Why hunting with dogs is cruel, stupid and full of posh sods.
I didn't mention it at the time, but I am very very happy that the Commons voted to ban hunting with dogs the other day. This barbaric anachronism is well worth getting rid of, especially if we are to see ourselves as a modern society.
The way I see it, hunting with dogs should be banned for these reasons:
1 Cruelty. This 'sport' has only one goal - the violent killing of a small wild animal. This is very cruel.
2 Uselessness. Hunters occasionally claim that they kill foxes to protect farmed animals - that the fox is a dangerous predator and verminous chicken destroyer. Which is partly true. Then other hunters turn round and say 'Anyway we don't catch that many'. So what's the point? If you don't catch many of these creatures (just enough to slake your caveman lust for blood), then it's clearly a stupid and inefficient method of pest control. How many people take part in a hunt? 20 or more usually. And there are usually plenty of hounds around. What a colossal waste of time!!
3 Hounds. Another argument used by the hunters is that if we ban hunting with dogs then all the dogs will have to be put down and that's not very nice now is it? Firstly that's bollocks. If they love the hounds so much then they should look after them at their homes instead of these horrible kennels where they're kept (and starved, mark you). Secondly, they kill all the doggies anyway at around the age of two (but certainly before they reach 5). So the hunting liars claim that they only care about the dogs when they're planning to kill them anyway. Bastards.
4 Workers. The hunters go on to claim that if hunting is banned then the huge number of (working class) people who depend on 'the industry' will be unemployed and no longer able to support their country families which you town people don't understand because we're just all so different, and think of the workers. Firstly, that's bollocks. There are not very many people at all who depend on hunting to support their families. Most people who help with hunts have other jobs. Hunting is a kind of hobby really, and it shouldn't be treated as a sport or an 'industry'. Secondly, this argument about workers is one of the most sickening ones that all these fat Tory slobs could come up with, and I'll tell you why: these fat Tory slobs are the very same fat Tory slobs who laughed and cheered when all the miners finally lost their battle to keep working in the 1980s. They are the same fat Tory slobs who succeeded in destroying whole communities - villages and towns - with their destruction of British industry. Hundreds of people died as a direct result of this radical capitalism, and they have the nerve to complain about a few farmhands losing their Saturday jobs? They don't even care for the farmhands - mark my words, if they could find a machine or foreigner to do the things that a labourer does then they'd get it , sack the labourer and damn his family. Which leads us neatly to my final point:
5 Fat Tory slobs. The hunters have been very keen to make it look as if it's not just wealthy right-wing pricks who enjoy hunting: they claim that there are loads of poor right-wing pricks who love to join in (serving drinks, grooming horses, driving landrovers etc). Clearly, this argument is of key importance because they want to make it look like grubby industrial city socialists like Tony Blair and Peter Mandelson are hell-bent on destroying the countryside because they're not from there, could never understand it, are socialists, hate rich people, loath Olde Englande and don't care about anything further west than Reading. Hunters like to make it look like everyone who is against hunting is either some kind of loony militant vegetarian or a city dwelling metrosexual hair-do type who thinks that horse can only ever refer to smack. This is, of course, bollocks. I'm from the countryside. So are lots of my friends. Our teenage years genuinely were spent wondering around fields and woods after dark, taking tea with the vicar and making butter. I worked in our local delicatessen (a village of 1000 inhabitants that has a splendid delicatessen and 7 antiques shops, including one junk shop which is called - seriously - Ye Olde Shoppe, perhaps this will tell you how country folk look after the country) - and I remember one hunt day very clearly. A family (very wealthy they are) who I knew came into the shop in their stupid hunting clothes and pretended they didn't know me at all. The husband is an old comrade of my father's. I went to school with two of the sons. But that day I was a shop-boy and they were hunters, so they had to pretend that they didn't know me.
You see, most intelligent people from the country are well aware that it is these sorts of people who hunt. Snobs, jaded gentry and pseudo-aristos are the main protagonists of this stupid waste of time hobby. No one would be happier than me to see the smug grins wiped of the smug fat faces of the people who enjoy this vile atrocity. Yes, I take this personally. I make no apologies for that. I hate that these people can claim to love the countryside which I grew up with and which I adore, when all they've ever loved the country for was making cash off the work of the locals, showing off to their friends, and somewhere quiet to take a break from the relentless work of ruining peoples lives.
The fat Tory scum who enjoy hunting can fuck right off as far as I'm concerned. Your time has passed, and whatever you may bluster and burble in your clubs, it may just be that Tony Blair has managed to pass at least one decent class-based piece of legislation aimed at giving the toffs a great big Up Yours!
tombcn.com - my blog posts about travel, books, food and music

December 7th, 2008 - 20:35
What complete and utter drivel.
Rate this comment:
0
0
March 31st, 2009 - 13:47
this is BULL
Rate this comment:
0
0