35,000 liars

[zigzagzig]

In 2003 35,000 peple signed the Hunting Declaration, in which they vowed that they would publicly and openly disobey any law purporting to ban hunting and accept any consequences.

Fair enough. But how many people have honoured their promise? I stand to be corrected, but I think the figure is zero.

Instead we have sites like Liam's Hunting Forum putting out warnings that hunters should be careful when describing their "activities" online. I find this symbolic: hunters have reduced themselves to skulking and whispering and looking over their shoulder when breaking the law in preference to a rather admirable open defiance of the ban.

I find it pathetic.

 

[combat_claire]

As I have told you at least once before, the declaration was arranged long before anyone knew the format the Hunting Act would take. The form that was given to us and that proved so disappointing to the anti-hunting side allowed us to work within the exemptions and thus continue hunting legally. The declaration became surplus to requirements.

As for the 'warning' on Liam's - I wrote it and I have already explained the context - it simply warns people that anyone can read the forums and acts as a gentle reminder to make references to pre-ban activity as clear as possible. I know just how tempted you anti-hunting lot are to use quotes out of context!!

 

[Eagle_day]

35,000 yawns ...

 

[wurzel]

In 2003 35,000 peple signed the Hunting Declaration, in which they vowed that they would publicly and openly disobey any law purporting to ban hunting and accept any consequences.

Fair enough. But how many people have honoured their promise? I stand to be corrected, but I think the figure is zero.

Instead we have sites like Liam's Hunting Forum putting out warnings that hunters should be careful when describing their "activities" online. I find this symbolic: hunters have reduced themselves to skulking and whispering and looking over their shoulder when breaking the law in preference to a rather admirable open defiance of the ban.

I find it pathetic.

I don't do much skulking.

Maybe a little lie in a speech at the meet but not really skulking.

I am happy to break the law.

 

[zigzagzig]

People vowed to break the law - openly and in expectation of legal reprisals - in the event of a ban. The ban happened and... not one of the brave souls on the declaration honoured their commitment. It really is as simple as that.

As for the Liam thread, yes I've noted your explanation. However, I don't accept it. The purpose of the thread is to warn the (rather strange) people on that site not to discuss on an open forum those activities which could potentially be in contravention of the law.

Pathetic.

 

[combat_claire]

But not the outright ban as we first anticipated, it is far more fun to to hunt within the law and show just how ridiculous the Hunting Act 2004 really is.

It is your prerogative not to believe the truth, however as the author I still maintain that I should know what I meant...

 

[zigzagzig]

But hunts aren't just hunting within the law. When they think no one's looking they break it. If you're saying that you don't think hunts deliberately break the law I simply won't believe you.

Personally, I couldn't really care less if hunts are defying the ban. What disappoints me is that 35,000 hunters promised they would do so openly and they broke that promise.

They skulk around in their costumes looking over their shoulder while they naughtily break the school rules. I laugh openly at each and every one of them and spit on their silly declaration.

 

[wurzel]

But hunts aren't just hunting within the law. When they think no one's looking they break it. If you're saying that you don't think hunts deliberately break the law I simply won't believe you.

Personally, I couldn't really care less if hunts are defying the ban. What disappoints me is that 35,000 hunters promised they would do so openly and they broke that promise.

They skulk around in their costumes looking over their shoulder while they naughtily break the school rules. I laugh openly at each and every one of them and spit on their silly declaration.

How do you think we don't hunt openly ??

Do you know how many footpaths there are on Exmoor ?

I don't know how other hunts apart from the Minehead Harriers and DSSH hide it but it is a bit hard to miss !!

 

[combat_claire]

So that will be why despite the activities of monitors there has been just two prosecutions that haven't been acquitted or abandoned. Even the LACS private prosecution in the Isle of Wight has fallen by the wayside. As tom_faggus says it would it is rather tricky to hide 100 people in hunting dress, followed by hundreds in cars.

I have been hunting with many packs post-ban and I can tell you that without exception every pack is trying their damnedest to work within the constraints of the act. That is the truth, but you are free to believe what you like - whether it is some fairy story about the act being good for animal welfare or the reality of what I see on the ground.

I suggest that your real disappointment lies in the fact that despite years of campaigning for a ban on hunting, you got this mangled effort which allows hunts to go out with a slight revision to their normal activities. It must have felt a bit like waking up on Christmas morning and finding your stocking full of dog [****] instead of nice presents.

 

[zigzagzig]

Your post loses some of its self-righteous fire when you say: "I suggest that your real disappointment lies in the fact that despite years of campaigning for a ban on hunting..."

I don't and didn't agree with the ban. Hunting isn't something I'd personally do, but it's every hunter's individual choice whether he or she wants to kill animals for fun.

I'm simply pointing out that 35,000 hunters, with almost unbearable pomposity and self-importance, vowed openly to flout any ban, but then didn't. I would have quite respected a mass openly-displayed v-sign to the Act, but as it is I can't take people seriously who lie on a such a massive scale.

 

[Eagle_day]

"I'm simply pointing out that 35,000 hunters, with almost unbearable pomposity and self-importance, vowed openly to flout any ban, but then didn't."

It really is quite simple: we don't have to.

 

[FrecklesMum]

ZigZagZig; Could you please reduce the size of your banner - its huge! Thanks.

As a lawyer, I would comment that the recent decision on Hunting and the Act and what the prosecution needs now prove, anyone who was openly flouting the law was an absolute idiot. I would personally imagine that the 35,000 people who said that they would break the law have decided that its not necessary!

The Hunting Act is unenforcable, regardless of which side of the debate you look at it from.

 

[SillySausage]

How funny.... FrecklesMum I was just about to say that! I'm not going to comment on the thread at all, but ZigZagZig have you read the T&C's? You need to reduce the size of your signature...

 

[zigzagzig]

FrecklesMum

The Hunting Act is indeed a pile of poo, but it's not "unenforcable". People have been successfully prosecuted under it.

Actually I'm bored of this thread now. I've made my point. If any of the people on the declaration put their name to anything else I'll know to take whatever they say with a rather large pinch of salt.

 

[combat_claire]

Two successful prosecutions in 4 years for what could be classed as traditional forms of hunting is hardly a roaring success, the other successful prosecutions that LACS like to trumpet are offences that would have been caught under poaching laws if the Hunting Act had never been passed.

I apologise for claiming that you campaigned for the ban.

 

[FrecklesMum]

Those prosecutions were before the recent decision. The recent case law has rendered it pretty much unenforcable as reflected by the CPS dropping all intended prosecutions subsequent to this decison!

 

[Hebegebe]

I find you pathetic. So what?

It isn't a lie to say you are going to do something which you then don't.

You appear to lack a basic grasp of English and constantly make false allegations against people.

v v sad

 

[sybil]

Unfortunately I fail to see how people believe the act to be enforcable. If this is so true, why are there so few allegations of hunting illegally? I realise there are a few- but by no means are there 35,000. And there have CERTAINLY not been 35,000 charges of hunting illegally.

 

[wildduck]

People vowed to break the law - openly and in expectation of legal reprisals - in the event of a ban. The ban happened and... not one of the brave souls on the declaration honoured their commitment. It really is as simple as that.

Well "zigg" you are corrected there my good fellow "York magistrates court fined £250 and costs for ignoring the ban" I paid with pleasure(actually fine paid in one pound coins) and walked out.SO at least one did!!!!!!! ME

 

[Herne]

I suggest, Zigzagzig, that you try actually reading the Hunting Declaration before making your claims.

Mind you, making grandiose clams about things that other people have written without knowing what they actually wrote seems to be a running theme in your debate.

In this case, the Hunting Declaration was quite specifically not a "promise" to break the Law.

What we signed said that we "declare our intention to break the law" as a method of demonstrating our belief that such a law would be unjust.

At the time we did intend to break the this future law, as we believed that civil disobedience was going to be the best way to counter it.

What we never anticipated was that the governement would make such a cack-handed botch of the ban. When it was passed, it became immediately apparent what a poor piece of legislation it was and therefore how good our chances were of attaining repeal through more orthodox political processes.

At that time, we realised that civil disobedience was no longer our best channel for repeal, so our intent changed.

At breakast-time, I can declare that I intend to have a chop for tea. However, if by tea-time I have decided for whatever reason to have fish-fingers instead, this does not mean that I was lying when I declared my original intent.

 

[zigzagzig]

If 35,000 of you declared that you would under no circumstances have fish fingers for tea and even formally signed a document to that effect, and then organised a special day for the media's benefit to publicise the decision, huffing and puffing yourselves into a paroxysm of fury and defiance - "We will NOT eat fish fingers for tea and that is final! Nothing on God's earth will make us eat them, mark our words!" - and come tea time all but an honourable handful of the 35,000 happily chomped into fish fingers... yes, in these circumstances I would label you all pathetic, spineless, dishonourable liars. Your word has as little meaning as the tatty piece of paper on which you so pompously scrawled your names.

 

[Herne]

<<If 35,000 of you declared that you would under no circumstances...>>

If elephants could ride bicycles, then cycle lanes would need to be wider.

But that, like your hypothetical "If..." situation, is irrelevant.

As I said read the ACTUAL WORDS of The Hunting Declaration. It is very clearly a declaration of intent and, as I said, at the time, that was our intent.

And yes, if actually eating a few fishfingers served to prove once and for all how disgusting they were so that the manufacturers stopped making them and no one ever had to be faced with eating another beastly fishfinger ever, ever again - then yes, that would be a good reason for diverting from our intended course - even if the possibility had never even occurred to us at the time of the Declaration.

This is fun. More ... !!!

 

[zigzagzig]

I'm sorry to sound picky, but YOU were the one who introduced the hypothetical situation of fish-finger eating. You can hardly blame me if I use it to show you where you're going wrong.

 

[2diamondlova]

im confussed i didnt eat fish fingers i dont even like fish ... well apart from salmon i think i should eat that coz its a clever fish it swims up water maybe some of its cleverness will rub off on me but i dont even like fish fingers they remind me of school dinners lmao im going to shut up now
im well and truly confuzzed

 

[Herne]

Don't worry, SaharahX, you're not as confused as Zigzagzig.

For most people, the idea that if you want to accuse people of breaking their word then you need to know what their word actually was is pretty obvious. Zig, on the other hand, just doesn't seem to get it.

 

[Zippydoodles]

But hunts aren't just hunting within the law. When they think no one's looking they break it. If you're saying that you don't think hunts deliberately break the law I simply won't believe you.

So if they are breaking the law why are you complaining that they said they would, then didn't? As your argument above suggests they have carried out their promise. :grin:

 

[Hebegebe]

I don't really see why they should have to., They've been monitored and the hounds have been filmed chasing foxes which have then been killed. All this is completely legal, so why should they break the law?

 

[wildduck]

Well said hebegebe hunts have been well filmed and proven to be legal.As for the "fish fingers" perhaps zigzagzig could try that diet..OR get Clarissa Wright Dickinson to cook him a few... Hey! he could even invite "Bunce" round..NOW theres an evening not to be missed!. :shocked:

 

[zigzagzig]

The fish finger has become a red herring. A casual declaration of what you are or aren't going to eat in the evening is hardly the same as a massively orchestrated media campaign where 35,000 people solemnly appended their names to a formal document saying they would never accept a ban, had a special media day to publicise their oath, then, when the ban was in place, en masse decided not to honour their word. They may not have lied when they signed their name, but as soon as they didn't do what they signed up to do, they became liars.

 

[Cash]

Instead we have sites like Liam's Hunting Forum putting out warnings that hunters should be careful when describing their "activities" online. I find this symbolic: hunters have reduced themselves to skulking and whispering and looking over their shoulder when breaking the law in preference to a rather admirable open defiance of the ban.

Sorry if this has already been said (too late to trawl through two pages of the same arguments as usual) but what is the likelihood that if everyone had taken the approach of a 'rather admirable open defiance' you would not have slated them for openly breaking the law? They can't really win, can they?
(By the way, i am not necessarily for or against hunting- just against obstinate people who twist things to their advantage)