Submit Response is a weblog by Jack Mottram, a Number Crunching
From today’s Eye:
700 - Parliamentary hours devoted to decision to implement hunting ban.
7 - Parliamentary hours devoted to decision to go to war in Iraq.
Depressing.
Recently, despite really not giving a shit either way what people do to foxes, I’ve been taking a pro-hunting stance. The way I (pretend) to see it (for effect) is that one job for a kennel-worker or farrier, that allows him or her to feed a family and pay taxes is worth - what? - a thousand foxes. Probably more.
Preference utilitarianism is always good for this sort of a thing, but the more I wind people up with this argument - people who (really) believe (for whatever reason) that the lives of a few vermin are worth losing sleep over - the more I begin to genuinely believe it. Insofar as one genuinely believes anything.
Where was I?
Oh, yeah. Foxes. Not important. At all.
Ah, but the jobs could be maintained by switching to drag hunting (where the hunt chases a trail laid by a human - the human needn’t be in drag but that might liven it up further). One suggestion you see put forward is that the hunt sabs can be the ‘fox’, thus ensuring they still have something to do as well. No jobs lost (in fact a few created for the faux foxes, as well as ‘fox exterminator’ jobs), horses and hounds will continue to be put down at the same rate, land will continue to be ripped up by the passing of the hunt. The difference will be new initiates won’t have blood smeared on their faces to prove they’ve been in on a kill.
But yes, the number crunching is just plain depressing.
Posted by Mags at 11am on 26.11.04
Hee - I love the idea of sabs turned quarry!
But yes, drag-hunting would seem to dent my pretend argument rather. Though presumably hunting people actually like the unpleasantness at the end of a nice horse-ride, or they would’ve switched already?
Posted by Jack Mottram at 3pm on 26.11.04
Yes, the resistance to drag-hunting does rather suggest that the employment arguments are secondary to the death of the uneatable.
(I was also disappointed to see the pro-hunt protestors hurling placards at police horses last night, which seems to undermine their animal-friendly argument)
Living in the West Country, the damn debate is top story every night and it’s tedious. And vaguely embarassing.
Posted by Mags at 7pm on 26.11.04
Let’ be honest, it’s nothing to do with the foxes. If it was, we’d either have banned it with bear fighting, or paired it with a angling ban.
The truth is that people who don’t foxhunt have a prejudice against posh people in full blown regalia leaping from one field to another as if they own all the land. Maybe they do. I think the real debate and the reason this has taken so long, is that it is the left finally bringing up the problem of ownership of land and the priviliges inherited by the few in this country.
One of the most fundamental problems with this country really.
Posted by Donny at 10am on 30.11.04
That’s kind of what I mean - it’s a class war thing, but all the people on the anti side neglect to account for the people working on fox hunts, only those pratting about on horses on the day.
Talking of land ownership - we just got rid of feudalism in Scotland, only a couple of centuries late. No more vassals being granted feu by their superior now, oh no!
(As for why it’s taken so long - that’s the real problem: an unelected second chamber.)
Posted by Jack Mottram at 3pm on 30.11.04