Thank you for your post!…

As a Londoner, I tend towards the “you do your thing, we’ll do ours” with countryside matters. Its not the best practice to advertise the human spirit, but there you go.

Have you tried to out stare a fox?

Also, what’s wrong with people who own countryside charging about it as if they own it? What’s far worse is chavs charging around public places as if they own them. That would be a far more logical complaint to have.

As somebody who has taken part in both foxhunting and raves, I can assure you the major difference is in the fact that the former is done with the blessing of the landowner, the latter is most certainly not.

No, I wouldn’t either. Specially not that bushy tail.

I think the fox itself is a red-herring. It’s not about the fox, it’s about the disgusting sadistic blood-lust of the people who get off on it all. It shouldn’t be allowed. What’s wrong with clay-fox-hunting anyway?

Most people do not shoot game or catch fish because they need to eat what they kill; they do so because it is fun. This is evidenced by the fact that although it is possible to eat deer, pheasant, and bear relatively few people who shoot them eat what they kill. Therefore, the ‘eating’ bit ought to be irrelevant.

Therin lies the source my my arm-chair angst.

Although, I’m not sure my phrase “an affront to nature” equates to “its evil because its fun.” The ‘eating’ bit is crucial to my stance. People also have fun catching a fish, and I’m much less troubled by that.

Either way, there definitely is a difference between thinking someone is a tosser for doing some particular thing (subsitute “evil” for “tosser” if you wish), and legislating against such tosserness/evilness. I’m with Gerard all the way.

As it stands, we do recognise some rights for animals, both in their treatment when alive and how they are to be killed. Should these rights enter into any kind of utilitarian or libertarian equation (and therefore, subject to any kind of moral or political law)? In my case, I think certainly the former, because I am of course a fucking hippy who buys into some kind of connectedness between humans and other living things. But if politics only delves into nature and the environment when it directly affects human beings… then probably not the latter.

There’s a facetious parallel with the Saddam hanging here. He needs to be ‘culled’ says the Justice – does it matter how it happens?