For Fox Sake...

[Loki]

I'm not a veggie
I hate flip flops
I don't own an acoustic geetar

I just registered a 2 out of 3 using that 'are you a hippy?' criteria.

* walks away humming Purple Haze ... *

[RicheyJames]

When we look close enough, we'll see that death is ubiquitous, it's all around us, all the time. Some of us tend to think about it often, and feel sorry about it. Some don't give a ****.

christ on a bike. i'm amazed you ever make it out of your front door. of course, we have no evidence that you ever do...

[Mrs RicheyJames]

JB is more of a hippy than I. It's official!!! LOL

[lazarus corporation]

I never claimed you had no right to state your opinions, but I did imply that your opinions had less validity

thing is, comments like

If you can't be bothered to do anything, then don't criticise those who can

and

if you care so much about it then do something or stop whining

do give the impression that you believe that nobody has a right to criticise your opinions unless they too have "walked the walk". and it's that sort of sanctimonious bull**** that really disengages people from debate.

Many apologies if my remarks were perceived as in any way curtailling your right to your opinions. That was not the intent.

In many ways, you're correct. After several years of hunt sabbing, when I hear people saying things about hunting without having seen it close up then I not so much as get on my high horse, but rather leap on it and charge.

It's a result of strong feelings on my part about the subject due to my beliefs and also having had very confrontational situations with the pro-hunt fanatics - many of my "opponents" in this debate have come at me with fists and pick-axe handles rather than just words.

Having said that, I do still believe that if you think something needs changing then the best thing to do is to stand up and help change it. That can be by direct action, or by putting 50p in a collection tin, or by signing a petition, or by raising your child in the way you think is correct (possibly the most extreme form of direct action).

Or indeed by having a t-shirt printed saying "Sisters gegen Nazis" rather than just promoting your album.

/grabs nearby olive branch and offers it/

[Mrs RicheyJames]

I not so much as get on my high horse, but rather leap on it and charge.

pppppppffffffffffffffffff

[_emma_]

There is a world of difference between hunting animals for fun and picking carrots from your garden. Please tell me you understand this?

You don't really think I can't see the difference, do you.

I personally am surrounded by death all of the time and I do think about it often. probably far too often than what is healthy. I have to deal with greiving families day in day out atm. It's not a great place to be mentally. But that doesn't mean i've got to mourn a f*cking flower.

I've often thought it must take great mental strength to work at a hospital. I for one would be unable to laugh, go to parties and have fun etc. if I had to witness all the pain everyday. I'd probably soon end up in a mental asylum myself! A doctor/nurse must be damn resistant to that particular kind of stress, I suppose.
(Which doesn't mean I laugh often anyway - must be the carrots I mourn.)

christ on a bike. i'm amazed you ever make it out of your front door. of course, we have no evidence that you ever do...

Well in fact I tend to avoid it of late. Got bored with it long ago.

[andymackem]

Actually, we're the only species on Earth that's supposed to be able to make use of these things. I'm talking about conscience, compassion, and mercy.

True, but infinite compassion will destroy you. I'm sure you've heard of compassion fatigue, to spout a trendy buzzword of relatively recent history. There's a line between a selfish "I'm alright, Jack" attitude and a sensible approach to protecting your own interests. Reading of what you write, I wonder (in a sympathetic sense) whether you've drawn your line in the most appropriate place. But I have no right to question the decisions you have made, even though I couldn't live in that particular frame of reference.

Remember the message of social responsibility that underpins Christian western society and morality: Love thy neighbour as thyself. It does rather depend on you being tolerably happy within yourself. At the lowest points of my past (and there have been a couple, though I'd prefer to put them in PMs if they're at all relevant) I wouldn't have wished my levels of 'self-love' on my worst enemy, never mind my neighbours, friends or family.

When we look close enough, we'll see that death is ubiquitous, it's all around us, all the time. Some of us tend to think about it often, and feel sorry about it. Some don't give a ****.

But most of us fall somewhere in the middle. To say I (or anyone else) doesn't give a shit is unfair. I won't mourn a fox killed in a hunt, or the roadkill I see on my way to work, for that matter. Maybe that makes me a bad person, but I prefer to keep my emotions for where they can actually do some good. And that means, inter alia, not getting carried away with everything that goes wrong in the world and ensuring (through gritted teeth on occasion) that I take time out to appreciate the positive aspects of life.

Hippy bastard!

(Just saving you the trouble, pet! )

Emma, sensitivity is wonderful, but it can be taken too far. Without wishing to overstrain my compassion, please be careful /hug/[/i]

[Quiff Boy]

i think this point could be an election looser for labour.

judging by their reactions it seems like they've really hit the pro-hunt brigade somewhere they're sensitive about and so i reckon they've lost their votes...

also, (and i know its a gross generalisation) a lot of people who are likely to be glad about the ban are also the kind of people who are pissed off with them for other things such as our involvement in the iraqi conflict, etc

[_emma_]

True, but infinite compassion will destroy you.

We're all bound to be destroyed anyway.

But most of us fall somewhere in the middle. To say I (or anyone else) doesn't give a shit is unfair.

That's why I said "some".

I won't mourn a fox killed in a hunt, or the roadkill I see on my way to work, for that matter.

Well as for me, seeing a roadkill on my way to work means several days of really bad mood, in fact even these days every now and then I have nightmares about roadkills that I saw as a child some 20 years ago. Animals, I mean. Human roadkills are pretty terrible to witness too, but for some reason unexplained they never visit my dreams.

I prefer to keep my emotions for where they can actually do some good.

Oh, so you're able to control it. That's a worthy ability, I suppose. I wish I could do that too.

Remember the message of social responsibility that underpins Christian western society and morality: Love thy neighbour as thyself. It does rather depend on you being tolerably happy within yourself. At the lowest points of my past (and there have been a couple, though I'd prefer to put them in PMs if they're at all relevant) I wouldn't have wished my levels of 'self-love' on my worst enemy, never mind my neighbours, friends or family.

please be careful /hug/[/i]

I'll be fine. Just as you, the foxes, the chickens, the roadkills and everyone else.

[Ian - Rhythm Smurph]

OK - not gonna state my opinions on hunting but thought I'd throw in a few discussion points.

1. Re - There are worse things to worry about!

Indeed there are - the amount of time and energy expended on this issue is alarming when I think of the other issues that desperately need commons time. However, maybe tacking these smaller issues that are easier to ‘solve’ does have an impact on the general environment in which other the more serious issues war, famine etc are debated. For example – consider this. There is apparently a general problem with increased anti social behavior, what would be the knock on effect of a concerted focus on courtesy, politeness and respect for fellow citizens, would putting some time into reiterating this simple aspect of social interaction alter society in a way that makes tackling of the large social issues easier.
Would therefore a society in which we engage in less cruelty sensitize us more to cruel acts and engender more passion for action on the bigger issues.

I suppose I am asking where the top down approach of tackling the big issues first is more effective than a bottom up approach of changing the small things first? I don’t know, I just pose the question.

2. The media have widely reported the violence in Westminster square as the worst since the poll tax riots – does this mean that ‘end of the world’ doom proclamations of the media, especially the Daily Mail and their ilk, about the anti-capitalist, anti-war, reclaim the streets protests weren’t actually as bad as reported?

It seams that the TV cameras were pointed at the police – on BBC news they even had some of the protesters watching playback and commenting on the police ‘brutality’ in the “We, was just standing there and they battered us for no reason� type stylee. No comment from the police was filmed.
I thought this was an amazing contrast to the TV cameras focused purely on the ‘violent’ protesters and comments only from the police of the anti-capitalist protests.

Also the fact that the statement from one of the protesters that the violence was all the result of a ‘lone hunt saboteur who throw a grenade into the crowd’ went unchallenged was particularly interesting.

Looking at the TV pictures it did seem that the police where a little over zealous in their battering of a crowd which were doing little more than shouting and pushing up against the barriers (which is what happens at barriers when there are 50 thousand behind you). But I’ve seen this exact thing before at first hand; only on that occasion the pictures that the TV chose to show made the situation look very different.

[RicheyJames]

i think this point could be an election loser for labour.

judging by their reactions it seems like they've really hit the pro-hunt brigade somewhere they're sensitive about and so i reckon they've lost their votes...

i don't think tony's too worried about the votes of the pro-hunt lobby. they are, by definition, rural types (and that's what really matters not whether they're rich or poor) and therefore not really natural labour supporters anyway. not even in their cunning new guise of undercover tories. add to that the fact that we're talking about a pretty small minority and i think the worst that'll happen is that "noo" labour will lose a couple of seats in the shires where they have tiny minorities.

also, (and i know its a gross generalisation) a lot of people who are likely to be glad about the ban are also the kind of people who are pissed off with them for other things such as our involvement in the iraqi conflict, etc

yeah but tony might have got us involved in an illegal war to look after his chum george's oil interests but at least he's saved the foxes. what's that? you think the deaths of thousands of innocents (on both sides) in iraq is more important than a few mangy foxes being ripped apart by hounds? have you no sense of priorities???

[Quiff Boy]

your first point: aye, true enough i suppose.

your second: one is about sticking our noses in other countries' dodgy dealings and believing what a crook and a liar tells you and the other is about compassion and our general attitude towards our planet and other species. they are both important, but both very different. no comparison of the two is really valid.

[markfiend]

what's that? you think the deaths of thousands of innocents (on both sides) in iraq is more important than a few mangy foxes being ripped apart by hounds? have you no sense of priorities???

Well, this is a valid point. Then again, as QB says, the two aren't really to do with each other are they?

While I'm here, can I just pick up something from a couple of pages ago (sorry):

the countryside (which is a nasty, smelly place anyway)

Hey, well, you need something to go between the cities, right?

[RicheyJames]

While I'm here, can I just pick up something from a couple of pages ago (sorry):

the countryside (which is a nasty, smelly place anyway)

Hey, well, you need something to go between the cities, right?

and what's wrong with more cities???

[markfiend]

and what's wrong with more cities???

I'm stumped! You win.

This time...

[Mrs RicheyJames]

EVERYTHING is wrong with more cities. Although I hate farmers and all they stand for, I like green stuff sometimes.........

[markfiend]

Get a garden then

[Quiff Boy]

Get a garden then

green stuff rules!

[hallucienate]

Get a garden then

green stuff rules!

i'll have some if it's going around, can't be arsed to roll it myself though.

[Mrs RicheyJames]

Get a garden then

I like green stuff in the middle of bum fu*k egypt

[Quiff Boy]

Get a garden then

I like green stuff in the middle of bum fu*k egypt

what?

[andymackem]

While I'm here, can I just pick up something from a couple of pages ago (sorry):

the countryside (which is a nasty, smelly place anyway)

Hey, well, you need something to go between the cities, right?

and what's wrong with more cities???

Well, in the UK our efforts to create more cities have led to Wolverhampton, Milton Keynes and Sunderland, among others, being granted that elevated status in recent years

I don't want to live in a world with more places like that. FFS, Middlesbrough will probably be next and there's no excuse to encourage that. Truly a nasty, smelly place by anyone's reckoning.

I quite like the countryside. Couldn't live there owing to desperate lack of a cultural life and the impossibility of having sex unless your relatives nearby, but I'd hate to see it disappear entirely.

[Mrs. Snowey]

I quite like the countryside. Couldn't live there owing to desperate lack of a cultural life and the impossibility of having sex unless your relatives nearby, but I'd hate to see it disappear entirely.

I rather like the green and grey too. And aren't those placards that you see out in t'countryside great? You know, the ones that say:

"British Countryside, Care Of British Farming"

or some such approximation of the truth

[Rivers]

IMO, the 'Countryside Alliance' and the petrol demonstrators are just the the right wing adopting the same tactics that anti poll tax people and miners, printers etc used in the 80s against a Tory gov. They saw how successful this was as a drip drip drip action against the gov and eventually brought them down. As others have mentioned, perhaps they should have been more concerned about the thousands being killed in Iraq in the name of freedom.
And the fox hunting thing is not really a class issue, I know 3 seperate people who fox hunt and they are all ordinary working class people, not even living in the countryside as such.

[_emma_]

I quite like the countryside. Couldn't live there owing to desperate lack of a cultural life and the impossibility of having sex unless your relatives nearby, but I'd hate to see it disappear entirely.

Well I moved out of the city a few months ago and I think it's one of the best decisions I've made in my life. Nowadays I only travel to the city to work, which is located, thank God, on the nearest to my village border of the city so I don't have to cross the smelly, nasty centre. Honestly if I didn't have to work, I'd never travel to any cities at all, apart from occasions like a particularly interesting art exhibition or a Sisters gig (which feel much better anyway if they take place in the middle of nowhere like Arvika etc.).
So RicheyJames was about right thinking I don't go out, but then again it was my decision and I feel good about it.