A Conversation for Ask h2g2
Help! Why did England ban hunting and what do you think about it?
A Super Furry Animal Posted Mar 10, 2005
Donald: firstly, I would dispute that there is a majority opposed to foxhunting. I do not believe that the fact that the Parliamentary Labour Party has a majority in the House Of Commons is proof of this. No-one has yet offered anything to back up this statement.
Secondly, I believe that the bill, as enacted, has very lttle to do with animal rights, prevention of cruelty to animals, etc. If that *were* its primary purpose, it would be drafted very differently. As you say, giving foxes "protected species" status would do far more and I would be interested in your views on why that simple step wasn't taken . This is what leads me to believe that the legislation was motivated by a simple "us against the toffs" mentality that is still, sadly, prevalent amongst a sub-group of Labour backbenchers.
RF
Help! Why did England ban hunting and what do you think about it?
Blues Shark - For people who like this sort of thing, then this is just the sort of thing they'll like Posted Mar 10, 2005
>This is what leads me to believe that the legislation was motivated by a simple "us against the toffs" mentality that is still, sadly, prevalent amongst a sub-group of Labour backbenchers.<
So why did some labour MPs not only abstain but vote against it and some Tories and Lib-Dems vote for it?
This was NOT presented to the House as a Party Political Issue but one for individual consciences. Besides, the 'Crypto-communist' tendency in the Labour Party - ie Tony Banks, The Beast of Bolsover and Gnome Cook are hardly enough to push one Bill through.
Help! Why did England ban hunting and what do you think about it?
WanderingAlbatross - Wing-tipping down the rollers of life's ocean. Posted Mar 10, 2005
Donald,
Precisely; so why should the minority be persecuted as a sop to Labour apparatchiks. I would plead the mis-attributed Voltaire quote 'I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.'
Help! Why did England ban hunting and what do you think about it?
Blues Shark - For people who like this sort of thing, then this is just the sort of thing they'll like Posted Mar 10, 2005
Labour apparatchiks? That's even better than crypto-communists>
I think some of you people want to stop reading copies of the Sun that you put down under the carpets sometime in 1975 and actually read and/or watch a more modern source of news.
Help! Why did England ban hunting and what do you think about it?
WanderingAlbatross - Wing-tipping down the rollers of life's ocean. Posted Mar 10, 2005
Wot me nah Indy, FT, Economist, Computer Weekly, HBR, Radio 4, Archers.
Help! Why did England ban hunting and what do you think about it?
I am Donald Sutherland Posted Mar 10, 2005
RF:
These are just a few surveys:
www.yougov.com/yougov_website/ asp_besPollArchives/pdf/TEL020101010.pdf
52% think hunting with dogs is wrong.
http://www.mori.com/polls/1999/ms990715.shtml
52% Support a ban plus a whole raft of other questions on animal welfare which show the British public do not like animals being killed for fun.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/1389913.stm
There were more but they were to long winded. I deliberately Left out the League Against Cruel Sports as that might be construed as to partisan.
The reason why the fox was not made a protected speices was that there is still a large proportion of the population that think the fox needs to be controlled. But a smaller majority, but still a majority, think that hunting with dogs are not the way to do it.
I think the fox has had a bad press over the years, fuelled by the hunters to support their activities. What the fox needs is a good PR manager the maybe on day it will be a protected species.
WanderingAlbertross:
I and many people like me are not Labour apparatchiks. So where do we get our opinions from?
What Voltaire *did not* say was: 'I disapprove of what you do, but I will defend to the death your right to do it.'
Donald
Help! Why did England ban hunting and what do you think about it?
Ferrettbadger. The Renegade Master Posted Mar 10, 2005
ReddyFreddy any chance of an answer to the question posed in post 94?
Help! Why did England ban hunting and what do you think about it?
DaveBlackeye Posted Mar 10, 2005
Keep it up guys I've never seen such a sensible, intelligent and restrained debate about this issue.
As I said before, my objections are purely down to touchy-feely intangibles; I find hunting for fun disgusting and pointless, and I don't want to have to explain to my daughter why this supposedly civilised society allows such things. It's just another fur on the catwalk of human arrogance - which is partly why society is castigating those it perceives as arrogant. The debate left me standing a while ago on the political front, but it's very enlightening.
Help! Why did England ban hunting and what do you think about it?
I am Donald Sutherland Posted Mar 11, 2005
I mentioned in an earlier post that the Fox needed a good PR manager. It seems it already has one.
http://www.nfws.org.uk/pro/pests.htm
It seems the rabbits and other rodents, the foxes natural prey, cause far more damage to agricultural land than the fox.
From the information in the article it appears that the fox is a welcome part of the natural ecology of the countryside and thats it's adverse impact on human activity is tiny while its beneficial impact is huge.
Donald
Help! Why did England ban hunting and what do you think about it?
Ferrettbadger. The Renegade Master Posted Mar 11, 2005
94, 107
Help! Why did England ban hunting and what do you think about it?
WanderingAlbatross - Wing-tipping down the rollers of life's ocean. Posted Mar 11, 2005
Donald, I thought the report a tad biased and quasi academic, alluding to Bristol University, and with lots of coulds and mights but in the sprit of the discussion and to provide some balance try this one from an actual Hunt:
http://www.cvnnh.org.uk/facts.htm
and the definitive Burns report:
http://www.pixunlimited.co.uk/pdf/news/hunting/report.pdf
My argument is not centred on cruelty to animals but the represssion of a minority by Labour politicians. Getting away from the fishing why not persecute 4x4 twits for clogging up and polluting towns and destroying greenways or air travellers for massive pollution of the atmosphere. How will DB explain to his chidren, who have a much increased chance of suffering from asthma because of their activities, why we didn't stop these factions of society.
The answer is that it is isn't politically expedient to do so. Persecuting Foxhunting was but they wouldn't admit the real motivation. Better to hide behind the skirts of animal cruelty.
Help! Why did England ban hunting and what do you think about it?
Ferrettbadger. The Renegade Master Posted Mar 11, 2005
I take issue with the opression of a minority angle WA.
Hunting foxes does not make you a minority, in the need to be protected sense. But it does mean you are in a minority because you have a *practice* that you do.
The way human society works is that from time to time *practices* are no longer considered to be acceptable. THis does not mean that the practicioners are an oppresed minority.
For example for a time it was practice to burn single women at the stake because they were witches. THanksfully we dont do that anymore but were the witch hunter persecuted?
Slavery used to be legal in the UK but since the practice was outlawed are slavers a persucuted minority?
Even as late as 1900 you could buy any manner of narcotics legally from an apothicary. When this practice was banned were the people who used to run the drug shops a oppressed minority?
You may think so, I dont. I rather feel that that is how civil/legal society works in a democracy, sometimes things get banned.
Help! Why did England ban hunting and what do you think about it?
WanderingAlbatross - Wing-tipping down the rollers of life's ocean. Posted Mar 11, 2005
FB,
My point is that banning Foxhunting was a class warfare bone thrown from Tony New Labour to appease the Old Labour apparatchiks. Cruelty to animals had nothing to do with the ban as New Labour also brought forward anti animal rights protester legislation.
Help! Why did England ban hunting and what do you think about it?
I am Donald Sutherland Posted Mar 11, 2005
> I thought the report a tad biased and quasi academic, alluding to Bristol University <<
. . the College Valley North Northumberland Hunt isn't biased.
I don't think they would be allowed to get away with putting something like this on there web site unless the connection was something more than an allusion:
Robbie McDonald, Phil Baker and Stephen Harris
School of Biological Sciences
University of Bristol
Woodland Road
Bristol BS8 1UG
As for being quai-academic. Look at some of the sources they quote. A good few of them MAFF.
To quote Cicero, Que bono. (Saw him on the TV the other week - a pretty smart chap). The hunters have a vested interest in keeping fox hunting going. The web site and organisation I quoted is run entirely on a voluntary basis.
The Burns Report is full of ambiguities and assumptions. That is what led to the flawed law that we have now. I notice there is little mention of rabbits which are a pest and is also a hunted by the fox.
From the Burns Report:
>> Although foxes are widely perceived as a pest, two studies suggested that rabbits, rather than foxes, were viewed as a more significant problem.<<
Animal ecology studies have shown that when an animal is a target for a predator, it modifies its breeding habits to reduce its numbers far in excess of any that are actually killed. Remove the predator and the breeding goes through the roof.
Its all part of nature keeping things in balance. Why breed in huge numbers if all you are going to do is feed a predator, which in turn will increase in numbers and thereby causing the loss of more of your kind, which if the cycle is allowed to continue, will result in the extinction of both species.
Mother nature is pretty good at pest control if left to get on with it without human interference. After she has been doing it for around 5 billion years so should have got the hang of it by now.
Donald
Help! Why did England ban hunting and what do you think about it?
I am Donald Sutherland Posted Mar 11, 2005
>> New Labour also brought forward anti animal rights protester legislation <<
. . and quite right as well. Sending letter bombs and preventing people from going about there lawful business is argumentum ad hominem at its extreme.
Donald
Help! Why did England ban hunting and what do you think about it?
I am Donald Sutherland Posted Mar 11, 2005
Robbie McDonald, Phil Baker and Stephen Harris
School of Biological Sciences
University of Bristol
Woodland Road
Bristol BS8 1UG
http://www.quercus.ac.uk/pages/mcdonald.htm
http://www.bio.bris.ac.uk/research/mammal/fox2.html
http://www.bio.bris.ac.uk/people/staff.cfm?key=52
Two Doctors and a Professor. Hardly quasi-academic
Donald
Help! Why did England ban hunting and what do you think about it?
Ferrettbadger. The Renegade Master Posted Mar 11, 2005
You reckon that this would even have been an issue if there wasn't popular support for the issue?
OK so perhaps this is a bone thrown to the "akward" squad by TB. But this is only happening because there is a large constituency of the British Public in favour of such a ban. Do you really think TB would have risked all this bad publicity unless he thought it was largely a popular policy?
Help! Why did England ban hunting and what do you think about it?
DaveBlackeye Posted Mar 11, 2005
<>
WA, you are very probably absolutely right. IMO, 4x4 drivers should be hunted with dogs apart from people who live on farms . However, democratic society is by nature intolerably tolerant; whoever happens to be in power cannot risk upsetting too many people. The ban may well have been entirely political, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's wrong. There are many other human excesses that I dearly love could be legally curbed. But if the government goes too far it will merely be replaced by one that values personal freedom over all else, with all the mayhem that would inevitably ensue.
Help! Why did England ban hunting and what do you think about it?
BouncyBitInTheMiddle Posted Mar 11, 2005
Well there are pretty high petrol taxes and extra road tax for inefficient cars.
People want huge cars because it makes them feel safer, but it puts everyone else at greater risk. IMO to be strongly discouraged unless someone has a good reason (use the vehicle for work/poor local roads/exceptional tallness etc.)
Help! Why did England ban hunting and what do you think about it?
Cat-Eyes: No..... why.... ? Posted Mar 12, 2005
THANKS TO EVERYONE WHO POSTED HERE!
I haven't actually read half of them since the deabte was on Wednesday and it's now Saturday... Also, I was sick when the team was coming up with the points, so I mostly ued the info from you guys in rebuttals...
Anyway, we won (which amazed me, out first speaker's speech was SOOOO bad, when I was writing mny summary of it I was like "Oh God...") and I got Best Speaker
Thanks again!
Cat
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Help! Why did England ban hunting and what do you think about it?
- 101: A Super Furry Animal (Mar 10, 2005)
- 102: Blues Shark - For people who like this sort of thing, then this is just the sort of thing they'll like (Mar 10, 2005)
- 103: WanderingAlbatross - Wing-tipping down the rollers of life's ocean. (Mar 10, 2005)
- 104: Blues Shark - For people who like this sort of thing, then this is just the sort of thing they'll like (Mar 10, 2005)
- 105: WanderingAlbatross - Wing-tipping down the rollers of life's ocean. (Mar 10, 2005)
- 106: I am Donald Sutherland (Mar 10, 2005)
- 107: Ferrettbadger. The Renegade Master (Mar 10, 2005)
- 108: DaveBlackeye (Mar 10, 2005)
- 109: I am Donald Sutherland (Mar 11, 2005)
- 110: Ferrettbadger. The Renegade Master (Mar 11, 2005)
- 111: WanderingAlbatross - Wing-tipping down the rollers of life's ocean. (Mar 11, 2005)
- 112: Ferrettbadger. The Renegade Master (Mar 11, 2005)
- 113: WanderingAlbatross - Wing-tipping down the rollers of life's ocean. (Mar 11, 2005)
- 114: I am Donald Sutherland (Mar 11, 2005)
- 115: I am Donald Sutherland (Mar 11, 2005)
- 116: I am Donald Sutherland (Mar 11, 2005)
- 117: Ferrettbadger. The Renegade Master (Mar 11, 2005)
- 118: DaveBlackeye (Mar 11, 2005)
- 119: BouncyBitInTheMiddle (Mar 11, 2005)
- 120: Cat-Eyes: No..... why.... ? (Mar 12, 2005)
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