But doctors, nurses etc are worth more than warehouse workers aren't they? it is objectively true. In the UK, your worth is decided by your skills and how much money you earn. Denying that is denying the world we live in. Unless you want to patronise the working class by pretending to live in a country where none of that actually matters.
-
Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
UK General Election - 8th June 2017 |OT| - The Red Wedding
- Thread starter Jezbollah
- Start date
- Status
But doctors, nurses etc are worth more than warehouse workers aren't they? it is objectively true. In the UK, your worth is decided by your skills and how much money you earn. Denying that is denying the world we live in. Unless you want to patronise the working class by pretending to live in a country where none of that actually matters.
The country would be at a stand still without warehouse workers, hospitality staff etc. I mean wtf. Low value, what a load of shit. Low skilled jobs in some cases is a fair title.
Can someone elaborate on the political significance of fox hunting? I get that it's an anachronistic activity for aristocrats, but people really seem to be mad about it. Is it that hunting is considered morally wrong in the UK?
In the US, opinions on hunting generally split on the rural/urban axis, not working class/upper class.
In the US, opinions on hunting generally split on the rural/urban axis, not working class/upper class.
Jezbollah
Member
Its generally a very high upper-class bloodsport, that does little for population control of foxes. In the overall scheme of things it's unnecessary, and allowing an open-vote on it is essentially pandering to bored, rich people. I suspect any blowback over this wont last long as there's actually much much more important issues to be focused on.
It's not that it's hunting. They basically torture a fox to death where its ripped apart by a pack of hounds after being chased across the countryside for a few hours. There is absolutely no benefit or justification for doing it - it's the literal definition of a blood sport (they smear the blood over the hounds).
It's a cruel and miserable way to kill an animal, and it's practised only by the very wealthy. Rural areas like it because it brings them jobs and employment.
NekoFever
Member
Hunting in the American sense, as in tracking and shooting the animal, is legal here. There's not really any controversy about it and in fact it's the most effective, efficient and humane way to control foxes.
This is about people dressing in silly costumes and riding across the countryside to let their dogs chase down and literally tear apart a fox.
RedSparrows
Member
It's also a really useful distraction issue. Liberty, animal rights, cruelty, rural economy, conservation, tradition - all shit that gets people REALLY ANGRY, but isn't going to cost the government a huge amount either way, but will take up a lot of attention.
wake up sheeple lol etc
wake up sheeple lol etc
CyclopsRock
Member
Genuinely amazed that so many people give a fuck about fox hunting.
It's a representation of where you stand as a society. Not hard to understand really.
Well, the dogs basically rip the foxes to shreds and it's more about that than actual tracking and culling. There was cases of land owners breeding foxes in barns for the blood sport.
IDS, like most Tories is a complete cunt. His lot don't see humam beings only assets/liabilities.
You literally described a Tory.
Your years of hunting posh Tory totty have warped your sensibilities.
I'm not disputing you, but who are these people?
I can't say I'm surprised.
It's unfortunate how much Israel have managed to get away with over the years.
anonymous_abc
Member
Why would anyone want that?
I thought that's what they were doing with their burka ban stuff the other month. True stripes and that.
it is cruel and evil and it is not hard to give a fuck about it
Miles Quaritch
Member
The thing with fox hunting is that they don't even hunt the fucker, they set some dogs after it and only come in after the dogs have basically torn it apart.
That's not hunting, that's being a cunt for the sake of being a cunt.
That's not hunting, that's being a cunt for the sake of being a cunt.
autumnleaf
Member
Why wouldn't they?
It's cruelty for cruelty's sake. Literally about making killing fun.
Animal cruelty has always been a hot button issue, we're a nation of animal lovers (and I'm allowed to say that 'cos I'm half-Welsh).
Look at the woman who got caught on CCTV putting a cat in a bin, that was national news for a week.
Mix it up with some of the most obvious and visible class division you could hope to see and it becomes a major break point. If you're in favour of fox hunting, that probably says more about you and serves as a better predictor of other policy positions than many other "single issues".
Does it really surprise you that Tories wouldn't understand?
By being hypocrites? It's not like the press is going to hold them to account on it, is it?
No because they give a shit about rich friends!
CyclopsRock
Member
Is it though? If you take out the toffs on horses having fun, it's just dog's chasing foxes. I mean yeah, we killed all the apex predators in the UK so foxes can basically wander around as they like with their main threat being early morning bin vans, but for most of the animal kingdom the threat of being killed by a bigger animal isn't a cruel and unusual happening, it's Tuesday.
To be honest, so is me eating a steak. If I wanted to, I could go throughout my whole life without an animal dying for my dinner. But they're tasty so I eat several cows a year and, given the absolute thrashing I give my nandos card, my chicken kill count is in the thousands per annum. They didn't need to die. They died for my enjoyment.
This is to say nothing of the fact that shooting foxes isn't illegal. In fact, you can ride around on a horse and murder as many foxes as you like, you just can't use dogs to do it. Instead, you - and farmers - are allowed to use guns which are far less discriminatory than dogs, who typically have rings run around them by healthy foxes and tend to end up killing the old, the sick or the weak (much like occurs in the wild, not coincidentally). You shoot a gun and you could hit a fit, young fox, probably not kill it and listen as it crawls off into a hole for an agonising death. Much better.
That said, I actually don't give a shit if it's legal or not, it's such a non issue, but that's sort of my point. IMO the arguments in favour of it being legal outweigh those of it being illegal, but the ferocity with which people hold their views is baffling to me. People have stronger views on fox hunting than Syria half the time.
I think you're being deliberately obtuse.
It's a blood sport. I have no problem with the killing of foxes as part of pest-control. The problem is turning the act of inflicting pain and eventual death into a form of entertainment.
Audioboxer
Member
No point in trying to obfuscate it into something it's not to make your point. Nice whatsaboutism just dropping Syria in too for no good reason.
It stands as equal parts inhumane and also equal parts a beacon signal to the rest of the world what the British way/values are. Just in the same way many international countries turn their noses up at countries which celebrate and idolise bull fighting.
We live in a globally connected world and at a time where the UK is sending out all sorts of mixed messages about how its own citizens are treated you really think fox hunting being wheeled out again is just going to be met with lots of "lol who cares?".
Shooting to protect your livestock/crops isn't illegal as it's accepted as what is unfortunately needed done as humans can't communicate with wild animals to get them to find their food elsewhere. Wildlife may need to die humanely to protect ourselves. We have a responsibility to reasonably protect our own food. Going out on hunts with dogs to the actual homes of wild animals to send dogs after them and their young not to necessarily control but just see blood and mutilated carcasses whilst twirling moustaches is not the same.
Not to mention the actual dogs themselves trained to bloodlust are often treated terribly and maintained solely for the purpose of killing. Not really as respected pets.
I'd have said it's no different to matador's killing bulls for sport, but the bull does at least get eaten.
Air Zombie Meat
Member
Exactly what I was thinking.
Audioboxer
Member
True, largely optics, but you shouldn't be pandering to the nitwits cackling about this being the British Way. Yet again another example of Tories selling out morals to buy votes (convenient this is being wheeled out again now weeks before a general election, just like the energy cap nonsense). Most civilised countries put forward that you shouldn't just be going around killing for the sake of killing. Certainly not as a dress up sport pitting animals against animals so you and your mates can have a mighty fine chuckle.
Humane killing is normally done under specific conditions for food production (industrial or individual), or its done in the genuine name of vermin and/or protecting one's crops. That's generally the most civilised way we can come up with right now and not many wish to regress. Of all the things we can celebrate Britain for fox hunting shouldn't be one of them.
CyclopsRock
Member
It sounds like your primary concern is optics rather than the rights and wrongs of it.
Anyway, you're all missing the obvious arguments against my points:
It's different to eating meat, because for most animals their life would never have come into being without the meat industry. Chickens, Cows, Sheep etc all live in vastly larger numbers than would be supported without the human consumption of meat, and if you're able to provide a decent life for them during that period in which they inhabit this lovely little rock - which is to say, they're free range and have BMX's or whatever makes them happy - then their positive experiences of life outweigh the brief smack of death (which, at any rate, comes for us all at some point) and thus the bi-product of farming them for meat is in fact a net positive in animal welfare - This is how many meat eaters who, nonetheless, don't like the idea of killing animals justify it to themselves.
Furthermore, your (and again, I'm talking to myself here) argument that "we kill all sorts of animals for our enjoyment" would easily justify animal cruelty in your home by shoving razor blades into a dog's tail, would justify cock fighting, bull fighting, dog fighting etc, so what's the difference? Would you like it to be legal and proper for a person to go on gum tree, find as many unwanted dogs as possible and use them as bait dogs to gain ferocity and a taste for blood in their main fighting dogs?
Audioboxer
Member
Not at all. May is doing it for optics (because of the election and pandering for votes), but you're grossly misspoken if you believe that's only why I care. It should be clearer than a sunny day I find it barbaric and the kind of elitist nonsense peddled to try and get fetishized killing on the go whilst screaming "Is there anything more British my good sirs?".
I don't even know how to approach that last paragraph, but it reads like you need to tow the Conservative line so gotta think about any sort of whatsaboutisms to deflect from any criticism coming their way/Mays way. You've already crassly dropped Syria into the mix, and started peddling the usual "but people eat meat?". I quite sensibly refuted that later concern above by outlining humane and purposeful killing from a blood sport which peddles animals against animals. We don't do a Cow Fight Club in slaughter houses to set dogs or something else on the cows to tear their skin from their bones before shooting them if they aren't already slowly killed from bites/gnawing.
CyclopsRock
Member
I think my whole thing here is going massively over your head. Sorry!
phisheep
NeoGAF's Chief Barrister
I don't like foxhunting at all (to the extent that I am barred for life from one country pub for banging on about it and burning things in the lounge bar). It's a very nice pub too - or at least it was 10 years ago.
But I am extremely worried about governments being in the business of banning things just because a majority disapproves of them. That's the way you end up with death sentences for apostasy and with the sort of thing that passes for abortion 'debate' in the USA, and of course anti-gay laws all around the world.
I'm no great fan of bringing foxhunting back, but I think it set a possibly dangerous precedent banning it in the first place.
But I am extremely worried about governments being in the business of banning things just because a majority disapproves of them. That's the way you end up with death sentences for apostasy and with the sort of thing that passes for abortion 'debate' in the USA, and of course anti-gay laws all around the world.
I'm no great fan of bringing foxhunting back, but I think it set a possibly dangerous precedent banning it in the first place.
Air Zombie Meat
Member
I got it. You posted disingenuous nonsense and then refuted it yourself. Why? That's not clever it's just annoying.
Audioboxer
Member
If you say so but you did invoke some of the usual deflections used to try and suggest people need to leave fox hunting alone/back off/focus on something else.
Some of it is perception, in that there is dislike for the elite and history behind it as a blood sport. The view that training dogs in a nation of pet lovers simply to be killers and used as a function of a sport, where they don't really get a say and routinely get forced or abused to kill (starved/beaten) is cruel. Also the perception that wildlife minding its own business in its own homes in the wild deserve to be left alone as much as we can. That is often the mutual respect humans try to have for wildlife. If it isn't bothering us, don't bother it. If it isn't ravaging our crops or livestock, don't just kill it for the lolz.
Then moving on from perceptions, people don't like the ethics behind practising something that has very little benefit or outcome other than cheering blood, suffering and death. As mentioned above the animals are often in their own habitat, not intruding on human structures, and have dogs sent down their burrows/homes to savage them and their young. Or parents/young chased for miles causing unnecessary stress before death. Then the deaths themselves often come about from essentially being eaten alive or torn apart. Does anyone eat their cows and pigs alive? No I don't think so. As above nor do we play and torture our livestock, or at least it would open ethical outrage and potentially legal action if and when it's found out livestock is abused.
Yes, banning a blood sport is going to lead to anti-gay laws. That truly is the next logical step.
Cmon man, that is way out there. As much as many of us are railing on the UK and Government/political parties, we are quite a decent nation with the things you mention. Religious fundamentalism isn't that widespread and those that are wanting to try and mix religion with politics are often 'marginalised' via our fairly decent separation of Church and state. I guess what I'm saying is your points are a bit mental as it stands, but attributed to the UK they are even more unrealistic.
We're quite a good nation of supporting freedom of religion but largely implementing it as a private matter. Our Governments rarely if ever rule via a religious lens. Support for women's rights and LGBT is better than it is in many countries as well. Banning fox hunting is not changing any of that lol.
Governments ban loads of things, I don't see why tearing animals for fun is something too far.
Of course if you remove people from the equation it becomes something different entirely. But the government isn't there to legislate hate crimes in the animal kingdom, its there to regulate human behaviour.
I remember you posting a few days ago why people hate Tories so much, and tbh you could use this post as a pretty good example. Needless cruelty for the sake of it, combined with a total inability to even comprehend how someone could be bothered by it
This is possibly the worst use of the "slippery slope" argument that I have ever read.
Audioboxer
Member
Better said than I, that is what I was trying to convey.
"I'm too smart for you so I'm going to bail from the debate!"
Stumpokapow
listen to the mad man
Surely there are already regulations on what can be hunted, how many can be hunted, and how the hunting can proceed? Surely there are already regulations on the manner in which animals can and can't be killed, even in industrial production?
Roberto Larcos
Member
- Status
Similar threads
- Locked