From: robinson@ac.dal.ca
Newsgroups: talk.politics.animals
Subject: Re: Letter to John Robinson
Date: 22 Jul 92 14:29:28 -0300
Organization: Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada

>>Well some people think that one shouldn't have fun dancing, one shouldn't 
>>have fun drinking, and one definately shouldn't have fun in the bedroom.  In 
>>fact, when one digs a little deeper, such people feel that no one should ever 
>>have fun doing much of anything.  Are you one of these people?
> 
> Quite the contrary.  In fact I'm ESPECIALLY fond of Canadian bars.

Well, I'm not so fond of bars, but I'm glad to hear you don't fall into the 
above category.  Maybe we can get somewhere after all.

> 
>>
>>I take a different view.
> 
> Good, we agree on something.  Let's meet in a Niagara Falls, Ontario bar
> sometime and hash out our differences over some cold ones.  It was years
> ago in an Ontario bar when the music was loud, the place was packed, the
> crowd was raucous, the entertainment was lively and the drinks were
> flowing freely, that I had my first great flash of insight into what
> Rousseau was talking about.  :-)

Insight is where you find it. :)

> 
>>  For me, it is not important to do work that I 
>>enjoy.  It is important for me to be able to find aspects of my work that I 
>>do enjoy.  Fun is where you find it.  It seems absurd to me to suggest that 
>>people should spend their leisure time doing something they don't enjoy.
>>
>>People who suggest that one should not enjoy any recreational activity are 
>>silly.
> 
> Agreed.  Who are these people, so we can gang up on them?

Hmmm...upon re-reading this for the nth time I see that it has two 
potential meanings.  First, people who suggest that one should not enjoy 
any given recreational activity are silly.  Secondly, people who suggest 
that there are no recreational activities that should be enjoyed are silly. 
 There are some people who have suggested that hunting is a recreational 
activity which should not be enjoyed.  DC practically frothed at the mouth 
when I suggested that pleasure was definately part of the reason I hunt. :)

> 
>>  Where you, and I suspect others, get confused, is in equating 
>>hunting with killing.
> 
> Actually Mr.  Linan disabused me of this notion several months ago. 
> After that I thought I knew about the difference, until our Spanish
> philosopher made another cameo appearance and prceeded to cloud the
> issue.  :-)

Well, I find our Spanish fellow rather easy to understand.  First, lets 
look at the quote, to be sure we're discussing the same thing: "One does 
not hunt in order to kill.  One kills in order to have hunted."  The first 
part is pretty straight forward.  It states that killing is not the sole 
purpose of the hunt.  One does not hunt in order to satisfy a blood lust, 
nor to derive pleasure from watching an animal die.  And yet, killing 
definately has a place in hunting.  The second part tells us what that 
is.  It tells us that without the kill at the end, or at least the 
intention of it, you're not really hunting.  Thus stalking a deer through 
the woods with a camera, while it has all the elements of hunting except 
the kill, is not really hunting.  I personally have always found a hunt 
that didn't result in venison in the freezer somehow incomplete.  It is 
still very satisfying, but it never feels like it has finished.

> 
>>  Your previous posts indicate to me that you see 
>>little if any difference between these two activities.
> 
> What previous posts? What difference does it make if I see any
> difference? I do, but what if I didn't? How is it relevant? It's the
> killing part of hunting that is controversial.  Certainly you can see
> that? If you wanted to spend all your time trudging through the
> woods, tracking animals, studying their habits, photographing them, ... 
> whatever, ...  even humanely finishing off dying animals that you
> encountered along the way - if you just participated in these types of
> activities and other comparable ones, then the entire controversy would
> dissolve away. 

I can't find them in my news system, they must have expired.  Since I can't 
quote you chapter and verse, consider that comment withdrawn and an 
appology tendered.

It makes a lot of difference to me.  It determines, to a large degree how I 
percieve you and thus how I respond to comments you might make.  I consider 
people who view hunting and killing as equivalent things very ill informed 
and worthy of little consideration.  

Actually, I don't see that the killing part is controversial so much.  Most
of the stereotypes of hunters (I find stereotypes good indicators of what is 
controversial) revolve around poorly educated individuals who either a) shoot
anything that moves, b) drink and shoot anything that moves or c) revel in 
the killing.  While there are people who call themselves hunters who behave 
this way, the vast majority, of course don't fit this picture.  As well, 
some of what I've read here has led me to believe many of you consider the 
killing of an animal as something that is painful to the animal.  It can 
be, if done inncorrectly.  But from witnessing the two procedures, it would 
be my guess that a majority of sufferring occurs in farm yard and 
commercial slaughtering, much more so in fact than occurs in hunting.  I 
have no numbers to back this assertion up with, but I have seen (and 
heard!) pigs being butchered, I've heard tell of cows being butchered by 
people who witnessed it first hand, and I've seen animals killed live and 
on video by hunters.  All of that information leads me to believe the 
assertion is correct.  Add to this the fact that a high population just 
prior to winter translates to a high winter kill (by slow painful 
starvation) and that other predators (coyotes, wolves, big cats) kill more 
slowly than man, and I think death at a hunter's hands is, short of dying of 
old age, is the least painful and traumatic death for the animal in most 
cases.

So, I think that what is controversial about hunting is a) that we walk the 
woods armed, and that this makes some people who are especially insecure 
feel threatened; b) people who've not participated in hunting and have no 
first hand knowledge of it, imagine incorrectly that being killed by a 
bullet or an arrow would be painful; c) as seems to be demonstrated below, 
some people feel that animals and humans are equally entitled to life, 
liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

> 
> But when you take the life of a conscious, thinking, feeling, living
> being which has moral rights and which may coexist in a complex social
> structure with others having rights, then you are committing a
> morally-significant action, whether you choose to realize it or not. 
> And if you choose not to realize it, then it falls to others to speak
> for the voiceless ones. 

This is another serious problem I have with the AR cause.  I would have 
much less difficulty with the above paragraph if you were trying to disuade 
me from hunting human beings.  It seems here that you are putting humans 
and other animals on the same level so to speak.  This is a concept whose 
validity I question.


> 
> Additionally, if you were in the US, you would be killing something
> that at least partially "belongs to" others, since the Supreme
> Court has ruled a long time ago that wildlife is a national treasure
> belonging to everyone.  (I don't know if this is true in Canada.)

Yes I know.  That's part of the reason one must pay a fee.  One must give 
back some of what one takes.  If it belonged only to me I could go out and 
kill it any time I decided to.  But I really don't see what this has to do 
with anything.  Wildlife may well be a national treasure, but unlike 
treasure it is not fixed and static.  It is a dynamic thing.  Hunters have 
been instrumental in nurturing and promoting the growth of that national 
treasure and they've been so successfull that it is necessary to trim it 
down to make sure it doesn't overflow its chest, so to speak.

> 
> 
>>  As much as I would 
>>like to correct this misunderstanding on your part, I don't think I can.  You 
>>see, I almost suspect its a deliberate misunderstanding, and as such, not 
>>correctible.
> 
> First, don't give up so easily.  Secondly, would it clarify these
> discussions if we divided "hunting" up into its two components: (1)
> animal-killing, and (2) everything else?  You can select a word for 
> the second component.  Then maybe it will be more clear which aspect
> of hunting is relevant at a particular point in any discussion.

It would except for one thing.  The two are inextricably linked. See above.

> 
> ---
> Robert Black 
> black@serum.kodak.com  - The ONLY email address that MIGHT work.
> These views are not necessarily the views of my employers.
-- 
John Robinson                  Only criminals, tyrants, and cowards have
robinson@ac.dal.ca                 reason to fear the armed, honest citizen.
DOD #0069