I am writing an important letter to William Hague on his proposed inquiry into torture (via my MP to make sure an FCO bureaucrat does not bury it). I am marshalling my evidence but trying to keep it short, plain and unemotional.
So no energy or time for significant blogging today. Some thoughts to keep people going.
I am staunchly against fox-hunting. In my youth I was in the Hunt Saboteurs Association and remember great fun laying aniseed trails to disrupt otter hunts somewhere near Kings Lynn. I would happily do that again. I supported the ban on fox-hunting.
But I have changed my mind. I still strongly oppose fox-hunting, but I no longer think it should be illegal. New Labour changed my mind. They opened my eyes to the dangers of authoritarianism and the criminalisation of numerous activities. The mind that will ban protest outside parliament and make it illegal to photograph a policeman or railway station, is a mind seeking to abuse the power of the state.
New Labour convinced me that excessive state power is a real evil to weigh in the balance when considering how to deal with any issue. I consider fox hunting an ill, but state interference a greater ill. Any liberal should believe that the state should interfere in liberty as a last resort.
Other forms of social sanction can and should be deployed against fox hunters. Social disapprobation, ridicule, protest, peaceful disruption. But is the crushing hand of the state really required? No, I don’t think it is.
The same goes in my view for the smoking ban. I don’t smoke and hate cigarette smoke, But should it be illegal in pubs and restaurants, which are private property? No.
Lights blue touchpaper and goes back to his letter to William Hague…
Sabretache,
yours is the only mention of road traffic deaths of animals on this thread. I read the figues for these once; I don’t remember them but I was shocked at the huge numbers. Larger animals were given in tens and hundreds of thousands. Hedgehogs, frogs etc. were just shown as how many thousands of tonnes. Of course, not all of this car-nage is accidental.
I was asked by a neighbor to sign a petition supporting the introduction of the Wild Mammals (hunting with dogs) Act. I refused. My dog regularly caught rabbits (which I learned to skin and cook – very tasty!), and I didn’t want to read pages of legalese to find out what penalty I or he would risk. This probably explains the exception made for rabbits. The exception for rats is probably because ratting with dogs is a necessity.
In practical terms I’m nearly vegan; you’ve about a one in five chance of finding any animal-sourced food in my house, apart from the dog’s food. I don’t eat supermarket meat (what’s the point?) and I’m opposed to factory farming techniques.
There is a pheasant shoot near where I live, and deer are culled. Most of the people that oppose this are not vegetarian. I tell them that the pheasants and deer here have a far better life than the chickens and other animals they regularly buy from the supermarket.
It seems that ‘out of sight is out of mind’, and that fox hunting is conspicuous.
Many people here have mentioned bear baiting and dog fighting etc. I consider this comparison unfair; these are contrived cruelty arranged with captive animals. Hunting is a (predominantly male) human instinct, and the human alliance with dogs and horses goes back a very long time. Both species probably did more to make us who we are than most people suspect or would admit.
I reiterate that I find dogs killing a fox revolting. However, I accept that this is my personal squeamishness (I feel just the same watching wildlife programmes), that there are other valid points of view, that it is a complex issue, and therefore that I can’t support legislation.
Lwtc247,
interesting points you raise about 7/7. A (reliable) friend of a friend told me a story that indicated foreknowledge (though only of a few minutes) by someone in authority. Sorry, I’m not going into this further, the contact being personal. The type of explosive claimed by the authorities was subject to revision after some months, I believe.
Yes, I doubt investigation will go far enough, but at least it’s a step in the right direction, and may help to prevent more such incidents.
Incidentally, fox hunts did need permission to use land, public or otherwise – they couldn’t just ride anywhere.
Duncan McFarlane,
this is another complex issue. I’m concerned that passive smoking is getting blamed excessively, drawing attention away from other risk factors.
‘Your Life in Your Hands’ by Jane Plant is an interesting book about the risk factors in cancer – it concentrates on breast cancer, but has more general implications, too. The power of various industries to warp the scientific picture is very worrying.
Doctors are very much targeted with carefully slanted ‘science’.
Many aspects of our modern way of life increase the risk of cancer; plastics, dairy produce, radio frequency emissions, etc. I think that tobacco smoke may have been chosen to ‘take the rap’, so that other risk factors can continue to be lucrative.
For some light relief… does anyone remember Paul and Barry Ryan? Here’s ‘The Hunt’:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXR2vGY-6O4
@eddie – Brian Haw’s right to protest against an atrocious war – and all its suffering – is significantly more important than anyone’s right not to be offended by his posters.
I think we previously agreed that at least 100,000 people have died in Iraq as a result of the invasion (and as you know, I regard the Lancet report as the best available in a difficult situation, which multiplies that figure by a factor of 10). Now, regardless of your views or mine on the war, it is surely a valid perspective to wish to protest against it.
And other people agree, I suspect. Haw was awarded “Most Inspiring Political Figure” at the Channel 4 Awards in 2007.
No Craig, I think your compass was a bit sharper in your youth in this respect. Fox hunting is in the same category as bear baiting, dog fighting, hare coursing, and boys hanging out of their bedroom windows firing air guns at cats. There should be laws to prosecute the lot of them. Being a liberal doesnt mean that each of us has liberty to do exactly as we please. There have to be lines in the sand – banning cruelty to animals for sport is a line that it is imperative to draw. The biggest criticism against New Lab with their anti-cruelty with dogs legislation is that they didn’t do it properly. Still, a fudge and a botch is better than nothing and I don’t think we should retreat from the small but significant gain that has been made.
ScouseBilly – go and talk to your doctor or pretty much any doctor or healthcare professional – inhaling cigarette smoke causes lung diseases.
You are correct – pretty much all of them read from the same mendacious script. However, rather than accept (your) appeal to authority, I prefer to look at the epidemiological “studies” that supposedly back their position. Guess what, they are not supported.
Joe Jackson (nothing to do with Big Tobacco) after extensive research wrote an essay, Smoke, Lies and the Nanny State:
http://www.joejackson.com/pdf/5smokingpdf_jj_smoke_lies.pdf
That was me above.
Clark,
Agree with you. I couldn’t understand why there should be a complete ban on smoking “indoors” while heavier than air carcinogens from traffic concentrated at “pushchair” level were virtually ignored. In other words,the real and provable demons are ignored at the expense of truth and freedom. Sounds a bit like CO2 – interesting evidence given under oath from a physics professor at Princeton:
http://globalwarming.house.gov/files/HRG/052010SciencePolicy/happer.pdf
Scousebilly,
one difference between the treatment of tobacco smoke and CO2 is that tobacco smoke has been severly clamped down upon, whereas lots of noise is made about CO2, but emissions continue to rise.
The hypocracy gets me. No government was ever serious about reducing their own CO2, just everyone elses. Oh, and raising lots of tax in the meantime.
It’s not that CO2 (or tobacco smoke) might not be a risk; it’s that action taken against the risk is inversly proportional to the power of the groups offended by such action.
Clark,
I like to see evidence of risk – not advocacy and propoganda.
There is a parallel here. Both anti-SHS and CO2 are relying on misrepresentations of good science and statitical analysis.
Both rely on redefining scientific integrity with Ravetz’ PNS – a dangerous fraud,
My comment was purely drawing attention to the difficulties the Irish Government caused for themselves by basing their ban on the carcinogenic properties of smoke (real or imagined).
It did not warrant your rude response.
I have seen Doll’s research and agree that it raises some very interesting questions.
My reference to “category of its own” was intended to refer to the smoking ban interfering in the daily life of almost every citizen, unlike the foxhunting ban, for example.
My comment above directed at ScouseBilly.
Polo, I wasn’t at all clear what your comment meant.
I totally agree that it is a uniquely illiberal policy.
Although I would suggest it rests on the same “settled science” propoganda as AGW.
You may like this:
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/commentaries/march_of_zealots.pdf
Scousebilly, do you work for a tobacco company, by any chance? This sounds exactly – almost word-for-word – like the arguments they issued for many, many years before even they finally were compelled to accept that fags kill. Lots of others things do, too, I agree, and yes, there is probably operative selective political hypocrisy, as usual. But none of that detracts from the fact that fags kill.
It disturbs me to see people willing to summon anguish and condemnation over such a fleeting cause as the caricature of the doomed countryside fox, who without the all of the hunts historic cultural theater and cosplay will simply be shot, poisoned or starved to destitution for being as he would, the unchecked sharp toothed predator in farm and countryside ecosystems.
I have never been on a hunt, and hardly met anyone who has, i am almost vegetarian and against suffering of all animals and peoples, and i am repulsed by the idea of brutal sports like boxing, badger baiting, cock fighting, but those hunts just seem like nice traditional events to me, even including a celebration and respect of the otherwise unceremoniously exterminable vermin.
Between us in our land, we gobble up the crooked carcasses of millions of desparately raised, factory culled creatures every week.
Half the world withers and dreams of what it might be like to live without the terrible all consuming burden of maintaining the systematic supply of our bloated material appetites.
Our daily ways and means are so cruel, we darent really look, so we make caricatures , and get _them_
Nice that you make your post calling badgers ‘vermin’ anonymously whoever you are. It’s hard to tell exactly what your point is – though maybe i’ve missed it.
If ‘vermin’ means doing damage to the countryside, the natural environment and reducing our ability to produce food in future then humans are the greatest vermin of all. Should we kill ourselves too?
You’ll also find that most opponents of fox hunting are against cruel farming practices and many of them are vegetarian (e.g me).
How you think that two wrongs somehow make a right is beyond me though.
Suhayl, no I don’t nor have I ever worked for a tobacco company.
Primary smoking itself doesn’t kill but can precipitate/aggravate “smoking-related” conditions. The research is clear but has been grossly and deliberately exaggerated since the work of Doll.
Second hand smoke, however, has never been demonstrated to lead to cancer albeit lobby groups would have us believe it is a given.
I could facetiously ask you if you work for BigPharma but I won’t. Let’s just ask cui bono? The clue lies in expensive gums and patches.
Now ask yourself this; children through the 40’s to 70’s were pretty much de-facto heavy passive smokers, why didn’t they show high levels of asthma and other “smoking-related” conditions?
There are suggestions that banning smoking in pubs, coffee houses was a deliberate WHO (UN) initiative because traditionally these have been the meeting places for intellectual dissent. This may or may not be true but we must protect the internet and freedom of speech at all costs.
Suhayl, do read the Joe Jackson link above – he’s a good guy.
ScouseBilly – they didn’t show high levels of asthma because no-one claims smoking causes asthma (though it certainly makes it worse for people who already have it). They got lung diseases including lung cancer.
Vehicle emmissions certainly cause the same illnesses (plus asthma) – that doesn’t show that cigarette smoke is harmless.
Arguing that it does is like claiming being bombed with conventional bombs is good for you because being hit with a nuclear strike is worse.
The World Health Organisation is not noted for crushing dissent either.
Duncan, does Enstrom and Kabat mean anything to you?
And if anybody tells you it’s discredited, ask by whom.
Take a look at the Federal ruling against the (US) EPA. I mean look in some detail and you will see policy leading “scientific” conclusions.
I’m not here to argue the toss wiht propogandists merely to ask people to think for themselves and do their homework. You haven’t cited one source btw…
Scousebilly and Duncan, there are a number of interesting points here.
The coffee-house sedition idea was an C17th/ C18th one – they apparently closed coffee-houses down then because they reckoned they were foci of dissent and rowdiness. Coffee woke people up, while booze sent them to sleep or into fights. But I’m not sure smokers (even as were, pre-smoking bans) were any more or less ‘seditious’ or ‘subversive’ than anyone else, though the tobacco industry tried an succeeded in portraying the image as such. Yes, there’s Che Guevara and his Cuban cigars, back in the 1950s/ 60s and of course who would deny Fidel his Havanas? But how about the big capitalists with their cigars? (!).
In any case, now many ‘subversives’ I know are lifelong non-smokers, though of course many others are smokers.
I think it’s a red herring. But an intriguing one, in view of the historical vignettes.
But I shall check-out the links, thanks.
Duncan, you state NOBODY claims smoking causes asthma.
Try googling – smoking causes asthma:
Here are just 2 of the 126,000 results:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/1562147.stm
http://www.bupa.co.uk/health_information/html/health_news/270503smoke.html
Should I believe anything else you have to say on the subject?
Scousebilly – since every US President and member of congress has their election campaign heavily funded by big companies (including arms, oil and tobacco firms) US federal government agencies are heavily influenced by those firms, so one of them claiming tobacco isn’t so bad is hardly surprising.
Suhayl – interesting – i didn’t know about the coffee houses.
Suhayl, Sartre was a chain smoker, you know.
Actually, I always get suspicious when claims are made that something is bad, bad, BAD.
Recall the stories of German atrocities in the US press that suddenly started appearing before the US joined in -= e.g. chopping hands off babies.
Nicotine has interestingly positive (cognitive) effects on brain chemistry; improved concentration etc. but woe betide anyone pointing this out. For a smoking G.I. deprivation of his nicotine could mean a seriously premature death, yet that’s what was being proposed by smug committee people in their safe offices.
The US EPA has considerable form in this area and now calls CO2 a pollutant. The lunatics really are running the asylum 😉
Duncan, I am well aware that there are seen, and worse, unseen, hands behind politicians and their initiatives.
However, as stated repeatedly I urge people to go back to source. That is empirical evidence – not surveys, nor op-eds.
Are you a CP graduate, by any chance?
P.S. Everyone should read tis:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/26/AR2010022603369.html?hpid=opinionsbox1
Mr McFarlane, i never maligned the badger. Im posting anonymously because i don’t wish to build a profile, just comment occasionaly. (I think there are more than enough personalities here to hold the house)
“You’ll also find that most opponents of fox hunting are against cruel farming practices and many of them are vegetarian (e.g me). ”
You mean you have met some that aren’t vegetarian? Shouldn’t you harass those cuckoos, put horse crap in their bacon sandwiches, and spit on the chickens in tescos? Try hounding your own kin for their vices.
“How you think that two wrongs somehow make a right is beyond me though.”
Surely it is wrong to cause upset to others, but that wrong can be offset by worthy outcomes.
In this case, the suffering of millions of livestock throughout their lives in socially upheld farming practice is immensely greater than the sum experience of the hunted foxes. Truely greater -by a factor of millions. That means the upset you are prepared to make in the name of the fox is a millionth as worthy as the upset you could make in the name of our ghettoed livestock. I could get upset at a hunt sabber for swatting midges using rationale -two wrongs don’t make a right. Fools rights can be all wrong.
Realise that being chased down and gobbled up by a predator is just about the least traumatic way which nature has given a wild animals life to end. Without predation wild animals slowly starve and die of sickness. Without wolves the wild deer herds where tormented by sickness (believed some Inuits).
We don’t live in a heavenly reality where it might be wish to harass the hunting celebrations. There are so many more serious causes to put passion into than this, hunt sabotouring does not look virtuous at all, it in fact looks like the kind of ignorant brutalising sport which it imagines it is opposing.
@eddie: thank you, but I too support Mr Haw; I think his persistence and bravery against legal and physical attacks have been incredible. He is not an eyesore, unless our consciences are. Talking to him is an education; he is thoughtful and serious. You should try it one day.