Purpletigron

Good ... now all I need to do is to figure exactly what the Countryside Alliance really stands for and my day will not have been wasted. Because it has very little to do with fox-hunting.

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purpletigron.livejournal.com

I'm quite unclear about that one myself. Do let me know when you work it out...

According to their Web site (http://www.countryside-alliance.com/), the are about "ensuring the sustainability of rural life". This statement seems to be laden with assumptions about the concepts of 'sustainability' and 'rural life'.

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the-gardener.livejournal.com

....especially when you find the organisation press-releasing such Alice-in-Wonderland statements as "Todays' (punctuation strictly sic) massive Alliance demonstration outside Parliament against a hunting ban is not about hunting, Chief Executive Simon Hart has said".

Perhaps they'll start running classes in existential philosophy next.

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Someone said something not dissimilar on the radio earlier, and I thought 'what?' It struck me that bursting into the Chamber was a protest action somehow out of all proportion to the matter under discussion. I don't actually believe that Western civilisation is going to collapse if fox-hunting is banned, yet these people ... words fail me.

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Oh yes, one girl said it was the first thing in her adult life she'd ever felt strongly about ... life, get one. The world's climate is falling apart because of global warming, what's going on in the Sudan, in Iraq, Afghanisation, Beslan, you name it, beggars belief, and she's upset because she isn't going to be able to hunt something inedible for entertainment while claiming it's vermin control. This is what's wrong with the world.

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There are actually parallels between the way this is being pushed through and the way that the war on Iraq was pushed through. In the latter case a small majority or a large minority of the whole population were ignored when it came to a parliamentary vote on war (I can't remember the standing of the opinion polls at the time). In the case of hunting with dogs (whioch is more than just fox hunting - I'm told its one of the few ways of tracking down mink, which are a huge pest) it seems that a largely urban population is forcing through legislation that only affects a rural population, which is mostly against the ban.

Western civilisation won't fall, but such 'tyranies of the majority' are bad for democracy. One can also see parallells with the attitude of the US Republicans to abortion and birth control, where a largely male legislature (largely against abortion and not so sure about birth control) takes action to control something directly relevant to women (largely pro choice and birth control).

The majority, whether of a population or of a legislature like the house of commons, is not always right, and there need to be checks and balances to ensure that. Such checks and balances as we have in the UK were ignored in the case of the Iraq war and, it could be said, they are being ignored now. That is why this is a cause of concern.

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I agree about the democratic process. On the other hand, we wouldn't have got old age pensions if Lloyd George hadn't steamrollered the Lords, for example. So I'm in two minds: I cannot understand for the life of me why anyone would wish to prolong the suffering of an animal (which is what riding to hounds is all about, unless it's a drag hunt, because otherwise they'd just shoot), and it seems to me to fly directly in the face of all the animal welfare laws in existence; I am uncomfortable with undemocratic processes, even when sticking with the democratic process means results I abhor. I can see where the temptation to simply take everything in hand and steamroller the process comes in, especially when it's something you feel incredibly strongly about, and that is scary. So I feel very torn.

As for the CA being representative of "the rural community": balderdash. I grew up in the countryside, and though lots of people in our area were horsey, very few thought the idea of the hunt was acceptable. One of the local sports, which I understand is common and widespread in hunting towns and villages, was for local working class boys to work out where the hunt was heading and head them off to make the hunt difficult. They did it, their dads had done it before them, and their dads before them... It was done because it was fun, and because the hunt was seen as for rich people and social climbers. My father was in the position of policing the hunt for quite a few years, which he regarded as a waste of police time. The hunters really got up his nose, because the assumption was that the police were there to do their bidding (as, in fact, they had been, in decades past: police = working class, hunters = upper class, ergo police do what hunters tell them); he took deep delight in informing them that they were there to ensure the upholding of the law, regardless of who might get arrested, and, by the way, they were aware of the fact that filling in earths was illegal and an arrestable offence, right? Of all the police officers dealing with the hunt, only one backed the hunt, and the rest considered it morally indefensible, destructive of property, and socially obnoxious. So, to sum up: most people in my rural community thought the hunt was a pain in the neck (farmers' crops trampled, peoples' gardens trampled, hunters with bad attitudes). As to livelihoods depending on the hunt, if they simply shifted over to drag hunting, I see no reason why any jobs should be lost at all. The Cheshire Drag Hunt, for example, has been going strong since the late 50s, and lots of people who otherwise object to hunting might be interested in galloping around the countryside after hounds if no animal was being chased.

That was all rather messy. Sorry.

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Also, and I should have thought of this earlier, the protestors may have shot democracy in the foot themselves - by invading the Commons, especially at a time of heightened security fears, we could be looking at a security clampdown on the Commons which may affect the openess of Parliamentary debate. That worries me enormously.

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It worries me too... It strikes me as the effect of a 'jolly jape', undertaken with undergraduate enthusiasm and igenuity, going horribly right.

They should have stuck to the well worn and, I am told, constitutionally supported practice of rioting...

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I'm going to reply to your comment in two parts... One on political issues, and another on the substantive issue of hunting with dogs...

The reason this bill is being pushed through when it was, quite legitimately, stuck in limbo previously, is because its Blair's way of paying off the left wing backbenchers for their support in the votes on war with Iraq. Its as simple as that. Democracy, doing the right thing (for fox, countryside or farmers) are nowhere in it. And the reason why the left wing backbenchers are against it has little, as far as I can tell, to do with animal cruelty but everything to do with it being perceived to be the sport of the upper classes. Fishing, a sport of the lower classes, which sentences droves of fish to slow death by suffocation, remains sacrosanct. This seems to be an astounding double standard, but then maybe I'm still guilt tripping myself over having fished when young.

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its Blair's way of paying off the left wing backbenchers for their support in the votes on war with Iraq. Its as simple as that.

My impression was that a hunting ban had been voted for by the Commons twice already, and had been bounced back by the (unelected) Lords? A 339 to 155 vote to ban doesn't look like it was a hard-fought struggle to push through a left-wing agenda.

Fishing, a sport of the lower classes, which sentences droves of fish to slow death by suffocation, remains sacrosanct

I think that most people are able to accept that mammals have basic emotions, and that foxes feel exhaustion and fear; they're also not being hunted for food, but more for sport than anything else. But many people still honestly believe that fish don't have emotions such as fear, an I am amazed at the number of people convinced that fish can't feel pain. They see fishing as something that causes no suffering, and which is done for food. Now, they're wrong, but there does seem to be a cultural opposition to thinking of fish as feeling beings. I'm all over the double standards - I'm constantly astonished that people who would go beserk if a cat was kicked are not only uninformed about how the meat they're eating got on their plates, but will say "I don't want to know about it" after asking why I won't eat it. I remember hearing about my father having hauled someone in for disturbing the peace when she was protesting an angling competition, and all the adults around me laughing at the idea of someone fighting for the welfare of fish. When I asked them what was funny about the idea of fish suffering, they first looked blank, and then laughed it off again. I think the real problem is that, because riding to hounds is a minority sport, it's lost its cultural acceptance; because most people eat fish, they haven't had the idea of fishing as perfectly acceptable really challenged, so it's not simply a class issue, but a wider cultural issue over eating habits and ethics.

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I certainly won't deny that huntspeople can be a huge pain in the neck, but this bill isn't aimed at stopping that. They'll be a pain whether they're hunting foxes or draglines.

The bill, though, is aimed at all hunting with dogs, be it foxes, hares, mink or whatever. I think hare coursing is pretty much indefensible. Mink, in contrast, I'm told are pretty difficult to hunt with anything but dogs, and they cause a huge amount of damage to wildlife and farm animals. Fox hunting stands somewhere between these two extremes, as I see it. Foxes do cause damage to livestock, so there is a need to control them. The question is how to do that. I'm unconvinced that shooting is any less cruel than hunting. Yes - you do not necessarily have the stress of the hunt, but shooting is not a guaranteed quick death, whilst being torn apart by dogs, while distasteful, is not as lingering as death by gangrene from a non-fatal gunshot wound. This is not a clear cut issue, and I don't think anyone has properly investigated it. One could also ask about the level of suffering that foxes inflict on their prey...

I also worry about the effect this will have on the overall fox population. If they hunt, landowners and farmers have an interest in having at least some foxes on their land. Without hunting, is there any reason for them not to hunt foxes to extinction so as to protect livestock?

The justifications for all this, and the actual facts of the matter, aren't part of the process we're seeing because its all bound up in political horsetrading and prejudices on both sides. And that just leads to bad democracy, which is where we started.

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They'll be a pain whether they're hunting foxes or draglines.

I doubt that draglines will go through farmer's fields or peoples' gardens, will they? The whole justification for thundering across peoples' property is that it's where the fox went on its erratic way. The draghunters I've met have been few and far between, so I can't say I have a good idea of them, though I can say I've never heard people banging on about them the way I have about fox hunters.

Mink, in contrast, I'm told are pretty difficult to hunt with anything but dogs, and they cause a huge amount of damage to wildlife and farm animals.

Releasing mink on the British countryside was one of the most stupid and irresponsible things ever. I wish I had a good, humane solution to that one, but I'm clueless (in general, but specifically here, too).

I'm unconvinced that shooting is any less cruel than hunting. Yes - you do not necessarily have the stress of the hunt, but shooting is not a guaranteed quick death, whilst being torn apart by dogs, while distasteful, is not as lingering as death by gangrene from a non-fatal gunshot wound.

The RSPCA says it's incredibly rare to find foxes in such a state, and that more foxes are successfully shot than hunted. They also keep foxes for rehabilitation in "foxproof" pens from which they can't escape. I'm wondering why farmers with livestock likely to be attacked by foxes (usually poultry) can't be given a subsidy to put their livestock in foxproof pens overnight - though, of course, most poultry isn't in open areas these days; often, even free range poultry are locked in quite securely.

Without hunting, is there any reason for them not to hunt foxes to extinction so as to protect livestock?

They already did it. The foxes being hunted today are the descendents of imported foxes brought from the continent when our native foxes had been hunted to extinction; hunters demanded that their sport continue, and so Reynard became Rufus. Foxes are adapting nicely to urban areas these days, so it's not true that the countryside is the last bastion of fox populations.

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the-gardener.livejournal.com

Given that the Alliance was set up specifically to resist a ban on fox-hunting and the introduction of the right to roam, and has failed to achieve either, there seems no point to its continued existence.

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purpletigron.livejournal.com

They will find something new to campaign about... and the reversal of the legislation in question, of course.

Love the pint!

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