fucking fox hunting!!

IdleRich

IdleRich
"i remember a private eye snippet earlier this decade which showed how many parliamentary hours had been spent on the hunting ban compared to how many hours were spent deciding to go to war in iraq."
This is the important part - I mean, I find foxhunting a pretty distasteful "sport" participated in by utter cunts but I really couldn't give too much of a fuck about it, I certainly wouldn't have gone to the length of banning it. By putting so much effort into making illegal a basically harmless (for people) pastime they made a huge issue of it which has distracted many people's attention from a load of stuff that is much more important. Always seemed totally inevitable that it would pointlessly raise its pointless head once again...
 

Benny Bunter

Well-known member
My ex-girlfriend's mam was in with the countryside alliance/fox-hunting crowd so I have direct experience of these people. Needless to say I found them utterly repulsive and it solidified my dislike of this 'sport'. Just the worst sort of rich, selfish country twats who couldn't really give a fuck about anyone else or their views on the subject (and I'm from the lake district btw). Presenting any sort of reasonable argument to them is a complete waste of time, they're not interested in anyone else but themselves. All they do is bang on about traditions. The 'tradition' argument just doesn't wash with me I'm afraid, it seems almost completely irrelevant to the main issue being discussed. Its a brick wall.

I'm biased obviously, but for me what really gets up my nose is the people that do it and what they stand for, much more than the activity itself. Sorry, but its true. They are all cunts.
 

Benny Bunter

Well-known member
This is the important part - I mean, I find foxhunting a pretty distasteful "sport" participated in by utter cunts but I really couldn't give too much of a fuck about it, I certainly wouldn't have gone to the length of banning it. By putting so much effort into making illegal a basically harmless (for people) pastime they made a huge issue of it which has distracted many people's attention from a load of stuff that is much more important. Always seemed totally inevitable that it would pointlessly raise its pointless head once again...

But now that its banned how can you justify going through all the rigmarole of unbanning it again? (I'm not suggesting this is what you personally want btw)

I agree that there are 1000s of more important issues to be addressed first, but this sort of argument plays right into their hands. There's a much bigger picture behind all this, thats why its such an emotive issue. And it hasn't got much to do with the suffering of foxes. I mean witness my rant above lol ;) I really don't want to say the 'C' word, but yunno...
 

Slothrop

Tight but Polite
I hate to steal lines from people who have probably been described as "the new Billy Bragg", but:

Chris TT said:
Where were you when the miners fought to save their livelihoods?
Dressed up in red velvet somewhere deep in the woods
You loved the fucking poll tax, you propped up Margaret Thatcher
And you didn't give a fuck about Tony Blair
'Til he threw your hobby back at ya.

...

Call it a betrayal - looks like that to me
Call it bad behaviour and a waste of time and money
I've never been in favour of police brutality
But when the huntsman comes a-marchin'
Well give him one for me, officer, give him one for me.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
"But now that its banned how can you justify going through all the rigmarole of unbanning it again? (I'm not suggesting this is what you personally want btw)"
True enough. In general though, I'm not in favour of passing laws banning things unless there is a really good reason so I can understand why people who are into chasing foxes are up on their high horse - as I would be if my hobby suddenly became illegal - I just don't understand what motivates the other side (other than an understandable hatred of the landed gentry of course), it's only a fox for fuck's sake and only a few of them are actually affected.
 

don_quixote

Trent End
is it not sort of risky territory for the tories to drag this corpse back up. i mean, i don't think people care about it so much, but with this and inheritance tax, it all looks like votes for the wealthy doesn't it?
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
By putting so much effort into making illegal a basically harmless (for people) pastime they made a huge issue of it which has distracted many people's attention from a load of stuff that is much more important.

This is it exactly - and not just things like illegal wars and whatnot, the CA has stupidly let hunting become their main focus at the expense of all sorts of other much more important issues that are directly to do with the countryside - the rural economy and rural (un)employment, the collapse of local services like post offices, farming, the environment...things that deserve much more attention than they get but often don't make headlines like this big "bloodthirsty toffs vs. dreadlocked sabs" class-war narrative that surrounds foxhunting and its opponents.

...as I would be if my hobby suddenly became illegal...

Oh come on Rich, one of your hobbies is frequently illegal.
 

jtg

???
I just don't understand what motivates the other side (other than an understandable hatred of the landed gentry of course), it's only a fox for fuck's sake and only a few of them are actually affected.
There isn't really a principled reason to support the ban other than resentment/hatred of the upper classes. No fewer foxes die, because the fox population needs to be managed anyway -- the only difference is that they're shot instead of being hunted. And while you may share a dislike of the people who participate, can anyone honestly claim that it's worth banning a sport that people enjoy out of spite?

The CA has stupidly let hunting become their main focus at the expense of all sorts of other much more important issues that are directly to do with the countryside - the rural economy and rural (un)employment, the collapse of local services like post offices, farming, the environment...things that deserve much more attention than they get but often don't make headlines like this big "bloodthirsty toffs vs. dreadlocked sabs" class-war narrative that surrounds foxhunting and its opponents.
The CA quite understandably views it as an assault on their way of life, which is why they devote so much attention to it. And, as you say, it gets a lot more publicity than other issues. I think it's more symbolic than a case of weighing up which is the most important issue.
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
only in England I swear. I mean I guess there have been hunt sabs in the States (buffalo in Montana comes to mind) but it's not really the same cos hunting is a working-class thing here, or at least one that cuts across class lines. I sometimes find it hard to believe you guys still have these packs of absurd 19th-century aristocrats roaming free. anyways didn't Oscar Wilde get the last word in on the stupidity of fox hunting like, over 100 years ago?

but please can dudes stop referring to it as a "sport"? it's not like the foxes and the ridiculous people who hunt them all picked sides for a pickup game of basketball (or footie, I guess). also how is fox hunting an integral part of anyone's "way of life"?
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
"There isn't really a principled reason to support the ban other than resentment/hatred of the upper classes. No fewer foxes die, because the fox population needs to be managed anyway -- the only difference is that they're shot instead of being hunted. And while you may share a dislike of the people who participate, can anyone honestly claim that it's worth banning a sport that people enjoy out of spite?"
Yeah exactly. Although, like Padraig said, I don't think that (possibly reluctantly) concluding that it doesn't need to be banned necessitates referring to it as a sport - unless in sarcastic quotation marks. While it may just about meet wiktionary's definition ("Any athletic activity that uses physical skills, often competitive") it's hardly a very sporting one.

also how is fox hunting an integral part of anyone's "way of life"?
Well, I guess if your job is looking after the hounds or something then maybe but for everyone else I find the "way of life" argument pretty specious - I grew up in the countryside and I've never been on a foxhunt, as it happens I see more foxes in Hackney than I did in Oxfordshire.
 

jtg

???
I don't think that (possibly reluctantly) concluding that it doesn't need to be banned necessitates referring to it as a sport - unless in sarcastic quotation marks. While it may just about meet wiktionary's definition ("Any athletic activity that uses physical skills, often competitive") it's hardly a very sporting one.
The label doesn't matter too much, although I think I'd consider riding on its own a sport, so it isn't too much of a stretch to extend it to hunting.

also how is fox hunting an integral part of anyone's "way of life"?
I suppose just as much as going to the football is to other people's life. Just because you yourself don't do it, or even understand it, doesn't mean that it isn't important to someone. Morris dancing strikes me as pretty absurd, but I've no doubt there are lots of people who enjoy it, and it's probably part of their way of life.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
I think padraig's post sums up the main (real) reason many people are opposed to it: it's "for toffs" so it "shouldn't be allowed". Of course the nominal main reason against it is that it is extremely cruel, and this is undeniable. But if you could quantify animal suffering (in Britain, at least) I think fox hunting would be quite far down on the list, after factory farming, animal testing for cosmetics and abusive/neglectful pet owners. Not to mention meat and fish imported from countries where animal welfare standards are much laxer or essentially non-existent. And from an ecological POV, foxes are hardly endangered and are a serious pest to farmers.

Personally, I think it's pretty fucked to get pleasure out of an animal's suffering - and fox hunting is fairly unique in this respect, in that if you go pheasant-shooting or whatever the animal dies a fairly clean death and is eaten afterwards, which is fine. From an animal-rights perspective, this kind of hunting is probably far preferable to the way most meat animals are raised and slaughtered in ordinary farming. And if you're serious about keeping fox numbers down you can of course just shoot them.

In the long run, I would have to say I probably support the ban, but with the reservation that many people who supported the ban did so for the wrong reason. As Rich said, the fact that you dislike someone or find them repugnant does not give you the right to dictate what they can and can't do - it should be the effects, if any, of their activities on other people that decide this. Or, in this case, the effects on animals (arguably). Whether the person doing the whatever-it-is grew up on a hereditary estate or a housing estate is irrelevant, or at least should be.

(BTW, hunting, shooting, falconry and so on were 'sports' for hundreds of years before the word came to mean stuff like football and tennis.)
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
fox-hunting is not a sport in the same way that cheerleading is not a sport. both may require athleticism & skill (clearly, cheerleading moreso) they're not sports. equestrianism is to fox-hunting as gymnastics are to cheerleading.

if the foxes had guns and could shoot back, then it would be a sport.

Just because you yourself don't do it, or even understand it

yes, that's the problem, we simply don't understand the glorious traditions of silly rich people dressing up in even sillier costumes to go chase foxes around the English countryside. please don't deprive this tiny, enormously overprivileged group of this completely gratuitous activity. banning fox-hunting is stupid - it just gives these douchebags an excuse to gripe about being "oppressed" - but I swear, this kind of nonsense is exactly why people always root for the Zulus to come & bash Michael Caine's sneering head right in.
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
t's "for toffs" so it "shouldn't be allowed".

again, banning it is stupid but if dudes can't see this is just a visible focal point for I mean, centuries really, of pent-up (& often justified) class resentment, then they're just blind. the irony about the "way of life" bit is that if it wasn't a rich person's way of life, no one would think twice. again, in the U.S. you could never get away with this - this is the country where a born & bred Yankee aristocrat like G.W. Bush went to great lengths to pretend to be a populist Texas oilman (and, unbelievably, was able to attack Kerry for, of all things, speaking French). honestly, I don't know which is worse - fake populism or oblivious aristocratic haughtiness. the former is dishonest but the latter is just, so...galling.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
"(BTW, hunting, shooting, falconry and so on were 'sports' for hundreds of years before the word came to mean stuff like football and tennis.)"
And now the word as it's commonly used has pretty much changed its meaning, but, yeah, this is all beside the debate.

"please don't deprive this tiny, enormously overprivileged group of this completely gratuitous activity. banning fox-hunting is stupid - it just gives these douchebags an excuse to gripe about being "oppressed" - but I swear..."
What I'm saying (and I think you're saying too) is that banning it is the worng battle to pick - partly because the fact that it is gratuitous is not in itself a good reason to ban it.

"is it not sort of risky territory for the tories to drag this corpse back up. i mean, i don't think people care about it so much, but with this and inheritance tax, it all looks like votes for the wealthy doesn't it?"
Missed this but yeah I reckon you're right. Let's hope so eh?
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
again, banning it is stupid but if dudes can't see this is just a visible focal point for I mean, centuries really, of pent-up (& often justified) class resentment, then they're just blind. the irony about the "way of life" bit is that if it wasn't a rich person's way of life, no one would think twice. again, in the U.S. you could never get away with this - this is the country where a born & bred Yankee aristocrat like G.W. Bush went to great lengths to pretend to be a populist Texas oilman (and, unbelievably, was able to attack Kerry for, of all things, speaking French). honestly, I don't know which is worse - fake populism or oblivious aristocratic haughtiness. the former is dishonest but the latter is just, so...galling.

But how many working-class people actually have this symbol of class oppression "rubbed in their faces", as it were? The vast majority of people in Britain, of all classes (except maybe the very few actual upper-upper-class fox-hunting types themselves), live in cities or towns. And large parts of the countryside don't have a local hunt anyway. And how many of the protestors and sabs come into the countryside from towns for that purpose? I'd guess not very many, and a fair few, respectively.

For the majority of people who care strongly about it one way or the other, it's something they see on the news or read about in the paper occasionally. It's like whingeing about billionaire Arabs building artificial islands, or Al Gore's carbon footprint.



Edit: I agree with you 100% about phoney populism, and if anything I think it's worse than old-skool snobbery because people actually fall for it and because I'm old-fashioned and hold dishonesty - at least that kind of dishonesty - in total contempt. But I can't really see the relevance of it to fox-hunting and I'd hate to see you do that classic Nomad thing of making every thread about America.
 
Last edited:

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
But how many working-class people actually have this symbol of class oppression "rubbed in their faces", as it were?

it's the same as anything. peoples faces get rubbed in class differences on a daily basis on many fronts - housing conditions, access to education, job opportunities, etc - which it is extremely difficult or impossible to do something about. OTOH, it's pretty easy to get some bile up for "toffs" chasing foxes around. so people might not really be connected to fox-hunting, but it is a convenient and easy target.

if you followed any of the recent town hall business in the States it was similar - the complaints generally had very little to do with healthcare. it was a convenient forum for people to vent feelings about the things they're angry at/afraid of but which are often too big or difficult to grasp.

anyway, you won't see me shedding a tear for fox-hunters anytime soon.

But I can't really see the relevance of it to fox-hunting

see above
 
Top