jury and executioner. I did not have the wisdom for that at 18, and I do not have it at the age of 57.

Bruce M

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: Blissfully Ignorant
Date: 18 Nov 04 - 03:39 PM

I hate killing even when it is for food...kinda puts you off your trout when you've had to gut it...

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 18 Nov 04 - 04:01 PM

On a different note and bringing us to music (pun intended!) Anyone any views on hunting songs? Local presenter and folk performer, Mike Billington, used to host the folk program on GMR and always made a point of excluding any songs about hunting or killing animals. Not just fox hunting but whaling, cock fights the lot. Used to make me laugh to hear him playing plenty of songs about war, poverty, mills, coal mines and farm labour! When he used to visit the club I always made a point of singing "The College Valley Hounds".

Is it me or does anyone else think it is a bit daft to stop singing songs about what did, and on occasion still does, go just because you disagree?

Cheers

DtG

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: Blissfully Ignorant
Date: 18 Nov 04 - 04:09 PM

Well, i think it's completely missing the point. Singing about it isn't killing anything...

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 18 Nov 04 - 04:17 PM

You obviously not heard me murder a song then...

:D

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: Blissfully Ignorant
Date: 18 Nov 04 - 05:00 PM

Lol...a song, one thing you can't kill humanely...

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 19 Nov 04 - 05:14 AM

Foxes killed by hounds suffer no more than animals legally killed by the Halal method, and not only are there more killed by this method, but they unlike the fox have no chance of escape. However I am sure that our politically correct Labour MPs will not risk upsetting those of their voters who only eat meats killed by this method. Especially when these voters mostly live in urban areas where Labour is strongest. After all, of the 100+ parliamentary constituencies classified as Rural, only 3 have Labour MPs. So once again we have the ugly sight of a law being imposed on people by MPs for whom they never voted, and I think that this rural support for parties other than Labour is at the root of some urban Labour MPs resentment of country folks and their pastimes.
Giok

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: Paco Rabanne
Date: 19 Nov 04 - 05:28 AM

Three cheers for Mr Giok! You are 100% correct.

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: The Shambles
Date: 19 Nov 04 - 06:45 AM

Foxes killed by hounds suffer no more than animals legally killed by the Halal method, and not only are there more killed by this method, but they unlike the fox have no chance of escape.

Those animals killed for food by the Halal method do not get first chased for miles accross the countryside and terified by a pack of dogs that are trained for this purposes - mainly to provide enjoyment for the hunters.

But comparisons with other forms of cruelty and grading them - misses the point that any creulty should be avoided if at all possible.

But now that this has been banned - the argument to legalise hunting with dogs is a different one and one that The Countryside Alliance - who are still fighting the same campaign to prevent it from being banned - have not seen yet. The lady interveiwed last night was talking, of them being law-adiding citizens but with every intention of breaking the law and to continue to hunt.

It remains to be see how many who currently claim that they will do this - actually are brave enough, when the time comes. To go out and risk photographic evidence of their personal involvement in an illegal activity and of getting a criminal record is not something that the majority of hunt supporters are likely to be prepared to do. However, I am sure they will cheer loudly at the few scapegoats who will be prepared to be used in this fashion, to make a political point.

But what point? The process of law protects us all from lawbreakers. Hunters currently enjoy the protection of the law against those who would break the law to try and prevent hunts from taking place. When these anti-hunt protestors break the law to do this, (rather than using legal and peacful means) the law deals with them and they are rightly criticised by most of us. Taking part in illegal acts in order to be able to kill nice furry animals for sport - is rather unlikely to be seen generally, as any more heroic.

Bringing publicity by encouraging illegal activity is one thing - but your cause has to be able to have general popular support in order for this approach to be effective. Many who may be anti-Government will not wish to fight on this battleground. It is time that the pro-hunt lobby stopped stiring - up and using honest people for their own selfish ends and accepted that they have fought well but have lost the argument.

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: Chris Green
Date: 19 Nov 04 - 06:51 AM

I've always liked this hunting song - it's nice to see the fox getting away with it for a change!

THE BLACK FOX (Graham Pratt)

Well, as we were out a-hunting one morning in the spring,
Both hounds and horses running well made the hills and the valleys ring;

But to our great misfortune, no fox there could be found;
And our huntsman cursed and swore but still no fox moved over the ground.

Then up spoke our master huntsman. At the head of the hounds rode he.
"Well we have ridden for a full three hours but no fox have we seen.

"And there is strength still in me, and I will have my chase,
And if only the devil himself come by, we'd run him such a race."

Then up there sprung like lightning a fox from out of his hole,
And his fur was the colour of a starless night and his eyes like burning coal.

And they chased him over the valley and they chased him over the field,
And they chased him down to the riverbank but never would he yield.

And he has jumped into the water, and he's swum to the other side,
And he laughed so loud that the green woods shook, then he's turned to the huntsman and he's cried:

"Ride on, my gallant huntsman. When must I come again?
Oh, never shall you want for a fox to chase all over the plain.

"And when your need is greatest, just call upon my name,
And I will come and you shall have the best of sport and game."

And the men looked up in wonder, and the hounds ran back to hide,
For the fox had changed to the devil himself where he stood at the other side.

And the men, the hounds, the horses went flying back to town,
And hard on their heels came a little black fox laughing as he ran.

"O ride on, my gallant huntsman. When must I come again?
O never shall you want for a fox to chase all over the plain."

"And when your need is greatest, just call upon my name,
And I will come and you shall have the best of sport and game."

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 19 Nov 04 - 06:53 AM

So once again we have the ugly sight of a law being imposed on people by MPs for whom they never voted

There's our current parliamentary system for you Giok! Unfortunately whatever system is in place you will still get the same thing happening. If we had proportional represenation or any of the other systems rather than 'first past the post' we would still get laws being imposed by people for whom they never voted! I am sure the same happened when slavery was abolished and when the National Health act was passed.

That, I'm afraid, is the nature of the beast. Whoever is in power will impose their will on someone who disagrees. The best they can hope for is to satisfy the will and needs of the majority - Or those who they perceive as being the majority able to keep them in power.

While super ted is right and you are 100% correct in your above statement, it is simply a truism and does nothing to add to the argument for or against the hunt:-(

Now, if you are arguing against the whole concept of government, you would certainly have a point and me as a strong supporter. Particularly if you agree that the best alternative would be a benign dictatorship with me at the head...

Cheers

DtG

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: Paco Rabanne
Date: 19 Nov 04 - 06:55 AM

McGrath, I will be out protesting and supporting the hunt.This law is wrong.

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 19 Nov 04 - 07:42 AM

Anybody who thinks that the end is in sight on this one is very very wrong indeed.

DtG would we be talking about a lowerarchy here? If so then surely we could find work for Michael Foot and Ronnie Corbett amongst others. I assume that we would all be fed on shortbread, and condensed milk too!

Giok

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 19 Nov 04 - 08:11 AM

Them names'r much too big for me, Giok!

But I am thinking of having the parliamnet in lowestoft...

:D

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: The Shambles
Date: 19 Nov 04 - 08:44 AM

Anybody who thinks that the end is in sight on this one is very very wrong indeed.

It IS the end. Hunting with dogs will be illegal in 3 months.

You can stamp your feet and continue to make a fuss out of all proportion to the issue at at hand which will all prove to be counter-productive and damage your argument - but that IS the end of this issue.

There is a new fight (if simply fighting is the object) but if you really think that there is a cat-in-hells chance of any Government being elected, that will bring in an Act to legalise it again - dream on or wake-up.

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 19 Nov 04 - 10:17 AM

Never say never Shambles.
Giok

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: chris nightbird childs
Date: 19 Nov 04 - 10:20 AM

I believe there SHOULD be a ban on prejudice...

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: *Laura*
Date: 19 Nov 04 - 05:42 PM

As I've said in the other thread - it'll be reversed by May I shouldn't wonder...

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 19 Nov 04 - 07:02 PM

Now bear-baiting, and bull-baiting, those were real sports...

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: Blissfully Ignorant
Date: 19 Nov 04 - 10:39 PM

Alright, enough of this 'country people want to keep fox-hunting' crap...having been born and raised in the a**e end of nowhere, i can honestly say that i have always supported a ban, and, here's the shocker....so has everyone else in the same situation that i have spoken to; and that's a lot of people. Except of course those who have been bloodthirsty degenerates from the moment the silver spoon was removed from their mouth; but then i try not to associate with them too much...

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: chris nightbird childs
Date: 19 Nov 04 - 11:35 PM

Someone's angry, aren't they?

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: Blissfully Ignorant
Date: 20 Nov 04 - 12:00 AM

Someone's hormonal...:0)

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: The Shambles
Date: 20 Nov 04 - 02:27 AM

There is no doubt that there are some real issues facing folk in the countryside. That is folk who are fully commited to live there and their children who are still trying to afford to live there - rather than those who live for most of the time in the big cities and large towns and have second or even third homes in the country.

Perhaps now these issues can be addressed and not simply be used by a small but noisy pro-hunting minority to stir up false divisions - for their own rather selfish ends? Perhaps this vocal minority, now they are organised, can itself set about actually addressing these problems for once, instead of ignoring them most of the time but exploiting them when it suits?

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: The Shambles
Date: 20 Nov 04 - 09:06 AM

The Times
November 20, 2004

Hunt ban impossible to enforce, Police say
By Valerie Elliott, Countryside Editor, and Philip Webster, Political Editor

THE ban on hunting will be almost impossible to enforce, police chiefs said yesterday, hours after it became law.
Senior lawyers also predicted that the level of proof required for a successful prosecution would be difficult to obtain.

Photographs or a video of riders chasing a fox or deer would be needed to prove that unlawful hunting had taken place.

Alastair McWhirter, the Association of Chief Police Officers spokesman on hunting with dogs, said last night that prosecutions would go ahead only if people admitted that they were hunting or if an animal were seen during a chase.

In a statement which will come as blow to supporters of the ban, Mr McWhirter said: "It is not an offence to wear red or pink coats or jackets, it is not an offence to exercise hounds or keep up traditions of using horns or meeting for a ride on horseback on private land.

"Unless someone owns up, you need a wild mammal in the picture to show that someone has committed an offence."

However, Mr McWhirter later added: "We would enforce it to the best of our ability."

The ban comes into force on February 19, ten days before the end of the foxhunting season. Deer hunting on Exmoor will continue into April.

The Countryside Alliance formally lodged a legal challenge in the High Court yesterday over use of the Parliament Act 1949 to force it through.

Chief constables believe that the law will be tested in a way that has not been seen since the introduction of the breathalyser in 1967. The new law does not even include a definition of hunting as an activity.

Peter Neyroud, the Chief Constable of Thames Valley, said: "Enforcement is not going to be easy."

Chief Superintendent Rick Naylor, president of the Superintendents' Association, said that there would be problems with forces having to deal with mass disobedience.

Leading criminal lawyers agreed that a ban would be difficult for police to enforce.

David Spens, QC, chairman of the Criminal Bar Association, said that the hardest matter would be proving that people intended to go hunting and to break the law.

If hounds were distracted by a real animal in a drag hunt, however, he believes that riders would have to stop their chase immediately.

ENDS

What a load of rubbish! The hunters are saying that come February they will openly flout the law and to do will openly admit they are hunting foxes. Are they going to get any creditibility if they deny it? It is difficult to see the difficulties in obtaining prosecutions the police chiefs and lawyers are talking about.

Interesting where the police claim to be in difficulties in enforcing some legislation but have no difficulties in others. Law-breaking on picket lines for example, does not present the police with such difficulties..........

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: GUEST,Biting the Fan
Date: 20 Nov 04 - 09:49 AM

This is the last vestige of the Conservative Land Owning Class of Britain trying to exert Authority (which they lost many moons ago) but still believe they possess.
They believe they have it in our House of Lords - they believe they can over come the will of the majority and the democratically elected representaives.
They still wish to parade around and show off their importance to us mere ordinary people - an importance that doesn't exist - only in their eyes - but is embarrassing and hideous to the rest of us.
For our American readers these are the pompous, arrogant, horrible shitbags which we all abhor (both sides of the pond).
To hunt a fox in this manner is archaic - quite simply if foxes are causing a farmer problems - shoot'em , gas them - do what you like - you have the right to protect your farm animals and birds from being destroyed but don't go through this barbaric offensive ritual.
All-in all,we're a fairly lawful bunch the Brits. but listen to these Bastards squeal because we want to stop them ripping live animals apart for some perverse pleasure - which - is the only adequate way to descibe this social offensive behaviour.

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 20 Nov 04 - 10:09 AM

Senior lawyers also predicted that the level of proof required for a successful prosecution would be difficult to obtain.

Possibly the same senior lawyers who aspire to the judiciary? The ones who's career progresion seems to go hand in hand with consorting with the upper eschelons of society?

Call me an old cynic if you like but isn't drug law "almost impossible to enforce"? Isn't the level of proof required for paedophile activity difficult to obtain? They seem to do it though don't they! Judging by the ludicrous arguments now arising I guess that these people are now clutching at straws.

And Laura, sorry you feel you need to kill animals and, in a few months, break the law to prove your point. Can I ask you a question? When Thatchers government banned secondary picketing did you go and stand on the picket line because you disagreed? It was, after all, a time honoured tradition. When smoking becomes illegal in public places in a couple of years will you take up the pipe? Tobacco has been used in this country since well before the fox hunt that we know today. Because you disagree with both things doesn't mean you have to partake in the lesser of two evils. Don't support the ban by all means. Fight it even, but don't slaughter innocent animals to prove a political point!

Cheers

DtG

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 20 Nov 04 - 10:59 AM

Ah so! it is as I always suspected a class thing, what a load of crap. Of course they are not superior and if that's how you see them then I suggest you have an inferiority complex. As I've said before not all those who hunt are Oxbridge or public school, many are just ordinary folks, some are even housewifes; shock horror! As for dragging in Maggie Thatcher and secondary picketing I mean, how irrelevant can you get!
Giok

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: *Laura*
Date: 20 Nov 04 - 02:08 PM

Dave the Gnome -
I'm not planning on breaking the law. If it wasn't being banned I wouldn't even be going hunting at all. but in a few months I won't have the choice - so I'm going to go while I still can.
As for Thatcher - I was still throwing my toys out of my pram (quite literally) and i'm not even going to credit smoking with an answer.

And I still don't see why some of you find it SO hard to understand that all that hunt are not posh.

xLx

p.s. and I won't be wearing a red coat - or a black one. or any kind of coat. I'll be wearing my good ole' navy fleece. so there. :-p

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: Blissfully Ignorant
Date: 20 Nov 04 - 02:17 PM

I'm sure some hunters aren't posh...it's just that i've neither met these elusive normal folk who hunt, nor have i heard or seen them in the media. I have heard posh hunters saying that they're not all posh...but that's about it.

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: *Laura*
Date: 20 Nov 04 - 02:21 PM

I got quite annoyed about how they only filmed the posh hunts actually. Maybe people would have been more understanding if they'd shown a normal hunt - one with kids and muddy little ponies and people wearing fleeces! yeh!

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: Blissfully Ignorant
Date: 20 Nov 04 - 02:26 PM

I see your point about media bias, but i think i would have been more incensed had i seen children being taught how to kill...

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: *Laura*
Date: 20 Nov 04 - 02:35 PM

nah - not kill. jump, maybe.

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: The Shambles
Date: 21 Nov 04 - 03:39 AM

Laura can you not see that you are being rather used in all this?

You may not be posh - the hunts you attend may not be posh and whether you like jumping rather than killing animals for your sport - hunting in the form you intend to (legally) take part in - has the object of chasing and killing foxes. No matter how unlikely it is that a fox is ever seen by you on the day or of you seeing one killed - that is the hunt's main object.

Your pleasure in riding and jumping in company - is one that all of us can appreciate and that few would wish to deny you or anybody. Rather than being made to feel that you must join the attack on the legal ban now imposed upon hunting with dogs - would it not be better to try and ensure that you and your friends can continue to have your fun with alternatives such as drag-line hunting?

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 21 Nov 04 - 03:47 AM

I was still throwing my toys out of my pram

Have you ever stopped???

:D

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: The Shambles
Date: 21 Nov 04 - 04:47 AM

As for dragging in Maggie Thatcher and secondary picketing I mean, how irrelevant can you get!

Now that is an idea for drag hunting! The hunters can drag poor old Maggie (in her customary full drag) behind them and the hounds can follow her scent trail.

As for the secondary picketing - I can think of no better example. The police at that time, did not seem to be unwilling to enforce this measure. And there were no cries heard then from the Countryside Alliance, that the the police were doing anything wrong or supporting prejudice by enforcing the law.

Should we not expect our police or at least their well-paid chiefs,   to be just as ready now as then, to simply do their job? This job is enforcing the law, rather than of speaking out now to encourage potential law-breakers to think that the law will not be able to be enforced by them?

If there should prove to be practical difficulties for the police - I can think of many thousands of hunt sabs and anti-hunt people who would be only too willing to help. To attend every illegal hunt and with great public support, ensure that all the necessary video evidence of individuals involved in all aspects of illegal hunting is provided to the police.

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 21 Nov 04 - 05:00 AM

Told you so!!
Giok.

A member of the Government admits today that the hunting ban is driven by old-fashioned class warfare and is, at its heart, a bitter battle for control of Britain.
Writing in The Telegraph, Peter Bradley, the parliamentary private secretary to Alun Michael, the rural affairs minister, reveals that the real reason that Labour MPs feel so strongly about the ban is because it is aimed at killing 'the old order' and is the first time in history that a Labour government has taken on 'the gentry'.
Mr Bradley says: 'We ought at last to own up to it: the struggle over the Bill was not just about animal welfare and personal freedom: it was class war.'
The MP for The Wrekin adds that it was the 'toffs' who declared war on Labour by resisting the ban, but agrees that both sides are battling for power, not animal welfare.
'This was not about the politics of envy but the polities of power. Ultimately it's about who governs Britain.'
Mr Bradley's comments are in stark contrast to statements from ministers, who have always claimed that the Act to ban hunting with hounds is about protecting wildlife.
Mr Bradley, 51, admits that he personally sees the campaign to save hunting as an assault on his right to govern as a Labour MP. He protests that the hunting cause is made up of 'the privileged minority which for centuries ran this country from the manor houses of rural England' and tried to keep people like him "in our place'.
'The placards of the Countryside Alliance plead 'Listen to Us' but what they mean is 'Do What We Say' - as for centuries we have. But that old order no longer prevails.'
He accuses hunt campaigners of staging 'the last hurrah of the feudal system' and trying to preserve 'the age-old privileges of land ownership', a fight which he condemns as futile.
'Labour governments have come and gone and left little impression on the gentry. But a ban on hunting touches them. It threatens their inalienable right to do as they please on their own land. For the first time, a decision of a Parliament they don't control has breached their wrought-iron gates.
'The old families have come to realise that though they may still own the country, they are no longer running it.'
Preparations to resist the ban, which was forced through Parliament last week, are gaining pace. When it comes into force on February 19, 10 days before the end of the season, hunts will go out as usual with 50,000 people preparing to break the new law then challenge police to charge them.

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 21 Nov 04 - 05:59 AM

the first time in history that a Labour government has taken on 'the gentry'

Is this history repeating itself? Does my memory serve me correctly if I say that the miners strike of 1984/85 was the first time that a Conservatine goverenment had taken on the power of the trade unions in such a way?

As for dragging in Maggie Thatcher and secondary picketing I mean, how irrelevant can you get!

I don't see how it can get more relevent:-)

Told you so.
Dave the Gnome

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: The Shambles
Date: 21 Nov 04 - 06:36 AM

Lots of overtime - looks like it will soon be on offer to our police force from February. I expect that the individual officers will be as keen to take it as they were in the 80s.

I hope for all our sakes, that someone takes some time to play all this down before February. The thought of 50,000 illegal hunters being openly encouraged by the Countryside Alliance and permitted by the police to break the law - is not going to go down very well with the vast majority of law-abiding people in this country.

These estimated 50,000 who are supposed to be turning-up to hunt illegally - may very well be met with considerably more and equally angry people, who feel that if the law and those who are paid to enforce it are unable (or unwilling) to prevent this open criminal activity - that it may be up to them to ensure that the law is obeyed.

I hope that common sense will prevail before then or if not - that indivdual members of organisations who insist on openly encouraging others to break the law and carry out this criminal unrest, are dealt with under measures already in place to prevent and deal with such illegal incitement.

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 21 Nov 04 - 06:57 AM

'These estimated 50,000 who are supposed to be turning-up to hunt illegally - may very well be met with considerably more and equally angry people, who feel that if the law and those who are paid to enforce it are unable (or unwilling) to prevent this open criminal activity - that it may be up to them to ensure that the law is obeyed.'

Just as some people feel that what the hunting fraternity do is wrong, it is also true to say that vigilante action by righteous animal libbers and their ilk is equally wrong. It would probably result in more of them being arrested than those against whom they protest. The new law may be difficult for the authorities to enforce, but don't underestimate the resentment that some policemen will feel about having more unnecessary work put on them by this bill. This allied with their resentment of anybody who takes the law into their own hands could result in some nasty confrontations, remember Tony Martin!
I'm not going to dignify the parallel drawn between this problem and the miners strike, secondary picketing, and Maggie Thatcher with a riposte, as it is irrelevant to hunting, which is what this thread is about.
Giok

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: The Shambles
Date: 21 Nov 04 - 07:36 AM

I'm not going to dignify the parallel drawn between this problem and the miners strike, secondary picketing, and Maggie Thatcher with a riposte, as it is irrelevant to hunting, which is what this thread is about.

So it is not really about - old-fashioned class warfare and is, at its heart, a bitter battle for control of Britain. As you told us so, and provided us with the article to support this view?

Sadly it is all of this and which ever side you may chose take - it is clear that it is not in anyone's interest to inflate and exploit this potentially explosive division any more than it has been already. That is far better to accept the law now exists and use convention political methods to try change it. Rather than create confrontations that will only cause more problems and yet more division.

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 21 Nov 04 - 09:08 AM

OK then! The miners strike was fomented by Arthur Scargill who thought that he was some kind of latter day Purkin Warbeck or Lambert Simnel, and he led his members into fight they couldn't win. Whatever government was in power he would have done the same, and the response would of necessity also have been the same. Don't forget it was the miners and the winter of discontent that brought down a previous Labour government, they are not involved in class warfare they are involved in a form of mass blackmail. Secondary picketing had degenerated into an army of mobile bovver boys who were more interested in confronting the police than in the strikers cause, along with them was a mix of students on a paid day out with free coach travel and grub thrown in. I know several students who went on flying pickets because they were offered a fiver to go. No government could allow such subversive activities to continue. Do you think that because there is a labour government that MI5 have ceased monitoring the activities of trades and students union leaders?
Maggie must surely have done something right for so many people to still hate her!
Giok

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: Raedwulf
Date: 21 Nov 04 - 09:44 AM

Giok - yeah, fight prejudice, fight the ban! Can we start by fighting the pro-hunt prejudice that anyone that wants to ban hunting must do so on the basis of class prejudice?

I support a ban because I believe that hunting with hounds is inherently cruel & cannot be made less so. Killing the vermin any other way may also currently be cruel, but if there is money to be made from a humane method of exterminating vermin, someone will invent one. There is at least room for improvement. Class has nothing at all to do with it. Nor does town or country.

Economic questions are entirely beside the point (unless you think that animal 'rights' are entirely valueless). In any case, hunts can survive by switching to drag hunting (except that there seems to be no will to do so, because the hunters apparently want the thrill of hoping for a nice bloody kill). Not only would there be, theoretically, no loss of revenue, it could be postiviely beneficial.

Think of all those who could be attracted by a good ride without the thought of killing some poor innocent bloody vermin. Think of all our promising middle/long distance athletes who could be paid to lay a good drag for the hunt... Which would, both, lead to days of guaranteed quality - "Monday's hunt over an easier course for beginners", "Wednesday - Intermediate jumpers & above", "Friday - the Hunter's course! You'll need have a good seat for our Friday ride!"

And so on. So the economic question is nonsense. Morality? This is the anti's argument. I don't buy that either. "Anyone that wants to kill something must be sick." Maybe, but I would not argue for a ban on that basis. I won't moralise over you, I decline to allow you to moralise over me. If I practise the former, I allow you the latter. Moralising is an emotional argument, & emotional argument is entirely suspect (why are your emotions worth more than mine?)

In the hunting argument, my opinion is based entirely on cruelty. Everything else (don't start on 'preservation/conservation') seems either emotional, or illogical. Hunting with hounds is cruel. Anyone that wants to argue otherwise, I challenge you to watch me, in a pair of DM's, spend 10 minutes kicking your pet dog to death. If you can look me in the eye & tell me that the fox doesn't suffer from everything that happens to it, I might believe you...

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 21 Nov 04 - 10:05 AM

You put forward a fair and well reasoned argument Raedwulf, and while I don't agree I defend your right to hold that viewpoint. In the same way I defend the rights of foxhunters to continue their activities even though I don't, and wouldn't, join them in their headlong rush around the hedges and ditches. You use the analogy of kicking a dog to death in 10 minutes, and no fox goes through anything like that degree of torture so it is not a valid comparison. We tend to fall into the trap of anthropomorphising animals, I do it my self, but truthfully we do not know what they feel.
The class prejudice thing does exist though, as said previously it is some anti hunt people's prime motivation, and as you rightly say it clouds the issue. I did try to avoid it but it kept being brought into the discussion.
Giok

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: The Shambles
Date: 21 Nov 04 - 11:31 AM

The class prejudice thing does exist though, as said previously it is some anti hunt people's prime motivation, and as you rightly say it clouds the issue. I did try to avoid it but it kept being brought into the discussion.

You started it - no didn't - yes you did - you invaded Poland.

The Countryside Alliance in its vain struggle to allow a few who think that imposing unnessary cruelty and killing animals for pleasure should continue in the face of the majority who do not - has tried every dirty trick in the book to stir things up and to involve as many prejudices a possible. It has now lost this struggle and if it were a responsible body, it should be making the attempt to repair some of this damage.

As pointed out by others here the ridiculous town -v- the countryside idea is one of these. One of the downsides (and there are many) of this irresponsible campaign is the idea advanced by these people that the attempt to ban this activity was motivated not by those who did not accept that creulty should play no part in sporting pleasure but by those who did not understand US and were prejudiced against US and wanted some form of revenge against US. The use by these pro-hunters of our non-elected House of Lords to obstruct and overturn the free vote of our elected MPs - has only added to this paranoid concept.

In the face of this charge - a defence has rightly been mounted. It is that defence that is in then turn attacked.

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 21 Nov 04 - 11:50 AM

and he led his members into fight they couldn't win.

And whoever is leading the Countryside alliance can win? With the support of pro-hunt demonstrators? Where Arthur Scargill could not win with the support of the NUM?

Is the pro-hunt lobby realy that much more powerful that the unions? Is the livelihood of the whipper-inners and the hunt hangers on really that much more important than the lives of the miners and pit villages?

I can see indeed that it is a class struggle, Giok. I know who's side I'm on :-P

Cheers

DtG

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 21 Nov 04 - 11:56 AM

Tell you what though, Giok. I'm not really a betting man but I will make this wager - You will have to remind me next year coz I'll forget!

If the ban on hunting with dogs is rescinded by this time next year I will come to wherever you are, buy you a pint and post on here that the pro-hunt brigade are a lot more powerful than the miners. I will lament the fact if it is true but I will admit it all the same, and do so graciously.

If however the ban is still in force all I ask of you is to post on here to admit it is all academic anyway and admit that the majority do hold sway over the government.

Virtual handshake?

Cheers

DtG

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 21 Nov 04 - 12:03 PM

Ah Dave; indeed sides will be taken, but class is a label I despise and never use it as it is divisive. It is a bit like Dr Johnson's advice to never ask a man if he comes from Yorkshire. 'If he does then he will mention it within a few minutes of the start of the conversation, and to ask him if he is when he isn't would be to insult him';~) The only people I know are working class are those who tell me that they are.
As for the unelected House of Lords, I agree it's wrong, but we must have a second chamber, but it should be elected and not appointed, the bicameral system of government is the best way.
Giok

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: Blissfully Ignorant
Date: 21 Nov 04 - 01:46 PM

In my opinion it became a class issue the moment the House of Lords was given a say in the matter...

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: Chris Green
Date: 21 Nov 04 - 01:50 PM

I quite like the idea of a House of Lords that is non-party political. You would have the same procedure that you use when returning MPs to the House of Commons, but with the proviso that in order to stand for election you are not a member of any political party. Has anyone (anywhere) suggested this already or is this a flash of inspiration on my part?

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: Raedwulf
Date: 21 Nov 04 - 01:52 PM

Giok, the class argument has been in this thread from the start. It's inherent in the slogan (propaganda) that does service for a thread title. I got stuck in the traffic jam on the M25 that these tossers caused a couple of months ago, & was severely tempted to step out & ruck one or two of them. How dare you (collective you, not personal!) claim to be fighting prejudice by promoting a stupid blanket prejudice. Having just finished reading an excellent, objective history of the rise of the Third Reich, believe me, it's a practically Nazi tactic. It makes my blood boil. The fact that I am in favour of a ban is incidental. I feel like thumping the PRO-banners every time they start going on about "morality". You can imagine how I feel about "Fight prejudice"!!!

As to the kicking a dog to death analogy, don't dismiss it. It's not a precise comparison, but it's brought on by the tendency of the pro- brigade to argue "It's only a fox, it doesn't feel anything worth considering..." Foxes & dogs are blood brothers in genetic terms, more so than humans & chimps. All that I am saying is that those who want to dismiss the suffering of the fox would not countenance the same treatment being meted out to their pet mutt. And 10 minutes? This is not 10 minutes of constant torture. This probably represents (never having tried it for real!) 9 minutes of the dog trying to get away from me & 1 minute of me getting close enough to scare the crap out of the poor little bleeder, or actually making contact with it.

Which is directly analogous to the several hours of chase & near escape that is likely to be an all-too-real component of a successful hunt. It's not humane. It's cruel. There are some tenuously justifiable arguments in defence of hare-coursing & stag hunting on the basis that being chased is part of their evolutionary make-up (since they are prey, not predators), but nowhere in anecdotal evidence do I know of any suggestion that they have been chased for several hours without respite by genuine predators, hunting from necessity for food. Genuine predators would have given it up long before as a waste of energy!

The fox is not prey, it is a predator. In this country the only potential predator (hunter-for-food) of a fox for thousands of years has been the wolf, who, frankly, would pick on something easier to catch! A lucky fox will escape quickly from the human version of the hunt. An unlucky fox...

It is inherently cruel. I have heard/read anecdotal evidence of the death of hares in coursing, whose death is a matter of tens of seconds (not always instantaneous, as the pro's would like you to believe), that die screaming. I don't know what they, or the stag, or the fox, feel over the course of the lengthy chase & the "instantaneous" kill.

However, I am not willing to condemn them to a horrible death on the basis that they might *not* feel pain & fear in the same way that we other mammals would in a similar situation! And pardon me for drifting perilously close to the "morality" that I disdain, but I will doubt the humanity of anyone that can casually dismiss the 'rights' of the animal in question, at the same time that they will resolutely refuse me the 'right' to kick their beloved bloody pet to death because "it is not a valid comparison"!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: *Laura*
Date: 21 Nov 04 - 02:28 PM

The house of lords is there to act as a check so that the government doesn't have complete control of the legislative process. if they are going to go using the paliament act anyway - whats the point!!?

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: The Shambles
Date: 21 Nov 04 - 02:37 PM

Does anyone remember the political TV drama that was shown a couple of years back? It was based on the very premise and possible consequences of the Lords fighting the Commons over this very issue.

Time to show it again - perhaps?

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: The Shambles
Date: 21 Nov 04 - 02:50 PM

It was called Giving Tongue.

Here is a link to a New Statesman article on it.

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0FQP/is_n4339_v126/ai_20534415

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 21 Nov 04 - 03:12 PM

Organisers of huts will be liable to be done for conspiracy, I would assume. And the Hunt Saboteurs will be up for making Citizens Arrests, I assume. Does resisting a Citizens Arrest count as resisting arrest?

How long before Hunting the Hunt becomes a recognised and legal field sport? It could have all the paraphernalia of the old hunt too, horns and horses and even packs of hounds.

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: Blissfully Ignorant
Date: 21 Nov 04 - 03:15 PM

THe House of Lords is a painful greasy boil on the buttock of democracy, and should be replaced by a body of people who are in power not because they were born into the aristrocracy, but because they were elected. Personally, i quite like duellingbouzoukis' idea....

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: Raedwulf
Date: 21 Nov 04 - 03:37 PM

The point, Laura, is that they are a check, not a permanent block! Unfortunately, hunting with hounds is an extremely emotional & divisive issue. It can be (& has been) argued that the politicians in the Commons are inherently biased. But they *are* answerable to Joe Public. As per usual, those who would argue that... never look at the other side of the coin, which is that the Lords is every bit as riddled with bias & party politics as the Commons, & they are *not* elected. That is why the Parliament Act exists. The Lords is a closed door, not a locked one. It is the height of stupidity on the part of the Lords to attempt to resist the Commons to that extent. They don't have the key to the door, the Commons do, & are, ultimately, right to kick it in!

Ignorant - Sorry, but you are. The Lords, for the most part, are no longer born into the aristrocracy. This changed a few years ago. The vast majority are appointees-for-life. I'm not sure of the exact proportion, but I'm pretty sure the "born" members are less than 20% & fairly certain they are no more than 10% or so. They are not significant enough to make a genuine difference but probably do, on the whole, represent a point-of-view that is worth having expressed, one that the wholly populist Commons cannot be trusted to voice.

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: *Laura*
Date: 21 Nov 04 - 04:09 PM

Hey Blissy - we've been united by a common criticizer!

What I'm wondering is - if the Commons can use the Parliament Act to push through something as relatively trivial as the Hunting act - what else can they start to shove through?

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 21 Nov 04 - 04:43 PM

something as relatively trivial as the Hunting act

If it's so trivial, Laura, how come you are getting so upset by it? Starting to kill innocent animals because you disagree with something doen't sound like you find it trivial? I am not sure where you are really coming from here so I guess it must be my lack of understanding! In words of one sylable, so a poor little gnome can understand it will you answer the following questions?

Are you against fox hunting?
If so why are you taking it up?
Are you against the fox hunting bill or the parliament act?
Are you pro house of lords?
Or is this all just one big wind-up?

Good luck and power to your elbow if it's the latter - You certanly had most of us fooled:-)

Cheers

DtG

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: *Laura*
Date: 21 Nov 04 - 04:57 PM

questions:
no
-
hunting bill. parliament act fine so long as it's used properly. i don't feel that it is justifiable to use it on this. trivial compared to some stuff like what they have used it on previously (eg. war crimes, sexual offences)
umm, don't much like politicians in general - but the idea of having the commons entirely in charge of the legislative process doesn't much appeal.

sorry - no wind up. though a bit out of proportion. I might abandon the argument soon. unless i'm losing badly :-)

xLx

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: GUEST,Mauice_Mann
Date: 21 Nov 04 - 05:03 PM

Here's my two pennyworth. As those of us born and brought up in the country know, 'the hunt' is just about the last remnant of feudalism in this country, and one of its keenest supporters has just said how wrong it is for people to aspire to reach 'above their station'. Yes, it is a class issue. And on a lighter note, if it means more urban foxes eating more cats, surely that is the best news us song bird lovers have had for ages.

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: *Laura*
Date: 21 Nov 04 - 05:09 PM

I'm born and brought up in the country and I don't agree, however I respect your right to hold and voice these views in whatever way you like.
And go birds! :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: Raedwulf
Date: 21 Nov 04 - 05:32 PM

Laura, I wasn't criticizing you (at least not deliberately), I was trying to answer your question. When I said "As per usual, those who would argue that..." I wasn't referring directly to you! It is a card that has been played very strongly by the hunters, who bitch about "townie Labour MP's", whilst apparently perfectly comfortable with the "rural Lords" who, with equal blindness, peddle the hunters' p-o-v in the upper House. But, of course, that's an entirely different question, perfectly alright, rational, & not at all motivated by ignorant prejudice...

Which is exactly the sort of stinking hypocrisy that pervades both sides of this debate!

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: The Shambles
Date: 22 Nov 04 - 01:58 AM

Laura, I wasn't criticizing you (at least not deliberately), I was trying to answer your question. When I said "As per usual, those who would argue that..." I wasn't referring directly to you! It is a card that has been played very strongly by the hunters, who bitch about "townie Labour MP's", whilst apparently perfectly comfortable with the "rural Lords" who, with equal blindness, peddle the hunters' p-o-v in the upper House. But, of course, that's an entirely different question, perfectly alright, rational, & not at all motivated by ignorant prejudice...

The following link to the words of The Bigot's Son - [which has the subtitle of Present Company Excepted].

http://www.geocities.com/doireanne/bigotsong.html

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: The Shambles
Date: 22 Nov 04 - 02:16 AM

In the same way I defend the rights of foxhunters to continue their activities even though I don't, and wouldn't, join them in their headlong rush around the hedges and ditches.
Giok

Do you not see that the law has been passed and as a result the argument has changed?

If you are consistent - do you now also support the 'right' of everybody who wishes to exert their 'right' to burgle you house, rape you, use bombs to kill people on mass and their right to continue to indulge in every other criminal act?

The law may oppress but it also protects and the law is not a Christmas selction of chocolate bars - for us to pick and choose from.

I and many others have fought The Licensing Act 2003 but it IS to be the law come February. When it was passed, no matter what I thought about it - I had to first accept that it - as a fact and change the approach. You can work legally to overturn new law it and ensure that as little damage is done in the mean time - to your cause and publicity does not hurt in this - but the option of pretending that the world is as it used to be - is not an option.

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 22 Nov 04 - 04:03 AM

For goodness sake Shambles, you do go overboard when you draw comparisons don't you! None of the activities you quoted are 'rights', fox hunting isn't one either it is a custom, and one which does more good than harm in my opinion, although obviously not in yours. You see to diverge slightly, this has been one of my pet hates for years 'peoples rights'. Everybody from the lippy 10 year old you catch vandalising your property , to the fraudulent social security claimant knows their rights. How about some responsibilities to go with them!
Anyway we'll never agree so there's no point arguing as it will change nothing, and it tends to cause animosity, so we must agree to differ on this one. I warn you though, there's an awful lot of mileage in this subject yet, so watch your TV screen, and read your newspaper. You'll wish we could have mustered that sort of support to fight the PELs.
Giok

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: The Shambles
Date: 22 Nov 04 - 08:14 AM

You had clearly said that it was a right for hunters to continue and a right you would defend. You now say it is only a custom - which is it?

In fact it niether right nor custom - it is now as much a criminal act as all the other examples I gave.

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 22 Nov 04 - 08:34 AM

It is their right to continue their custom without being the object of class inspired, and unnecessary laws. Which incidentally are not yet in force!
Giok

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: The Shambles
Date: 22 Nov 04 - 11:04 AM

You'll wish we could have mustered that sort of support to fight the PELs.

No thank you - I'll settle for the 110.000 (law abiding) people who signed the largest E petition ever submitted to No 10.....

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 22 Nov 04 - 11:20 AM

What good has it done though? it is my contention that petitions do nothing.
Giok

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: The Shambles
Date: 22 Nov 04 - 01:01 PM

The custom of Morris Dancing has not been banned.

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 22 Nov 04 - 01:16 PM

But what about the foxtrot?
Giok

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: The Shambles
Date: 22 Nov 04 - 01:26 PM

The response to the E petiton from No 10 can be seen in full here.

http://www.number-10.gov.uk/output/Page4259.asp

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: Blissfully Ignorant
Date: 22 Nov 04 - 02:02 PM

My objection to the House of Lords is not that it's populated by the wealthy but that it's populated by the unelected. Although i do have a healthy mistrust for anyone richer than me. Or poorer. Or anyone in the same economic situation...goddamnit, you're all out to get me...

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 22 Nov 04 - 03:54 PM

Thanks, Laura - I am still not sure of your line of reasoning but you answers were very clear. I shall put it down to a gnome thing;-)

You are never likely to be 'seriously loosing' the arguement apart from the fact that the law is there now and no ammount of argueing can change it! Nor can you ever 'seriously win' though. You will never get the majority of the country (or the Mudcat if it comes to that!) agreeing that fox hunting should not be banned. That being said the object of the argument should be like the hunt itself. It is not the kill, but the chase that is important. So even if no-one wins or looses - we had fun on the way:-)

Your arguemnets have been more like terriers than fox hounds - Chasing round and nipping at anything that moves! Nothing wrong with that and you had me worried for a while...

Cheers

DtG

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: Blissfully Ignorant
Date: 22 Nov 04 - 04:04 PM

United, indeed! :0)

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: *Laura*
Date: 22 Nov 04 - 04:04 PM

thats me - a little terrier. but I'm not about to attack the usa (if anyone saw the Bush quotes in the telegraph that day... hehehe)

:-)

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 22 Nov 04 - 04:49 PM

Ah, but if Bush is in the Telegraph, we all know what terriers do on telegraph poles (polls?)

:D

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: *Laura*
Date: 22 Nov 04 - 04:53 PM

excellent!

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: Blissfully Ignorant
Date: 22 Nov 04 - 04:58 PM

So if we all piss on the Telegraph, we'll be metaphorically pissing on Dubya?

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 22 Nov 04 - 05:04 PM

I thought it was just me that was full of a cold and had nothing else to do. What's up with the rest of yer...

:D

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: Blissfully Ignorant
Date: 22 Nov 04 - 05:06 PM

I've just got nothing else to do full stop:0)

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 22 Nov 04 - 05:10 PM

Oooooh - Just heard the theme music. Got to go and see if anyone got hurt when Maya blew up Devs corner shop...

(How sad can I get?)

:D

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 22 Nov 04 - 05:47 PM

OhMyGod! Maya is in the flat alone with Sonita - after just blowing up 3 or 4 other shops! I'll have to wait until Wednesday now...

Oh, hang on. Is this fox hunting? I think I'll start anither thread...

:D

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: *Laura*
Date: 22 Nov 04 - 06:19 PM

some people might argue that it's similar......
(I, of course, defend the right of freaky phycho lawyers to go hunting)

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: *Laura*
Date: 22 Nov 04 - 06:20 PM

and I KNOW I can't spell!
I plej mi alleejanse with jOhn.

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: Peter K (Fionn)
Date: 22 Nov 04 - 11:08 PM

Having lived in town and country, having worked most of my life in cities, and having relatives who farm or otherwise live in the country, I have always been exposed to both sides in this debate. Accordingly I feel reasonably well placed to deal with some of the rubbish that has been spouted in this thread.

Giok, "Laura" etc are right to say that hunting is not confined to the toffs. But I'd qualify it a bit. The plebs I have seen in action have tended to be no-brainers, blessed with mentalities around the level of America's rednecks. Usually they don't have their own mounts but ride horses loaned to them, sometimes in exchange for carrying out menial tasks, or they ride pushbikes or follow on foot or in cars, to fulfil important duties such as opening a gate here and there for the benefit of younger riders. Or in recent years, just looking for scraps with hunt saboteurs.

Owning a horse or pony is the dream of many a youngster in the UK's cities, towns and suburbs. It's a dream that's beyond the reach of nearly every one of them. To that extent at least, those who ride to hounds are likely to be privileged, if not high-born. Admittedly not everyone living in, or at the edge of, the countryside is well off, and it is not unheard of that a low-income family will find some way to keep a horse, and perhaps even attend the local meet. But this is far from commonplace.

Contrary to everything Giok implies, both sides of the hunting debate can be heard in any rural community, just as there are people on both sides of the argument in the cities. As for the emotive/hysterical crap about foxes eating our babies once hunting is banned, there are areas in England where there is no hunting with hounds, simply because the local landowners collectively will not allow it. Yet such areas have not been over-run with plagues of foxes.

Someone has already picked up on the fallacy of "Laura"'s assertion that foxhounds can't be retrained, but I'll enlarge on it. Young hounds could be retrained quite easily, and many older ones with just a little more effort. As has been famously demonstrated, dogs are "programmable" to an extraordinary degree.

Take a plump, softhearted German Shepherd, always placid and trustworthy around humans, too lazy to chase a rabbit. Give it the taste of raw liver two or three times a week; keep it just a tad underfed, and house it in an outbuilding away from the domestic environment. It will rediscover its killer instinct at an extraordinary rate. Conversely, remove foxhounds from the chance of a kill, fatten them up and put them through intensive rewards-and-sanctions training, and you'll finish up with highly intelligent, trustworthy pets.

If bloodhounds, greyhounds and worker dogs like sheepdogs and huskies can make rewarding pets, what's the big deal with foxhounds? I know someone who took an injured badger from the wild and kept it as a family pet long after it was fully recovered. "Laura" will marvel at this, but some people train tigers.

Still, if the hunting lobby want to kill their packs to make some kind of point, let them do it. If they care anything for their hounds, they'll do it as hmanely as possible. And unlike their killing of foxes, it will be a once-only cull. Big deal.

On the cruelty tack, some (including Giok I think) have fairly alluded to the grotesque il-treatment of other creatures such as battery hens, and animals slaughtered in conformance with religious dogma. But this in no way justifies tormenting foxes for the sheer excitement of it. And I trust that peoplr who object to those other abuses take care not to benefit from them. (For my part I don't eat chicken, or any animals, regardless of how they've been slaughtered.)

I'm with duellingbazouki and I should think every other Mudcatter in deploring the tragedy of Darfur, but I'm still going to feel a bit uncomfortable if I accidentally run over a rabbit. If db puts Darfur as high in his priorities as he thinks the rest of us should, he will be devoting every minute of his time and every pound in his pocket to that worthy cause. But somehow I wouldn't be surprised if I was doing more than he (or she) is on that score.

Another point on cruelty. Giok implies a quick and sanitised kill. Even if this is how it is sometimes, it takes no account of any distress the fox might feel while having a frenzied pack of hounds on its heels for a couple of miles or more.

And just in case anyone is deluded into thinking that all huntin' folk are as kind-hearted as Giok would have us believe, I have twice seen a fully conscious but injured animal (one a rabbit and one a hare) being held aloft for yelping hounds to jump at. In one case the live bait was eventually tossed to the hounds in reward for their enthusiasm. In the other case, pieces of the animal were snapped off bit by bit - the last bit (little more than the ears and head I assumed) being hurled away for the dogs to race for. I suppose such sport helps make a day of it for the kids, who can be as young as 13 or 14.

As for the stuff about majorities imposing their will on minorities, if there were anything in it, Giok would be down here (north Nottinghamshire) championing the rights of the decent folk who organise the illegal dogfights that go on in these parts. Except that Giok's hypocrisy has already been exposed. Guess who referred, in this very thread, to: "...the eagerly awaited [by me] ban on smoking in enclosed places which we in Scotland will be enjoying soon...." Yep, afraid so....

One other point about the politics. "Laura" says the Parliament Act should not have been applied to this Bill. Wrong. The effect of the 1911 Act was to prevent the (unelected) House of Lords from thwarting the will of the (elected) House of Commons, while respecting the upper chamber's role in scrutinising and amending legislation. It was amended in 1949 to ensure that the Lords could delay legislation for only a year or so. The Act may be applied to any government Bill originating in the Commons, a year after the Bill is introduced. It would have been invoked many more than three times since 1949 but for the simple fact that in other instances the Lords respected the authority of the elected chamber and didn't force the issue.

Court action will not revoke application of the Parliament Act in this case, first because it has already been used three times without challenge; second because it is plain beyond argument what the Commons intended by it, and third because even where there is a potential amiguity in statute law, the English judiciary is notably reluctant to intervene - and is in some degree constitutionally contrained from doing so in political matters.

Neither will the ban flounder for being unenforceable. ACPO's spokesperson on rural affairs stated that the ban would be effectively policed. He said officers would simply switch from arresting saboteurs to arresting hunt followers. Those chief constables who have implied that they will not be able to cope are simply positioning themselves for a tough round of budget negotiating.

Last point: "Laura"'s curious obsession with fox screams. I've never heard this. I was once driven nearly to distraction by a screaming baby, but to my credit, I didn't set the dogs on it.

On another occasion, cycling down the Alaska-Canada highway, I came into Beaver Creek just after sunset and heard wolves howling fairly close by. A fantastic experience - but somewhat tarnished by the spectacle of three or four grown men emerging from the local hotel with rifles and shotguns, and heading off in a truck towards where the noise had come from. In the hotel I asked if wolves were a nuisance or if their carcasses could be exploited for some purpose. No, nothing like that, I was told. Those guys had come up from "the lower 48" hoping to shoot a bear. So far no luck, but if they could get a wolf or even a porcupine, they would think that was pretty neat.

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: Paco Rabanne
Date: 23 Nov 04 - 03:14 AM

199

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: Paco Rabanne
Date: 23 Nov 04 - 03:16 AM

I claim the 200th post for all us shooters. I watched 'country file' on the BBC on sunday morning, and it's bloody obvious from the tone of theses programmes that we will be the next to be banned!

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: The Shambles
Date: 23 Nov 04 - 04:41 AM

No not banned. That is too subtle, the intention is to follow your violent example. A Bill is to be proposed that will arm the animals and enable them to shoot back.

Flocks of pheasants (bread especially for the purpose) wearing Barbour jackets and green wellies will descend upon the southern cities for the weekend to seek you out - and try to kill you for sport.

On the first of the season - grouse will sportingly drive tanks into the northern cities to see how many of you they can bag.

Every other clay pigeon will contain be a cluster bomb.

This will cull a quite a few and the thought is that by making the whole thing more of a fair contest it may discourage others from taking it up.

Everyone else can then spend nice weekends in the country free from explosions and bloodlust.

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 23 Nov 04 - 05:09 AM

Put that way Fionn you have me bang to rights, but I plead concern for humanity in general and myself in particular. As an ex-smoker I can't go into most pubs because of the nauseating smell of smoke, but then again even getting a whiff of someones cigarette out in the street [an all too common occurence] turns my stomach. It is funny to find yourself quoted by someone, you find yourself saying both "that's not what I meant", and "did I say that?" It's certainly an object lesson to make sure what you write, is incapable if being misunderstood, and I try to do that, but whatever one writes it can mean different things to different people.
The prospect of pheasants in Barbours and green wellies fills me with glee I must admit, every day I go out I see dead pheasants by the side of the road. The poor birds are bred in their thousands just to be shot at, they have no road sense, and they don't even belong in this country.
Giok

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 23 Nov 04 - 06:24 AM

Very well put, Peter. I would have loved to have said it but never having lived in the country I could only guess at some of the points. You have confirmed what I thought to be true.

Thanks You.

Dave

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: Paco Rabanne
Date: 23 Nov 04 - 06:42 AM

Pheasants as well as having no road sense, have to be the daftest birds on the planet. Up on the North York Moors you can literally catch them on foot!
Peter's point about Foxhounds is a good one, I don't think they couldn't be house trained either.

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 23 Nov 04 - 06:50 AM

Now that the ban is for certain and ' hunters ' say they will break the law, can we expect to see two policemen holding a law breaking hunter while another policeman kicks him in the head like the did with the miners pickets ?

eric

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: Blissfully Ignorant
Date: 23 Nov 04 - 01:44 PM

Christ, it's going to be the battle of the beanfield....in TWEED!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: Peter K (Fionn)
Date: 23 Nov 04 - 07:07 PM

Giok, now I'm riddled with guilt for failing to resist the chance to score a cheap point! I knew well enough that the parallel with smoking wasn't fair, because smoking directly affects a non-smoking majority. It just seemed fair game at the time. Not for the first time, I cringed a bit to read in the cold light of day what I'd scribbled under cover of darkness. I would normally keep my head down and hope others wouldn't notice, but your response was too gallant to ignore.

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: The Shambles
Date: 23 Nov 04 - 07:48 PM

Put that way Fionn you have me bang to rights, but I plead concern for humanity in general and myself in particular.

There is only one to put it.

It is funny to find yourself quoted by someone, you find yourself saying both "that's not what I meant", and "did I say that?" It's certainly an object lesson to make sure what you write, is incapable if being misunderstood, and I try to do that, but whatever one writes it can mean different things to different people.

Enough already. No one has misunderstood or misquoted you. It is not anyone else's fault so please stop. It is the weakness of your basic position and that of the Countryside Alliance that has been exposed by exactly what you have written here.

Had the Lords been able to throw the Act out or to water it down from a total ban - there would have been none of this pompous talk of imposition and how prejudiced and unjust such a system was, nor of there being any great need to change the system.

In reality, it is only about winning or losing and using a current system (no matter how flawed) and accepting the results. If it is the system that is wrong then go about changing that system - rather than just wingeing on about prejudice, only when the system produces results are not to your liking.

I have tried to be consistent and as honest here as flawed human beings and a flawed system allow. As I have said, I would have welcomed the Lords throwing out the Licensing Act but at the same time, not been at all happy about them being able to throw out the ban on hunting with dogs.

But I accept that it is the flawed system needs addressing - whatever the result produced. For had the hunt ban Bill started its life in the Lords, it would have not become the law that is now set to be in February 2004 - the very same month as the new Licensing Act!

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 24 Nov 04 - 04:57 AM

Oh wad some pow'r the gift tae gie us
Tae see oorsel's as ithers see us.

by Robert Burns

Says it all really!
Giok

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: Gervase
Date: 24 Nov 04 - 06:46 AM

Apropos foxes screaming - a ruddy vixen kept us awake for two hours last night yowling behind one of the barns! Much debate and harrumphing about whether to go downstairs, unlock the gun cabinet and traipse around after her, but in the end she stopped and buggered off. Spooked the cats though.

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: *Laura*
Date: 24 Nov 04 - 10:27 AM

Fionn - I know hounds can be retrained - I just said that not everybody will have the time and/or resources available to retrain their whole pack. And anyone who's ever houstrained a puppy will tell you they are far less likely to want several large, energetic hounds to retrain.
Think about it - of course it could be done, but firstly you'd need to own several if you wanted them as pets becasue they've never been away from other dogs (unless you planned to spend all your time with them) and then you'd need the strength (physical and mental) and patience and energy and space to not only train them into new ways - but untrain them of their old ways! (i.e. running off after a scent every time they pick one up - WITHOUT the aid of a hunting horn)
To some people this wo't be a problem - but you can imagine others will get a couple of lovely foxhounds - only to discover they are a complete nightmare in the house!

And I don't have an obsession! I just wondered if anyone else had ever heard it!

As for reinforcing the law - according to my knowledgeble (sp??) source the police and stuff are being told not to take action against hunters until after the election. Well - they're being told until after the countryside alliance legal battle is done, but they're going to drag that out until after the election so that the courts aren't clogged up with hunting-related crimes during the election.

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 24 Nov 04 - 11:29 AM

Nothing cynicval about our friend Tony is there? Har har bloody har.
Giok :~(

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: The Shambles
Date: 24 Nov 04 - 12:20 PM

There is I fear, little moral-high ground to be claimed here. It would appear to have been a tactic of the Lords and the pro-hunt lobby to ensure that the ban was introduced in February, in order to cause the maximum publicity and embarrassment to the Government. Sounds like the turkeys voting for Christmas may not have been such a good idea after all?

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 24 Nov 04 - 12:42 PM

Yeah but you got to give them marks for cunning, mind you it's up to Tone when he calls the election.
Giok

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: *Laura*
Date: 24 Nov 04 - 01:22 PM

Yep - our beloved and wonderous Mr Blair...
uhh... where was I? Oh yes...
well, yes. He wanted the ban to come into force in 2006. To skip the election.
But if only 1% of voters think that hunting is the priority at the moment - then it shouldn't make much difference. Unless he's realised he has maybe underestimated the pro-hunt/anti-ban peeps.

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: The Shambles
Date: 24 Nov 04 - 07:25 PM

One of our smallest, most plain, usually skulking and often overlooked birds - the Wren - can make a remarkably loud noise when singing and wishing to draw attention to itself.

On hearing this song and finding the singer - folk may often expect the sound to be emanating from a much bigger bird.

Subject: RE: BS: Fight prejudice! Fight the Ban!
From: The Shambles
Date: 25 Nov 04 - 09:40 AM

No matter how loudly the little Wren sings - it does not get any bigger.