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UK: Tories want to legalise fox hunting (1 Viewer)

It doesn't make any sense.. people who want fox hunting are going to vote for her anyway, so bringing this up only loses voters.
You will hear lots of people outraged, but have you heard anyone say "great, I'm going to vote Conservative now"?
Apart from the obvious 13 year old troll above.

Also, a factory in Leeds would seem a strange demographic to launch this in. Unless it was a posh Wellington manufacturer, or livery factory!
 
peter.jones said:
It doesn't make any sense.. people who want fox hunting are going to vote for her anyway, so bringing this up only loses voters.
You will hear lots of people outraged, but have you heard anyone say "great, I'm going to vote Conservative now"?
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I would agree with this, in this election in particular I would suppose most people will be voting with other issues at the fore of their thoughts. I can't see anyone actually changing their vote in favour of the Tories due to this, but a moderately small number are more likely to go the other way.

At the end of the day though, I don't think allowing a vote on fox hunting is going to make any difference either way to the election - more pressing issues for most people.
 
Have a look at his posting history. He's an apologist for all sorts of miscreants - from grouse moor owners, their employees, and their clients, through to despicable individuals prosecuted for kicking birds in "their care" to death.
 
Gordon said:
Have a look at his posting history. He's an apologist for all sorts of miscreants - from grouse moor owners, their employees, and their clients, through to despicable individuals prosecuted for kicking birds in "their care" to death.
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Mods should boot him off if he's a proven or even suspected Troll.



A
 
I do not regard it as trolling to put forward my own opinion on this thread, or posting the occasional counter point on other threads. Having an appreciation of birds and other wildlife is not mutually exclusive to being a supporter of hunting/ shooting.
 
mudman said:
I do not regard it as trolling to put forward my own opinion on this thread, or posting the occasional counter point on other threads. Having an appreciation of birds and other wildlife is not mutually exclusive to being a supporter of hunting/ shooting.
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I'm not sure some people are fully aware what constitutes a troll.
To some people its someone who opposes their point of view and they just can't take it when you don't agree with them.The word gets bandied about too much these days.I'm never sure whether some people are trolls or just bad tempered gits who happen to be control freaks and take a dislike to a particular person or a point of view.
This sort of subject is ripe for diametrically opposing opinions so its bound to raise the hackles.
Personally I can't stand fox hunting,shooting and animal cruelty.
At the same time I eat meat from animals slaughtered in goddam awful abattoirs and eat birds such as chicken and turkey which endure bloody terrible lives and are then killed in a slaughterhouse.
I'm supposed to be a birdwatcher who cares about birds[but not factory farmed,mass slaughterd birds for some reason].
So who am I to talk and criticise?Hands up: I'm a hypocrite!
And yes I know fox hunters do it for 'fun' and the sport before anyone draws the distinction.
I wonder if anyone who gets uppity about fox hunting and shooting birds has any qualms about recreational fishing, the most popular participation sport in the country.Fish being hooked through their mouths,being hauled from the water squirming and fighting for life, and then having their necks wrenched[or whatever they do to them in the end]If we did that to an animal on land to lure and catch them, there would be a public outcry.But fish? Who cares?
You seldom,if ever, hear cries for the end of fishing.
 
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katastrofa said:
Stop eating meat then. You'll feel better about yourself.
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Good point.
Are you a veggie?
I was for six years but got bored with the diet!
Mind you,I felt better about myself for those six years and didn't feel wracked with guilt but I did hanker after a bacon butty.
To be fair I will avoid meat most of the time and will look for alternatives.
Quorn has improved over the years- it doesn't taste quite so bad these days.It used to taste like salty sawdust.
 
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andyadcock said:
Mods should boot him off if he's a proven or even suspected Troll.
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Whilst I disagree with his views, I see no issue in someone (who has been a member of the forum for a long time) adding his opinion, albeit one that irritates many on here.

Its not trolling, its having an opinion :)
 
Jos Stratford said:
Whilst I disagree with his views, I see no issue in someone (who has been a member of the forum for a long time) adding his opinion, albeit one that irritates many on here.

Its not trolling, its having an opinion :)
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It wasn't me who said he was, I've never seen him before but others seem to know him.

A
 
As the one who raised the T-word...

Trolling is not, as the tabloid press would contend, being rude and nasty. It comes not from the beasts that lurk under bridges but from the fishing technique of dangling a bait in the water and waiting for the fish to bite. That was IMHO what the post I commented on was doing; seeking to rile people up rather than offering a constructive opinion.

On the subject of constructive opinions in support of fox hunting, there are not many.

As pest control it fails. The hiatus in fox hunting during foot and mouth saw no increase in the fox population. Pheasant game keepers and chicken farmers go out lamping. A GWCT study on fox control found that only a sustained shooting campaign had any effect on fox numbers. The pest control argument is also spoiled by the hunts that feed the local foxes and even build artificial earths.

As rural employment it is trivial. The money figures quoted by pro-hunting bodies are mostly made up of equestrian spending, even just equestrian spending regardless of if the riders actually hunt! The idea that those riders would give up their horses if they couldn't ride to hounds is fanciful. The actual number employed in hunting is trivial.

The tradition argument... there is no tradition argument, there is never a tradition argument, if there was a tradition argument we would all be still living in caves.

The only possible argument is the "dominion over the animals" argument. This is not an argument of fact it is an argument of morality, but morality is not fixed. As ably illustrated by Steven Pinker in "The Better Angels of Our Nature", (read it, it is great), there is a long history of the abandonment of violence, violence against animals included.

And no I don't need to be a vegetarian or a vegan to oppose fox hunting.

And on fishing... it isn't even in the top twenty of participation sports in the UK.
 
I got it wrong on the number of people who fish but hooking a fish through the mouth, hauling it in as it gasps for life, and then wringing its neck is no better than fox hunting in terms of cruelty.
Fox hunting quite rightly raises the hackles but there is nowhere near the same sort of outrage about fishing.
I don't want to go off topic or get into a discussion about fishing but it always comes to mind when the subject of cruel sports comes up.
 
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Mono said:
As the one who raised the T-word...

Trolling is not, as the tabloid press would contend, being rude and nasty. It comes not from the beasts that lurk under bridges but from the fishing technique of dangling a bait in the water and waiting for the fish to bite. That was IMHO what the post I commented on was doing; seeking to rile people up rather than offering a constructive opinion.
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Do you mean? like the the post that opened this thread?
 
pratincol said:
I got it wrong on the number of people who fish but hooking a fish through the mouth, hauling it in as it gasps for life, and then wringing its neck is no better than fox hunting in terms of cruelty.
Fox hunting quite rightly raises the hackles but there is nowhere near the same sort of outrage about fishing.
I don't want to go off topic or get into a discussion about fishing but it always comes to mind when the subject of cruel sports comes up.
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Hmmm ... cruelty. It's not quite like for like.

Stress, pain-levels, the intelligence of the life form you are dealing with ...
 
pratincol said:
I got it wrong on the number of people who fish but hooking a fish through the mouth, hauling it in as it gasps for life, and then wringing its neck is no better than fox hunting in terms of cruelty.
Fox hunting quite rightly raises the hackles but there is nowhere near the same sort of outrage about fishing.
I don't want to go off topic or get into a discussion about fishing but it always comes to mind when the subject of cruel sports comes up.
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Has a fish got a neck?

I think, that fishing in the main, doesn't end up with the killing of the fish, in fact I think catch and release makes up the greatest % of the past time. I also think that there is a train of thought that suggests that fish have little in the way of pain receptors and very little in the way of brain power or they wouldn't keep getting caught?

I see your point but it's not comparable to ripping apart a mammal.



A
 
I'll leave it to the experts to work out their pain and stress levels,awareness and intelligence. Got to be honest though, seeing the way they wriggle, squirm and thrash around, as they are being reeled in,then gasp till they're dispatched, they never look like they are enjoying the experience.
 
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I don't want to 'troll', but I have to admit I used to upset everyone with my opinions pre hunting-with-dogs ban.
I have an instinctive dislike of the 'unspeakable in pursuit of the inedible' (who was it said that?) which is probably to be honest more to do with class war than conservation. That said, there are no credible pest control / conservation arguments advanced by the fox hunting lobby - it would be more honest if they just admitted that they enjoy it, rather than trying to claim they are somehow both conserving and controlling fox populations.
On the other hand, I could never understand why deer hunting with dogs seemed to generate even more opprobrium. What could be more natural to a deer that to be pursued and killed by a pack of howling canids? Having eradicated the wolf from these biologically impoverished isles, there are also sound ecological reasons why a bit more deer hunting would redress the balance, to the benefit of the not-inconsiderable number of bird species which like a bit of woodland understorey. Although they used to go stag hunting, didn't they, which of course is useless as a form of population control...
 
kb57 said:
I don't want to 'troll', but I have to admit I used to upset everyone with my opinions pre hunting-with-dogs ban.
I have an instinctive dislike of the 'unspeakable in pursuit of the inedible' (who was it said that?) which is probably to be honest more to do with class war than conservation. That said, there are no credible pest control / conservation arguments advanced by the fox hunting lobby - it would be more honest if they just admitted that they enjoy it, rather than trying to claim they are somehow both conserving and controlling fox populations.
On the other hand, I could never understand why deer hunting with dogs seemed to generate even more opprobrium. What could be more natural to a deer that to be pursued and killed by a pack of howling canids? Having eradicated the wolf from these biologically impoverished isles, there are also sound ecological reasons why a bit more deer hunting would redress the balance, to the benefit of the not-inconsiderable number of bird species which like a bit of woodland understorey. Although they used to go stag hunting, didn't they, which of course is useless as a form of population control...
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Could it be that we no longer need our dogs to catch our meat and therefore we would be doing this only for a leisure activity.
If the deer need to be controlled why not manage this through more humane ways - because we can. Is it just that this is just not enough fun and games for people?
Another idea would be to stop sending our sheep and cattle to be slaughtered and just send out the dogs?
 
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