h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Ferretbadger, can I refer you to posts 23 and 41 on what constitutes a majority of people supporting a ban?

RF

Mina I dont think I said the argument was specifically yours but whether it is or not it is definitely fallacious, but sorry for any personal offence.




Fox hunters *are* a minority but then so are paedophiles should we protect their urge to be crule under the law too?

People who like fox hunting are as protected as those who are sexually attracted to children, but just like anyone whether in a minority or majority who does something against the law they should be prosecuted for their actions as the laws dictate.



Foxes behave in a different way to other animals this doe not make them anymore deserving of deliberately cruel hunting practices. (They may given the chance return to the coup to retrieve and bury excess food however the farmer will be round by dawn to clear up. Possibly) However their actions as a pest are not so bad that it stopped those who wanted to hunt foxes importing them to Australia specifically for the purposes of dressing up in red coats and setting packs of dogs after them.


I have never heard one argument for fox hunting that stood up to any basic analysis. Every single one I heard has been a plea to emotion to keep traditions, keep jobs or keep fox hounds alive. Either that or a statement of mangled facts meant to mislead, pest control, savegry of the fox, preservation of nature.

The only real one I cant think of for keeping it but one Ive never heard from its proponents is that its *fun*.

one love

The animal cruelty argument would stand up if you could make it consistent across the board. Fishing,course for pleasure and industrial to extinction, intensive chicken and turkey units, antibiotic and hormone laden cows being milked to death and artificially fecund sheep that now give birth to at least twins.

The fox population is currently healthy but will begin to decline in the same manner that deer herds do if not culled. Country sports enthusiasts have a vested interest in taking care of the rural environment. If it wasn't for pheasant shooting the traditional English countryside would look much less attractrive. If it wasn't for grouse shooting you wouldn't see the blooming heather.

The paedophile comparison is fallacious not the argument that the ban was a pure and simple old fashioned Labour class warfare.

There's a lot to the above post. I think if any hunter was to be completely frank about why they don't want it to be banned, they would have to say "Don't ban this, because it's my hobby, and I get an awful lot of enjoyment from it".

That on its own wouldn't be seen as a good enough reason by most people who don't enjoy the hobby. So we get all the other arguments cropping up. Like tradition - but many other traditions have been outlawed because they appear to most people a) outmoded or b) barbaric. Or pest control - yet in all other spheres of agriculture the emphasis is on efficiency and productivity, and it hunting is a very inefficient, time-consuming and unproductive way of handling a pest problem [assuming there is a pest 'problem' with foxes for the moment].

That idea puts a big hole in the argument that hunting them is necessary to keep the numbers down. If not culled by humans, they will in effect 'self-cull'.

Albatros i care not one jot for tradition. the traditional countryside is UNNATURAL and only maintained for the benefit of people who can afford other food or even hand reared grouse but...get their kicks from imported wild fowl.

Please explain how my paedophile comparrison is fallacious when used in terms of protecting the rights of any minority to carry out illegal acts?

Can we pleas scotch this canard that the bill about Hunting With Dogs has anything to do with animal cruelty, conservation, or animal welfare? This country already has substantial laws to deal with these matters. I notice the RSPCA has not brought a successful case against a hunt with the pre-existing laws on animal cruelty.

RF

Needlessly shooting imported breeds of wild fowl

When you move onto animal farming for food you are getting into a whole different argument. There is a world of difference between intensive farming to feed an ever increasing population and hunting a wild animal for fun.

>> The fox population is currently healthy but will begin to decline in the same manner that deer herds do if not culled. <<

Rubbish. Deer are culled because there population is increasing to unmanageable levels, not decreasing. The reason it is increasing is that the deer's natural predators, the wolf is no longer there. That is why there are moves to reintroduce the wolf into Scotland. They have the same problem in Yellowstone National Park in the USA. The fox has and never had any natural predators and would be self regulating if left to get on with it.

Where culling is necessary in any species, it is because humans have has interfered with the natural balance.

>> If it wasn't for grouse shooting you wouldn't see the blooming heather. <<

Sorry, but the heather was there long before the grouse, shortly after the last ice age I should think. You don't need grouse to grow heather. The fox is a predator of grouse in the Highlands. So there is another reason that hunters might hunt the fox. So humans can kill grouse for fun.

There is no getting away from it, humans are the only species that derive enjoyment from killing another.

Donald

>> I notice the RSPCA has not brought a successful case against a hunt with the pre-existing laws on animal cruelty. <<

Not for the lack of trying. It's that terrible thing called evidence getting the way again.

During the 1990s, the RSPCA launched several high-profile prosecutions of prominent hunting people. Captain Ian Farquhar, joint-Master of the Beaufort, was the first Master charged under new Protection of Badgers Act 1992 over a sett blocked on National Trust land in October 1992. In Yate Magistrates Court in late August 1993, he faced two charges of aiding and abetting, counselling and procuring the interference of badger setts.

After a three day hearing, Farquahar was found guilty and received a two year conditional discharge, and ordered to pay £4,000 to-wards the costs of the private prosecution – brought by the RSPCA after the Crown Prosecution Service had decided there was insufficient evidence to warrant prosecution. Farquhar promptly lodged an appeal, and the conviction was subsequently quashed.

http://www.hounds.org.uk/e-rspca.htm

The RSPCA where in the forefront of bringing about the current law because the existing one was inadequate.

Donald

Out of interest, I don't like fishing either - I think it's cruel as well, although in a different way (despite people telling me that fish don't feel pain). But of course I eat meat, so normally I keep quiet.

Well look RF as far as I am concerned unless they held a referenda on the issue with compulsary voting there is no way of knowing conclusivly what the population as a who think.

However I have seen 100s of national survays over the last 10 years almsot all of which have shown a huge majority in favour of banning fox hunting.

Also two elections have been fought in which parties pledging to ban foxhunting have won convincingly.

If this does not give the government a mandate to carry out said policy what can?

FB, do you really think that the Labour government won because of its foxhunting policy?

RF

No but I think it was part of their platform, I also think that opinion survays over the last 10 years have indicated in the main a large constituency for banning fox hunting.

So my question back is if a party witrh a massive majority and (generally speaking) mass popular support for a policy that is a manifesto pledge does not have a mandate; how does any govt' *ever* have *any* mandate for anything?

By your argument no government could ever do anything and claim a mandate.

Re post: 82 Comparing paedophiles and fox hunting contains at least two fallacies. One that paedophiles comprise a minority and two the legality of relevant activities.

An OED definition of minority is ‘Small group of persons differing from others in race, language, opinion on a topic etc.’ Majorities are comprised of minorities right down to the individual in the final analysis. And individual human rights are the foundation of any civilised society.

Paedophiles are not a minority as defined by OED. They are a criminal statistic.

There is no dispute across political and social spectra that the activities of paedophiles are abhorrent and illegal. Fox hunting was legal until the political left abused the rights of a minority and made it illegal.

There is consensus against paedophiles and only politically motivated cant and dogma, hiding behind a cruelty to animals screen, to support the argument to ban fox hunting. It remains to be seen if this ill-advised law will stand legal challenge.

It's already withstood two.

So if a new drug came on the scene and 5% of the population were taking it and a government banned it would the drug takes not then be in an opressed minority?

If not please explain why the logic applies differently from a group of people who hunt foxes from a group of people who take a designer drug.

Of course, the logical fallacy of this being a 'left-wing crypto communist' plot against the right thinking people of the shires conveniently ignores the fact that the voting on the Bill was open, not enforced by whips in any way and was voted for by a number of Tories and Lib-Dems.

Presumably the government would be banning the drug for the good of the takers not the drug.

I agree that bringing paedophiles into a discussion on fox hunting is a bit of a red herring. When is comes to sexual activities, because of the wide diversity in the human race, practically everyone is part of a minority. But thats another discussion.

However, that fact remains that fox hunting is a minority interest and the there is a majority that find the activity abhorrent because it is cruel and unnecessary.

I also find it mildly amusing that my position of fox hunting is dismissed as a result of politically motivated dogma, especially left wing dogma. Those that know me would probably find it hilarious.

There is some merit in the argument that the law as enacted is flawed, there are many loopholes. But that doesn't detract from the barbarity of fox hunting. Just making the fox a protected species like the badger would probably have been a more unambiguous solution.

It has stood up to the legal challenges that have been thrown at it up to now. However, flawed laws can be amended, loopholes can be closed, but repealing it is extremely unlikely. Constant challenges to the law by the fox hunting lobby is likely to precipitate those changes, so let them get on with it.

Donald