On death and dying.

[Herne]

I have no doubt that you are actually perfectly intelligent enough to understand the logical trap you are in, but I can understand why you really have no option other than to pretend otherwise, so I will play along with your charade.

Jane saying that dog isn’t in the garden is not PROOF that the dog isn’t in the garden. Jane might not have been able to see the dog because it was hiding behind a large petunia, she might not have recognised the dog for what it was or, indeed, she might have been lying to you.

Likewise, I cannot prove that someone never wrote something in a letter. I can point out – at tedious length – that there is no evidence that they did, but that is not proof that they didn't. You, on the other hand could easily prove that someone did write something in a letter by producing the letter.

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Imagine this scenario:

I tell people that Zigzagzig admitted in a letter that hunting with dogs really is the best form of fox control and also that he only refuses to admit this in public because he is too proud to admit that he made a mistake.

"That's a lie!" says you. "I never wrote any such thing."

"Ok," says I, "prove that you didn’t".

You can’t. Does that prove that you did? Of course not. Well, it works both ways.

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I have, to my knowledge, never seen Hart’s e-mail. I do not know whether the words you “quote” are a direct quotation or, as I suspect, some journalist’s paraphrasing. Neither, I suggest, do you.

As I understand it, rather than stating that the letter advocated the enhancement of the species, Hart was warning – with remarkable prescience, as it turns out – that the letter would be misinterpreted as advocating the enhancement of the species. That is a very different thing.

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Your course here is simple. Post the text of the letter, post the text of Hart’s e-mail and then we can analyse them both line by line – and one of us will be PROVEN wrong.

Until you do so, however, you are merely bandying about baseless allegations. I suggest the only reason that you do not do so is because you know that it is you who will be caught out.

 

[zigzagzig]

Your rather nihilistic view means that nothing can be "proven". I prefer to live in a more practical world whereby, for example, if I see a fox it proves - at least to my satisfaction - that it's not a bear or a pig. You will argue that it may indeed be a pig but one which looks remarkably like a fox, and so there is no "proof". Frankly, I find these little philosopical sallies childish and very boring (and you will never know the struggle I have at this point not to invoke the name of Tom Faggus).

I am satisfied that the Chairman of the MFHA wrote to hunt masters urging them to do more to persuade landowners to encourage foxes to breed for three reasons:

1. At least two national newspapers (and there are probably more) quote directly from the letter.

2. The same reporters quote directly from Hart's response.

In both cases, let me stress, they quote and don't, as you suggest, paraphrase. I would add that your unwillingness to reproduce the letter, for all your flimflam hot air reasons, adds to the greasy film of secrecy and yuckiness which increasingly covers foxhunters' activities.

3. The letter, if it existed as I describe, would be ENTIRELY in keeping with the tradition of hunts encouraging foxes to breed. I'm talking about feeding foxes, buying them at markets, importing them from abroad, building artificial earths etc...

Lets me ask you, are there any artificial earths in your hunt country?

 

[Hebegebe]

Sunday Mirror article is here:

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4161/is_20041003/ai_n12910763/

Inspite of what you say it doesn't quote directly from MFHA letter but from an email about the letter written by Simon Hart. The Mirror did not see the MFHA letter it states it 'learned about it' from Simon Hart's email.

 

[Herne]

<< Your rather nihilistic view means that nothing can be "proven".>>

Total nonsense. I have stated very clearly that you can prove your case by producing the letter and e-mail and demonstrating that they do indeed say what you claim they do.
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<< Frankly, I find these little philosopical sallies childish and very boring >>

There’s nothing philosophical about it. You are claiming that something has happened. I am stating that I find it to be extremely unlikely and am asking you to provide proof of your claim. That is a pretty elementary principle of natural justice.

Your position seems to be that because you are unable to prove your case then I should be obliged to prove it for you – and, further that, by some entirely bizarre twist of logic, if I do not prove your case for you, then somehow that very lack of proof itself proves your case to be true.

Well, you’ve certainly got all your bases covered – it would make a pretty good win-win situation – if it wasn’t quite so transparently desperate. I suspect you aren’t fooling anyone – least of all yourself.

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And, yes (yawn) there are artificial earths in our hunt country, so before you use this as a red herring to divert attention away from your lack of evidence for your claims, let’s establish quite clearly that it has never been the position of fox hunting that we have any intention of trying to eradicate all foxes from any given area.

It has always been the position of hunting that foxes play a useful role in the countryside ecosystem and that hunting is about managing a viable population – which by definition means wishing numbers to increase when they are too low every bit as much as it does wishing numbers to decrease when they are too high.

Cutting down what would probably turn out to be pages of argument – and I think it is becoming pretty obvious that you and I have had this argument before – artificial earths do not create – or “breed” – extra foxes. They merely alter the geographical dispersal of the existing population. Creating new habitat will increase population – merely making another hole in the ground won’t. There’s no shortage of holes in the ground, you know.

In order to demonstrate that an artificial earth would increase fox numbers, you will have to demonstrate that the vixen in question would not simply have her litter elsewhere if the earth was not in place.

I won’t hold my breath…

 

[Hebegebe]

Wait for it. He will now lick his wounds and come out fighting with a comment about the chernobyl nuclear accident.

 

[wurzel]

Your rather nihilistic view means that nothing can be "proven". I prefer to live in a more practical world whereby, for example, if I see a fox it proves - at least to my satisfaction - that it's not a bear or a pig. You will argue that it may indeed be a pig but one which looks remarkably like a fox, and so there is no "proof". Frankly, I find these little philosopical sallies childish and very boring (and you will never know the struggle I have at this point not to invoke the name of Tom Faggus).

I am satisfied that the Chairman of the MFHA wrote to hunt masters urging them to do more to persuade landowners to encourage foxes to breed for three reasons:

1. At least two national newspapers (and there are probably more) quote directly from the letter.

2. The same reporters quote directly from Hart's response.

In both cases, let me stress, they quote and don't, as you suggest, paraphrase. I would add that your unwillingness to reproduce the letter, for all your flimflam hot air reasons, adds to the greasy film of secrecy and yuckiness which increasingly covers foxhunters' activities.

3. The letter, if it existed as I describe, would be ENTIRELY in keeping with the tradition of hunts encouraging foxes to breed. I'm talking about feeding foxes, buying them at markets, importing them from abroad, building artificial earths etc...

Lets me ask you, are there any artificial earths in your hunt country?

I can answer your last question.

Here it comes.....

Are you ready?........

No. No artificial earths.

Unless, dare I say it, you have evidence or proof to the contrary !!!

I won't hold my breath you little liar !!!!

 

[Herne]

Ok, just for clarification...

I answered the question with regard to my local area, Tom_Fagus was speaking about his local area.

Two different areas, so two different answers. Not contradictory.

 

[gg68]

Yawn yawn

 

[zigzagzig]

Excellent! I feel that we are slowly groping our way to a kind of truth. May I ask you what your role in your hunt is? Also, how many artificial earths do you reckon there are in your hunt country?

 

[Herne]

You can ask me whatever you want to about artificial earths in a new topic dedicated to that subject.

In the meantime, lets keep this one dedicated to your claims about this letter shall we? This habit your side has of changing the subject every time things get tricky makes the threads so difficult for the public to follow.

Unless, of course, you'd like to admit that you have no basis for that claim - in which case I would be happy to change the subject hereafter...

 

[zigzagzig]

Well actually, this thread is about "death and dying", not about letters, so you've already broken your own rule. I've given my reasons several times now for why I think the MFHA urged hunts to do more to encourage foxes to breed in their hunt areas. In one breath, with a moral outrage worthy of combat-claire you hotly deny doing anything to encourage foxes to breed in your hunt country, in another you blithely admit that there are artificial earths in your hunt country where foxes breed. I'm not surprised you've suddenly become coy about answering questions...

 

[Herne]

I have proposed no “rules” and I don’t think you can seriously accuse me of being shy of a subject when I have invited you to open up a whole new topic in which to discuss it.

I merely want to highlight your habitual tactic of trying to change the subject whenever a conversation fails to go your way. As soon as it become apparent that your case on one particular thing is all smoke and mirrors, whoops, you don’t want to discuss that any more – you want to discuss some other thing instead. A very convenient way of never having to admit that you are wrong…

So, to sum up the letter business:
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Your case would appear to be entirely based upon a rumour you heard about what someone might or might not have said in an e-mail that you have never read in response to a letter … that you have also never read.

Well, golly gosh! The age of incisive reasoning is not dead.
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Ok – moving on…:
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<< with a moral outrage worthy of combat-claire you hotly deny doing anything to encourage foxes to breed in your hunt country>>

I did? Are you reading the same thread as the rest of us?

I merely pointed out, once again, that foxes don’t need encouragement to breed. They do it all by themselves.

I am reminded, by the by, of a lovely image that Claire once conjured up of a group of hunters watching a dog fox approaching a vixen and shouting “Go on! Give her one!”

Once again, I point out to you that the suggestion that artificial earths will somehow increase fox numbers is only valid if you can demonstrate that the vixen would not simply have her litter elsewhere if the artificial earth was not present – and once again, I look forward to you demonstrating that she wouldn’t…

 

[zigzagzig]

You seem to be getting rather hot under the collar, Hernia. Here's some verse to cool your brow:

When the Huntsman claims praise for the killing of foxes,
Which else would bring ruin to farmer and land,
Yet so kindly imports them, preserves them, assorts them,
There's a discrepance I'd fain understand.

 

[Herne]

Most entertaining.

Another diversion from the question at hand - as was your attempt to claim that I am "getting hot under the collar" - but entertaining all the same.

Yours or someone else's?