Foxhunting: for and against. - Page 5

**bombermouse** · August 15th, 2016, 12:02 PM

i was brought up to believe that if you kill something, you have to eat it. It seems like a good rule but it didn't win me any friends in Viet Nam.

**SanteeFats** · August 15th, 2016, 05:53 PM

In the US foxes are not hunted with horses, hounds, and uppercrusties. In some states they are trapped for their fur. In every state that has them though they will be trapped or shot when they prey on farm animals. If they stay away in a lot of states no one cares.

**bloke57** · August 17th, 2016, 07:04 PM

To me it is, in the end, a subjective test.

I have no objection to killing foxes quickly and cleanly as they do constitute vermin and cause losses to farmers.

Foxhunting (in the English style) however, is a way to take pleasure in killing god's creatures - and anyone taking delight in the effective torture and destruction of an animal is vermin themselves.

These people are no better than the lowlife that torment domestic pets. Whatever is going on in their brains is no different and cannot be excused by privilege and traditional clothing.

**bowlinggreen** · August 17th, 2016, 07:42 PM

Not to piss on you English folk, but dressing up in fancy jockey clothes and riding down a fox with dogs and horses seems a bit odd of a sporting pastime. How did this evolve anyhow?

Like Santee says, here in the states we deal with foxes on a more practical level - they do get hunted for fur, and killed off when they start eating chickens out of the coop and such.

I don't think it is entirely fair to moralize country vs. country though on what they do for sport. We've got people here who will go sit out on the plains all day with very expensive high powered rifles and shoot prairie dogs for fun. No point to that at all, except the killing.

Maybe the whole fox hunt hate thing is a class resentment issue?

**bloke57** · August 17th, 2016, 08:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bowlinggreen

Not to piss on you English folk, but dressing up in fancy jockey clothes and riding down a fox with dogs and horses seems a bit odd of a sporting pastime. How did this evolve anyhow?

Maybe the whole fox hunt hate thing is a class resentment issue?

In my opinion it is precisely that...and no worse for it. The whole "tradition" appears to have been designed to allow landlords to maraud over the lands laboriously husbanded by their tenants as a low-level form of oppression. The tenants were, of course, reluctant to complain.

The land ownership pattern in the U.K. has been the source of resentment for a millennium - since the landed gentry (basically the Norman invaders) stole the land at the time of the Domesday book to give themselves an unassailable source of power and income.

Even today a few "noble" landed families own vast parts of our country because, in the words of the late Duke of Westminster, "they had an ancestor who was friends with William the Conqueror". The shameful "enclosure" acts of later centuries only compounded this injustice.

But this has been lost in the mists of time and no-one here ever seems to ask the question of why this fundamental inequality is allowed to persist in a modern, democratic society. In my view a more important question for the cohesion of our society than whether we belong to the EU or not!

**bowlinggreen** · August 18th, 2016, 06:46 AM

Going a bit OT, I can see where you are coming from. I have read a bit about the history of enclosure, and this seemed to set a disastrous course for many of the English common folk driven off the land.

Unfortunately, we have had our own version of "enclosure" here in the US in recent decades, as government policy and corporate manipulation has pushed a lot off small farmers off the land and essentially given these small freeholdings over to corporate agribusiness.

I thought the whole "nobility" thing was finished in England, so you still have some of that?

**bloke57** · August 18th, 2016, 11:16 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bowlinggreen

.

I thought the whole "nobility" thing was finished in England, so you still have some of that?

That's what they'd like us to believe bg - because that way no-one gives a thought to why there is still a plethora of earls, dukes, marquises etc. who own huge parts of the countryside from which we are excluded. They never bought it or earned it - they pilfered it. The noble families are simply the offspring of yesterday's mafia.

We are then told we have a housing crisis and the populace are pushed into ever smaller but more expensive boxes on "brown field" sites. Rents are so high they constitute a drag on our economy as disposable income becomes squeezed to its limit.

Thus inequality is built into British society but hidden in plain sight. I hope there will be a backlash one day but I'm not holding my breath.

August 17th, 2016, 07:42 PM	#44
bowlinggreen Veteran Member Join Date: Apr 2015 Posts: 4,192 Thanks: 48,677 Thanked 49,168 Times in 4,188 Posts	Not to piss on you English folk, but dressing up in fancy jockey clothes and riding down a fox with dogs and horses seems a bit odd of a sporting pastime. How did this evolve anyhow? Like Santee says, here in the states we deal with foxes on a more practical level - they do get hunted for fur, and killed off when they start eating chickens out of the coop and such. I don't think it is entirely fair to moralize country vs. country though on what they do for sport. We've got people here who will go sit out on the plains all day with very expensive high powered rifles and shoot prairie dogs for fun. No point to that at all, except the killing. Maybe the whole fox hunt hate thing is a class resentment issue? __________________ So much porn, so little time...

August 18th, 2016, 06:46 AM	#46
bowlinggreen Veteran Member Join Date: Apr 2015 Posts: 4,192 Thanks: 48,677 Thanked 49,168 Times in 4,188 Posts	Going a bit OT, I can see where you are coming from. I have read a bit about the history of enclosure, and this seemed to set a disastrous course for many of the English common folk driven off the land. Unfortunately, we have had our own version of "enclosure" here in the US in recent decades, as government policy and corporate manipulation has pushed a lot off small farmers off the land and essentially given these small freeholdings over to corporate agribusiness. I thought the whole "nobility" thing was finished in England, so you still have some of that? __________________ So much porn, so little time...

August 15th, 2016, 12:02 PM	#41
bombermouse Veteran Member Join Date: Oct 2009 Location: In the fog Posts: 3,869 Thanks: 105,805 Thanked 33,567 Times in 3,839 Posts	i was brought up to believe that if you kill something, you have to eat it. It seems like a good rule but it didn't win me any friends in Viet Nam.

August 15th, 2016, 05:53 PM	#42
SanteeFats Super Moderator Join Date: Jul 2013 Location: Santee, Ca Posts: 60,942 Thanks: 282,146 Thanked 815,692 Times in 60,990 Posts	In the US foxes are not hunted with horses, hounds, and uppercrusties. In some states they are trapped for their fur. In every state that has them though they will be trapped or shot when they prey on farm animals. If they stay away in a lot of states no one cares.

August 17th, 2016, 07:04 PM	#43
bloke57 Veteran Member Join Date: Nov 2015 Location: Unaffordable housing Posts: 4,923 Thanks: 31,646 Thanked 68,928 Times in 4,921 Posts	To me it is, in the end, a subjective test. I have no objection to killing foxes quickly and cleanly as they do constitute vermin and cause losses to farmers. Foxhunting (in the English style) however, is a way to take pleasure in killing god's creatures - and anyone taking delight in the effective torture and destruction of an animal is vermin themselves. These people are no better than the lowlife that torment domestic pets. Whatever is going on in their brains is no different and cannot be excused by privilege and traditional clothing.