B
broken
Guest
If fox hunting was a passtime of a minority religious group instead of the countryside establishment, New Labour would be falling over themselves to preach "tolerance and respect in our communities," Tony drawing his hands together and interlocking his fingers in a gestue of "solidarity."
The sad reality is that we're living in a society now where political correctness has perverted our values to such an extent that many peopl cannot recognise truth and have no interest in preserving debate about "accepted norms," which must be debated in any healthy society. On balance, fox hunting is probably slightly barbaric in that it glorifies the bloody murder of animals, but that is not the point here. It's been shown that there is no humane
way to kill a fox. Parliament debated this and the evidence shows that farmers will have to kill foxes to protect their sheep, which is entirely legitimate, and that if not for fox hunting, the foxes will probably be shot. This usually causes far greater suffering and often results in a slow, painful death for the fox, as well as increased attacks on sheep with the higher numbers of foxes.
This rather derails the argument that banning fox hunting would improve the lot for foxes, but more to the point, this debate shouldn't really be about whether it's cruel. Lots of things in society are cruel, the question ought to be - why should government be legislating on dubious moral questions we as a society face? It's within anyone's rights in a free society to campaign against fox hunting and demonstrate and to make the case against it. But I son't see why the law should be used in this way to ban it. It's an issue of exercising your own individual moral judgement, and the statistics show the moral values of the people in britain vary wildly on this issue. Some are absolutely for, some think it's an issue of choice, many are against but think it's an issue of choice, and a small number want it banned completely - so why should the government pass such a dubious piece of legislation riddled with practical problems both in its intention and its implementation when so many people do not support it? Of course the reason for this is simple - New Labour PLC want to placate the angry extreme left, who will somehow feel validated after 8 more years of corporare governance, why? Because they've finally stopped the toffs hunting, and kicked them out of the Lords. It's really shallow politics at its worst. As for the parliament act, it has no role to play in this type of legislation. Not only is their argument flawed and their reasons for wanting to implement the law morally wrong, but they've even broken the constitution to force this legislation through parliament.
There are many more barbaric practices in modern Britain that hurt animals more than fox hunting ever could. While many experts believe fox hunting causes less harm to the fox than shooting and therefore protects foxes and sheep form the alternative, as well as supporting thousands of jobs, everyone is agreed that bleeding animals to death as muslims and jews do to prepare their halal and kosher meat is barbaric and causes great suffering and pain. Will labour sugest doing anything about this? Of course not, and rightly so - they must have their freedom to practice their religion maintained. But those in the countryside ought to have their freedoms to practice their culture maintained and their eccentric and sometimes unpalatable activities should be tolerated just as those of the major religions are - why should they be persecuted simply because they don't happen to subscribe to a religion in a "protected" category?
As to my initial point about "truth" and political correctness - witness the attack of obscenities on punchdrunk - a man whom I dislike from what I know of him. He hasn't been racist or even bigoted, but has simply pointed out the hypocrisy of the politically correct in protecting minority groups while ignoring the rights of the mainstream. Ironically, he was then savaged by these very people, who say far more critical and insulting things about "christians" and "bible bashers" on this site than punchdrunk has said about muslims or Islam. WHy is it that these people are so incapable of exercising reasonably consistent moral judgement?
You can't savage Christians and Christianity, which I hear practically every day on the TV, from certain sections of the muslim community who keep talking about a "zionist conspiracy" etc. and yet turn around and attack someone for saying something critical of another faith, such as Islam. That is hypocrisy, and the fact you do it with such self-righteousness only makes matters worse.
The sad reality is that we're living in a society now where political correctness has perverted our values to such an extent that many peopl cannot recognise truth and have no interest in preserving debate about "accepted norms," which must be debated in any healthy society. On balance, fox hunting is probably slightly barbaric in that it glorifies the bloody murder of animals, but that is not the point here. It's been shown that there is no humane
way to kill a fox. Parliament debated this and the evidence shows that farmers will have to kill foxes to protect their sheep, which is entirely legitimate, and that if not for fox hunting, the foxes will probably be shot. This usually causes far greater suffering and often results in a slow, painful death for the fox, as well as increased attacks on sheep with the higher numbers of foxes.
This rather derails the argument that banning fox hunting would improve the lot for foxes, but more to the point, this debate shouldn't really be about whether it's cruel. Lots of things in society are cruel, the question ought to be - why should government be legislating on dubious moral questions we as a society face? It's within anyone's rights in a free society to campaign against fox hunting and demonstrate and to make the case against it. But I son't see why the law should be used in this way to ban it. It's an issue of exercising your own individual moral judgement, and the statistics show the moral values of the people in britain vary wildly on this issue. Some are absolutely for, some think it's an issue of choice, many are against but think it's an issue of choice, and a small number want it banned completely - so why should the government pass such a dubious piece of legislation riddled with practical problems both in its intention and its implementation when so many people do not support it? Of course the reason for this is simple - New Labour PLC want to placate the angry extreme left, who will somehow feel validated after 8 more years of corporare governance, why? Because they've finally stopped the toffs hunting, and kicked them out of the Lords. It's really shallow politics at its worst. As for the parliament act, it has no role to play in this type of legislation. Not only is their argument flawed and their reasons for wanting to implement the law morally wrong, but they've even broken the constitution to force this legislation through parliament.
There are many more barbaric practices in modern Britain that hurt animals more than fox hunting ever could. While many experts believe fox hunting causes less harm to the fox than shooting and therefore protects foxes and sheep form the alternative, as well as supporting thousands of jobs, everyone is agreed that bleeding animals to death as muslims and jews do to prepare their halal and kosher meat is barbaric and causes great suffering and pain. Will labour sugest doing anything about this? Of course not, and rightly so - they must have their freedom to practice their religion maintained. But those in the countryside ought to have their freedoms to practice their culture maintained and their eccentric and sometimes unpalatable activities should be tolerated just as those of the major religions are - why should they be persecuted simply because they don't happen to subscribe to a religion in a "protected" category?
As to my initial point about "truth" and political correctness - witness the attack of obscenities on punchdrunk - a man whom I dislike from what I know of him. He hasn't been racist or even bigoted, but has simply pointed out the hypocrisy of the politically correct in protecting minority groups while ignoring the rights of the mainstream. Ironically, he was then savaged by these very people, who say far more critical and insulting things about "christians" and "bible bashers" on this site than punchdrunk has said about muslims or Islam. WHy is it that these people are so incapable of exercising reasonably consistent moral judgement?
You can't savage Christians and Christianity, which I hear practically every day on the TV, from certain sections of the muslim community who keep talking about a "zionist conspiracy" etc. and yet turn around and attack someone for saying something critical of another faith, such as Islam. That is hypocrisy, and the fact you do it with such self-righteousness only makes matters worse.
