I wonder why we’re fucked up as a race
You know, what is it in people that gets them all riled up about some poor ickle fox being killed by dogs but can turn a blind eye to this, this, this, this, this, this and this?
How can we have elected representatives whose moral compasses are so comprehensively fucked that they can debate fox hunting for 700 hours and the bombing of women and children for a mere seven?
There is something deeply twisted in the human make-up that allows them to relate to animals more than people being treated like animals. I suppose it’s unimportant until it’s you having the needles pushed under your fingernails.
Five Live wasted more time, money and energy this morning by giving a platform to morally-compromised yahoos shedding their righteous tears of fury over bears being made to dance in Eastern Europe and pigs being chained up so the evermore corpulent British public can have cheap pork on a Sunday.
The western world spends more on pet food than it spends on overseas aid.
A lot of people seem very happy about the fox-hunting ban - after all, it’s not every day a crumb falls from the New Labour top table. And Labour’s backbenchers have been so very, very hungry of late. Boy, did those who’d grabbed their ankles over Iraq savour their fox-hunting victory feast.
Quite clearly, stopping foxes being torn to pieces has made people feel a tiny bit better about brown people on the other side of the world being blasted and tortured to fuck.
We couldn’t stop the war but Hey! at least we’ll prevent a few foxes being ripped to bits - they can be legally shot, poisoned or trapped instead and have much more humane, lingering deaths. And while those pesky fox-hunters are in the news we don’t have to worry about the broken bodies, the shattered lives, the orphans and the widows.
Does anybody have a time machine?
Posted on February 18th, 2005 at 2:06 pm
| See also • Foxwatch • Let them eat medals • Still Finding a Synergy |
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I understand the point you’re making, and do agree with it to an extent, but I’m afraid you may have chosen a bad target with regards to animal welfare (whether it’s fox-hunting or the factory farming of pigs).
What’s wrong with campaigning for an end to animal cruelty? I believe, for instance, that a decent society should treat animals with a certain level of respect. I even tend to agree with the idea that it’s through acts such as the commodification of life via factory farming that the epidemic of cancers in our civilisation is being generated.
I agree there’s a possibility that politicians have been using this debate as a smokescreen to obscure other issues. But at the same time; the fox-hunting debate just happened to be the piece of legislation to highlight the absurdity of an unelected body over-ruling the wishes of an elected government with a huge majority on an issue clearly promised in the election manifesto.
It could just as easily have been some other contentious piece of legislation. The fact that The ‘Lords’ chose to dig their heels in on this particular law is almost besides the point.
And it should also be pointed out that for every animal rights activist who contributes to the petfood industry or eats battery-eggs, there’s an anti-war protester who owns and drives a personal automobile.
There’s also a very natural, biologically-driven tendency to take interest in things that are physically close to you. So when a compassionate person sees a hunt operating in their locality, there is a much more immediate impulse to deal with that injustice than there is to deal with a much greater injustice on the other side of the planet. I don’t think people can (or should) be criticised for this fact.
We are indeed fucked up as a race. I couldn’t agree more. But I don’t believe a campaign which aimed to end a form of unnecessary cruelty (however long it took) is a good example of that fact.
Yes, there are worse things in the world than fox-hunting. But if we don’t address a problem because there’s a worse one somewhere else, then nothing ever gets done.
PS: It appears the Tories have promised to “make time” to repeal the fox-hunt ban should they be re-elected.
Best keep your fingers crossed that “Backing Blair” isn’t too successful. Otherwise we might have another 700 hours of debate on the issue!
Couldn’t agree more Chicken. The Foxhunting bill was always a sop thrown to Labour’s core supporters and, as yesterdays wonderful orgy of fox hunting displayed, is completely unenforceable.
The sad thing is that by this useless bill (which I support just because it pisses off the landed gentry) Labour get to show their caring compassionate side as we come up to the general election, conveniently glossing over the whole rabid anti-immigrationism, the illegal war in Iraq, the erosion of civil liberties with house arrest without trial, the rape of female inmates in Abu Ghraib yadda yadda yadd the list is too long.
Y’know what’s sad? Blair will get re-elected as well because our political system is so skewed towards the Tories and Labour that no one else can get an edge in at the moment.
I think I’m going to emigrate at this rate.