Puritans are abroad in my country once more. Hardly a week goes by without the Labour government of Tony Blair attempting to ban some kind of human activity or enterprise that is to the disliking of the House of Commons and its socialist majority. The government controlled BBC is meanwhile expanding its (licence funded) empire to promote the Labour party doctrines; the government has a monopoly on education at all levels; and it has used its majority in the second chamber to reduce the power of the upper chamber; the Home Secretary is seeking the end of trial by jury in some legal cases and the introduction of double jeopardy. Not only are basic rights at stake but so too is Parliamentary democracy and the tradition of liberty that the British taught the world. These issues have come to a head over the government's intention to ban hunting in which the government seeks to overturn a human-centred morality in favour of an animal-centred one whilst at the same time promoting jobs-for-the-boys in the public sector. Nobody has yet to march for judicial rights, yet 400,000 marched for the right to hunt.
Socialism lost the Cold War debate: Boehm-Bawerk had reduced the labour theory of value to shreds; Mises had rightly and brilliantly exposed the impossibility of socialist calculation; the Soviet experiment finally collapsed and revealed the depth of its economic bankruptcy. So interventionists and socialists sidled over to attack man's moral status. In the past three decades we have seen the rise of environmentalism and of animal rights. If man cannot be sacrificed for the state, then the new eco-fascists cry, let him be sacrificed to the planet – or a fox or rat.
In an incredible inversion of morality, the present Labour government is set to prohibit (or regulate, which comes to effectively mean nationalisation and later prohibition) forms of hunting across the UK. Local traditions and the cultural heritage of the land mean nothing to the government; the jobs of thousands connected to the chase mean nothing; the millions that the industry generates mean nothing; the rights of private landowners mean nothing.
The government's backbenchers behind this policy are partly claiming the spoils of victory that they sought as bigoted, aggressive, youthful Marxist radicals on campuses around Britain in the 1960s and 1970s. They see those who hunt as symbolising the great Tory land-owning class of the 18th Century – and the red coat of the huntsman makes them see blood. They wish to exterminate the hunting community on class grounds. (The cleverer advisers know that by banning hunting, another independent political bulwark in the country will have been removed – and then, ultimately, farming can be nationalised.) Such radical left-wing MPs know nothing of hunting and refuse to join or visit the hunts: if they did, they'd find a lot of Labour supporters and people from all walks of life. Hunting used to be the privilege of the upper-class, but not for three centuries – but the MPs don't care to understand that fact. They prefer to be irrational and asinine.
For the most part, the sympathetic half of the nation that seeks hunting's abolition is motivated by an animal welfare and rights agenda that is actively promoted by the government-controlled schools and BBC. "Hunting's evil, hunting's cruel," they chime, for the other side will never be examined or be given fair airtime when government controls the sources of debate. Schools, styled on Soviet-style bureaucracy, are havens for socialists and environmentalists, who can peddle their ideologies at taxpayers' expense. Yet the same people who seek a ban on hunting often allow their cats to decimate local mice, vole, and bird populations – they do not see the hypocrisy: reason and logic are, of course, not taught in the government schools – nor is the land's history and heritage (that would be politically incorrect and offensive to any recent migrants to the country!). Most people who oppose hunting are happy to call in pest control to u2018humanely' dispatch rats and other vermin (even though a terrier is, ironically, swifter in its kill and more u2018environmentally friendly' than poisons!) So prejudice, bigotry, Bambi-adulation and ignorance rise to the fore as the government's backbenchers smell the potential extinction of the huntsman.
But a revolt against the absurdities of unclear thinking, moral inversion, and basic prejudice is afoot in Britain. It represents an excellent opportunity for freedom supporters to raise the banner against further moral inversion and political interference. The most important moral question with which the West entered this millennium was, u2018what is more important – the life of a human or that of an animal?' In September, over 400,000 people (more than the civil rights marches in the US) marched in London to claim the right to hunt and the right to be left alone from ignorant and interfering politicians. There are proposals for another mass rally of Parliament in December, which should also draw the crowds to show their discontent.
There is now an opportunity for freedom and human morality to be put back onto the political agenda – not just in Britain but also across the entire West. Freedom is slowly being strangled in the West by the new socialism of Blair, the EU and environmentalist and animal rights lobbyists. From the roof-tops we must declare that freedom cannot be compromised and certainly must not be sacrificed to the animal kingdom. There is no third way when it comes to liberty and, as William Venator writes in his soon-to-be-published novel on a rural secession in the UK, "there is no greater cruelty than to take away a man's liberty."
I would urge supporters of freedom to witness and support the besieged hunting community in December should a mass rally go ahead: come and join us in London even – at the last march I saw several "Don't Tread on Me" flags! The rally will be organised by the Countryside-Alliance. The message is simple: freedom should not be compromised.
It is time for our compatriots to be challenged on their beliefs. This is a great opportunity to put humanity first and to stop the slow strangulation of freedom on the sacrificial alter to appease the Marxists and animal rights activists.
December 7, 2002
