Eh, anti hunters, when they are a "friend"...

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I had a lot of time to think about this today, out in the field looking for Bambi.

Europe has a long tradition of hunting, but only among the landed aristocracy and a few longtime associates. In the last few hundred years the masses of urban commoners had no access to hunting land, no access to guns and no incentive to hunt. So naturally they grew up making excuses, told them to their children, grandchildren et cetera. The ones who could leave did, in the millions. The ones who couldn't leave made up more excuses.

Since the time our US GIs liberated Europe the unwashed masses have had the opportunity to gather the pretense of wealth. But all the fast cars, fancy dresses, government approved dope and aged liquor haven't given them any more hunting land nor any more rights of self defense. There are still a few rich folk who own the land and make sure only a few wealthy friends share it.

So naturally Europeans look askance at their American friends who can buy access to thousands of acres of public hunting lands for less than their fellow Europeans can buy a dinner and drinks. (FYI, my access fee for 50,000+ game management acres is $16.00US, probably enough to buy a waffle in Belgium but not the butter nor syrup.) Its not that they don't understand hunting, they don't understand the freedom to hunt. :(

So if you want to win this friend over ignore all our advice to argue. Appeal to her eurosocialist sentiment and class envy. Commiserate with her how difficult life must be when you have to color within the lines that some rich son of a banker drew for you. :D
 
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Right on the numbers, MeekandMild!

The Europeans are coming from a mindset that diverged from ours hundreds of years ago when our country was colonized. We are indeed like people from different planets in this instance. Our path mirrored the course of humans from the last 10,000 years or so on this continent where hunting to eat was the norm. Her attitude until somewhat recently would have resulted in the natural selection device called starvation. Civilization and domestication are good at hiding the actual mechanism by which live. It is still life in the food chain when you strip away all the smoke and mirrors. Europeans have been at this civilization thing much longer than we have and are thus further down the rabbit hole than we are. I get a perspective on the food chain thing every time I start a dive. Suddenly you aren't the top predator anymore, just another slow moving source of protein...a humbling experience indeed.
 
Meek: You make a good point, but the things she said are verbatim what the antis say here in America, so I think there is some kind of related mental disease all these people share...
 
These people are not just confined to Europe, which comprises of nearly 50 different countries. In some countries in Europe hunting deer & hogs is common, but England has just banned the traditional fox hunt using beagles & horses. A lot of fringe special interest groups originate in Europe, that are anti-anything, but hunting is still alive & well in parts of Europe. I have a friend that is working on a mining exploration drilling rig in Slovenia in Europe. He e-mailed his uncle & myself last week saying he had passed 6 Fallow Deer, a mob of wild boar, & 3 Red Deer on his way to work, & asked when we were coming over, as he new all the locals that could easily organise a deer hunt for us
 
Trust me buddy, I understand. My girlfriend of several months decided to tell me how I am a killer. She was not too happy about me hunting. I told her she needed to get used to it because it is not going to change. She asked me not to talk to her about it. I happily agreed and we have been fine ever since.:) I just treat it like religion and politics. It doesn't hlep that she is a political science major!
 
Here's my liberal-flavored take on it:

I've never gone hunting before in my life.

For a while now I've been making plans to do it, sometime in 2009. It's my New Year's Resolution, as it were. I'm saving for a rifle, and I'll be taking the hunter's safety course once it comes in. I think I can plan arrangements once I get there.

People ask me why I'm doing this. I sit a little to the political left, where this kind of project is generally unfashionable. I don't come from a hunting family. I'm the first person in my family, at least three generations back, to own a gun.

My answer, in short form, is that I think it's my moral obligation. I have to take moral responsibility for my life.

I eat meat. Meat is muscle; meat is flesh. Whether I'm eating a hot dog or coq au vin, bacon or steak, something has to die for my pleasure. It's not necessary; human beings can survive pretty well as vegetarians. As much as we all like to have a good laugh at PeTA's expense, meat is murder, to a certain degree: we don't eat carrion, so meat necessarily involves the selfish, premeditated destruction of life. A living, breathing, feeling animal, not quite like any other before or any other since, has to be snuffed off of the face of the earth... not so that I may live, not even so that I may eat, but only so that I may enjoy my meal.

Most people would like to forget that, I think, and we live in a time where it's very easy. If you live in a reasonably large city, it's possible to go your entire life without ever seeing the animals that die for you. Take a look at the supermarket, and all the rows of skinless, boneless, meaningless meat, all shrink-wrapped for your convenience. You literally never have to bloody your hands.

I'm not really comfortable with that brand of morality, with the idea of unthinking murder-by-proxy. I think it's important to own up to your sins. Is it ever right to eat meat without remembering the animals that died for it? If killing animals for your dining pleasure is wrong, then why is it right to pay someone else to do it?

As a human being, I think it's my responsibility to to look reality in the face, once in a while, to understand it on that visceral kind of level. Animals die for my eating pleasure. If I can't accept that, personally - stare down the scope at a boar and pull the trigger, draw the knife across a chicken's throat, throw a lobster into the pot, gut and clean a fish on my own, whatever - if I can't bring myself to bloody my hands, if the idea of killing my own dinner is that morally repugnant, then vegetarianism becomes my only ethical option.

At the end of the day, it's about self-inspection. I thought that was a liberal value.
 
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Adrian, I agree with your take on it even though I have no memory of a gun free home nor do I know of a time when the "roast beast" was just that... us kids never questioned what the beast was when alive. While my wife would rather not try most game... she knows we won't ever starve for want of meat...
Brent
 
It's a good thing our predecessors didn't think it was immoral to kill and eat.
Way back to rock and stick hunters in caves, we have hunted and eaten.

Morality isn't a hunting issue. Allowing this diseased thinking spread thru television and theatre that animals have the same conscious thought and relationships as humans do, is the foundation.
If you believe that deer think about how their "family" is dealing with the loss of cousin backstrap, who just got "murdered" by that terrible hunter, you are part of the problem.
Deer think about a couple of things, 1) I hunger 2) I thirst 3) I must breed

4-7) What was that noise, Run Away, Run Away Fast!, Sleep, Deficate, Urinate, Urinate on self, These antlers itch, Urinate to mark territory, etc.

This coincides with every animal in the woods to different degrees.\
Hunt, Harvest your kill, Cook it and say a blessing before eating it.
Be sure to thank your god for providing the beast and thank him for giving you the frontal lobe and opposable thumbs. Also thank him for not dropping you in France.

Bambi's Daddy chased other does too, and didn't help rear the little backstrapper! Don't personalize animals. Silly crap!
 
the things she said are verbatim what the antis say here in America
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That's true and I think you'll find some places here where the same social dynamics apply. Boston for instance has gone a long way since the tea party and you'd have to travel a long way from Boston to find an open place to hunt. :(
 
The title of this thread is confusing.

1. The anti's are not your friends.

2. If an anti IS your friend, refer back to rule #1.

Daryl
 
Tell you r Friend Bambi ended up in some hunter's wife's Cooking pot. and God Gave us Dominon over beasts to make sure they didnt get out of hand. ever met a liberal bear? i havent
 
Like I said before,
It's simple, you can't be a true friend to a anti so why try. Keep your friendship where it belongs and that's with folks that think like yourself instead of someone from mars or venus.
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I will take it a step more, a true freind would not tell you how wrong you are for killing or hunting.
Instead they would ask why and give you a chance to explain so they would understand, some it up for you.

It's simple, you can't be a true friend to a anti so why try. Keep your friendship where it belongs and that's with folks that think like yourself instead of someone from mars or venus.
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As previously stated this line of thought is not isolated to Europe. We have an increasing anti sentiment right here in the "good ole US of A". Pahoo`s acts(thoughts) of education sure beats just cutting someone off. Isn`t educating people about guns a tool we all use to show them our views on guns. Granted alot will never change but if you can convert one, its worth it. PS, I`ve fed my none hunting, killing a deer is terrible in-laws venison whenever I get a chance. They`ve eaten more than they know;).
 
Those who think all Europeans are anti gun and anti hunting are as ignorant of some of the Europeans who think all Americans are murderers for hunting and teaching their children to be bloodthirsty killers.

Stupidity is Stupidity, from the left or the right.

Personally I have been to Europe several times for work. I enjoy Switzerland in October and November as it is game season. I normally come back bloated from many meals featuring wild boar, pheasant, venison, and just about every other type of game which can be taken. Most of these are prepared in old restaurants where trophies are on display. One of my hotels in particular and more trophies from Africa than I could shake a stick at displayed along with the firearms and was also two doors down from the gun shop where the owner let me handle several arms. I bought several pocket knives from him as gifts for people at home.

On top of that experience our facility over there has an annual rifle shoot where plenty of full auto arms show up given they are all kept at home as part of their army.

Now there are certainly ignorant people in Europe with regards to shooting and hunting. I also would wager that in the "western" European nations the percentage of them is higher than it is here. It is outright ignorance though to claim that all in Europe are leftist, anti gun and anti hunting. The most conservative people I know there are actually in France and are pro gun, completely against the spread of Islamic Extremism and very anti-socialist...
 
Pahoo`s acts(thoughts) of education sure beats just cutting someone off.
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I don't know about that. At work I spend much of the day every day telling people the same old stuff. "Too much alcohol and street drugs and sitting at home watching Oprah and not exercising will make you stay depressed until you change. No you're not disabled but you have a problem with motivation and education so you need to develop a plan to get your GED and take training so you can get a better job or after 2 years of appeals the disability office will give you a final denial and you'll go back to flipping burgers. Et cetera". Then the next day there is a whole new crop of lazy assed dopers who need the same individually tailored but highly repetitive lecture. :barf:

The trouble is that when you get any sort of shared cultural delusion going, whether it is "we can stay high and sit on the couch all the time without consequences" or "the government owes us all a living" or "hunting is bad" you're only one person telling them the truth but they have a hundred or a million friends reinforcing the delusion. :(

Sorry, but the only thing which will change this mindset is going to be famine or flood or war or something else horrible. Pray that its not another holocaust.
 
Desertfox said:
It's a good thing our predecessors didn't think it was immoral to kill and eat.
Way back to rock and stick hunters in caves, we have hunted and eaten.

Morality isn't a hunting issue.
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I think that morality absolutely is an issue in hunting.

Many of our ancestors didn't think it was immoral to kill and eat, as you put it, but by no means all. The Jain religion believes that eating meat is an unecessary violence upon the world. Many Buddhists and Hindus agree. Even for those who ate meat, though, it had a lot more significance than the modern quick trip to McDonalds. It's custom in many Native American tribes, after a successful hunt, to give thanks to the animal for its sacrifice. Kosher and halal laws dictate that certain animals are unclean, and prohibit their consumption; those that are allowed must be killed in certain humane ways. It's important not to take food for granted; it's important to understand what it means.

Hunting is a return to that. Have you ever held off the trigger to let an animal grow, or do you just blast the first one you see? Would you shoot a wild sow trailing piglets, or would you leave it so there are more to hunt next year? The hunter necessarily recognizes the violence involved and decides upon its morality.

I don't know about you, but I think that's a more-ethical position than unthinking consumption.
 
The Jain religion believes that eating meat is an unecessary violence upon the world. Many Buddhists and Hindus agree.
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Consider the case of two creeds in conflict. One strong belief against killing is found in Tibetan Buddhism. Another strong belief in killing first and fastest is found in Chinese Communism. Which side is thriving and which is dwindling in Tibet?
 
All's I know is our pilgrim ancestors were some starvin' sunz-a-bucks 'til them NATIVES showed up with some corn and wild turkey, likely venison too...
Brent
 
Personally I think every human when born has a natural urge to hunt but if not taught the right way they do not understand or cultivate their abilities to learn how to hunt right so they end up losing what was natural in the first place. I would guess they then turn into what we would call a anti if they end up around the wrong kind of people or they could end up in a much worst stage in life just simply wanting to control others like most Democrats that are elected.
 
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