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If you have any reliable data correlating hunters with income, educational attainment, professional status, or normed intelligence scales, please present it.
If most of the people in your social circle are have impeccable pedigrees, it would not be surprising if most of the hunters you know have impeccable pedigrees. But that is useless data, and anecdotal evidence.
Since hunting is a relatively expensive pastime, there no doubt are a lot of hunters who are affluent enough to afford to outfit themselves. On the other hand, most poachers are probably poor. There is a fine line between hunters and poachers. The detail of license and season differ. And, there is a difference in intent. Hunters kill because they love to kill, and it gives them prestige in a society that loves to kill. Poachers kill out of economic need. They are capitalist entrepreneurs, who are not allowed to dine among the capitalists entrepreneurs at the country club, who hunt, and who have become rich at the expense of people, not animals.
What the OP has done is to take a large category (people who kill animals with a gun), and subdivide it into the rich (who hunt) and the poor (who poach) and then revealed the certain results: the rich hunt.
What a bunch of classic Marxist drivel. Oh the poor proletariat have been driven to commit the crime of poaching by the nasty bourgeoisie. The OP did not subdivide the hunting community into the BS categories your post presents. You did that on your own by viewing this thread and the world through red colored glasses.
What a bunch of classic Marxist drivel. Oh the poor proletariat have been driven to commit the crime of poaching by the nasty bourgeoisie. The OP did not subdivide the hunting community into the BS categories your post presents. You did that on your own by viewing this thread and the world through red colored glasses.
Rather than throw around 1950s rhetoric why not dispute his assertions point by point? 88's points are worthy of more than a wave of the hand dismissal. There was much truth to Marx's analysis and that his predictions didn't come true was due in large part to reforms that might not have happened had Marx not had followers who scared the Hell out of elites. In other words because of Marxism Marx's predictions didn't happen. Besides, history isn't over.
In fact economic need does lead to poaching in the rural Midwest and I assume it does in other parts of the country as well. One could argue that the state controlling hunting so that city folk will have game is robbing rural folks of a resource that is more properly theirs. Kind'a like how in the Middle Ages the game was reserved for the pleasure of the aristocracy while the churls ate gruel and for firewood could only gather dead wood and branches they could knock down.
On the other hand most of the hunters I know are working class rather than wealthy and come from the ranks of the unionized building trades. Liberals who hunt.
Last edited by Irishtom29; 08-22-2010 at 08:01 PM..
As I follow this thread, I am surprised how often my opening post is taken as an attack on hunters or an attempt to lump them together. I said that such things are often done by antis, and simply gave a counterexample. I thought it was pretty clear that I am a hunter and feel that the kinds of attacks that I cited are nonsense.
There's another interesting thing that this thread revealed: many hunters do seem to carry a certain defensiveness about the subject. I know that I'm quick to defend the sport in the presence of someone who attacks it unfairly.
I think that this may reflect the existence of some of those unsavory assumptions I brought up in the opening post. Many people in society who know nothing about hunting do have very unflattering assumptions about hunters, more so than about fisherman as a very comparable example. Why are fishermen often used on something as generic as a prescription drug commercial, but hunters are deemed unacceptable? I honestly think it's a simple Bambi factor, but this probably contributes to the defensiveness of some hunters.
Some hunters are completely unapologetic, as is admirable, but an increasingly difficult stance to maintain in certain social circles.
Hunting does not have to be an expensive pastime. Okay, go buy a shotgun for a few hundred bucks (cheaper than a rifle). An in-state license for basic deer hunting is usually very cheap: something like $24 in my own state of Maryland. Add on tags for bow etc are a few bucks. It is quite easy to drive down the cost of meat to levels well below what you would pay at a grocery store without breaking a single law. It is not necessary for even the poorest of hunters to poach, especially considering that a gun lasts decades if cared for. Rural people can often hunt simply by walking out their back door.
I've known one man who made a habit of poaching for meat for his family, instead of for simple enjoyment. I asked him how he justified it, and he simply said that he didn't care about the law, and lived in an area remote enough that he could get away with it. It had nothing to do with saving money. Most poor people in this area who hunt for food ask farmers for crop-damage permits: a legal way to shoot deer outside of the regular hunting season.
Rather than throw around 1950s rhetoric why not dispute his assertions point by point? 88's points are worthy of more than a wave of the hand dismissal. There was much truth to Marx's analysis and that his predictions didn't come true was due in large part to reforms that might not have happened had Marx not had followers who scared the Hell out of elites. In other words because of Marxism Marx's predictions didn't happen. Besides, history isn't over.
In fact economic need does lead to poaching in the rural Midwest and I assume it does in other parts of the country as well. One could argue that the state controlling hunting so that city folk will have game is robbing rural folks of a resource that is more properly theirs. Kind'a like how in the Middle Ages the game was reserved for the pleasure of the aristocracy while the churls ate gruel and for firewood could only gather dead wood and branches they could knock down.
On the other hand most of the hunters I know are working class rather than wealthy and come from the ranks of the unionized building trades. Liberals who hunt.
No the comments by jtur were dismissed correctly as they were nothing but logical fallacies about hunting in the USA with no support. Had jtur presented some actual facts I would have debated them on those merits if I had disagreed. Jtur's post was just another ranting about the social inequities through the lens of Marxism which is not a 1950's rhetorical phenomenon but alive and well today.
Bull dog, 88 likes a good debate. It takes a good long time to get used to him. Perhaps you are. Most of the time i don't agree with him, but find it difficult to beat him up in a debate. Sometimes I do agree, or end up changing my mind. He is a real strange duck.
Bull dog, 88 likes a good debate. It takes a good long time to get used to him. Perhaps you are. Most of the time i don't agree with him, but find it difficult to beat him up in a debate. Sometimes I do agree, or end up changing my mind. He is a real strange duck.
Oh jtur and I have had many a lively debate. Most of them deleted by the moderators. LMAO. I think jtur is a very wise intelligent antagonistic debater. I especially like it when 88 gets all twisted and riled up. That's when 88's best stuff comes out. I just happen to disagree with jtur's view on many topics.
I hope you were successful on your garden varmit huntin expedition.
Well being out in the garden usually produces no varnit what so ever. I won a battle, but not thee war ...yet.
88 can weave up a storm. I think he is, or was a legal beagal. I suspect his arm chair is littered with dents from the rattling his ribs have created over time in debates laughing.
If you have any reliable data correlating hunters with income, educational attainment, professional status, or normed intelligence scales, please present it.
If most of the people in your social circle are have impeccable pedigrees, it would not be surprising if most of the hunters you know have impeccable pedigrees. But that is useless data, and anecdotal evidence.
Since hunting is a relatively expensive pastime, there no doubt are a lot of hunters who are affluent enough to afford to outfit themselves. On the other hand, most poachers are probably poor. There is a fine line between hunters and poachers. The detail of license and season differ. And, there is a difference in intent. Hunters kill because they love to kill, and it gives them prestige in a society that loves to kill. Poachers kill out of economic need. They are capitalist entrepreneurs, who are not allowed to dine among the capitalists entrepreneurs at the country club, who hunt, and who have become rich at the expense of people, not animals.
What the OP has done is to take a large category (people who kill animals with a gun), and subdivide it into the rich (who hunt) and the poor (who poach) and then revealed the certain results: the rich hunt.
Thanks! I never knew I was rich!
Hunting is not expensive. I can hunt deer for 4&1/2 months taking virtually all I want for under $60.00. Small game is about the same cost as a fishing license. I'm sure there are elitist high & mighty hunting clubs but they do not represent the majority. Americans of all walks of life hunt.
It is expensive to hunt big game in TX, since a lease is almost the only way to go. Bird hunting isn't nearly as expensive.
I agree with jtur88 to a certain extent. Too bad the discussion has to get politicized, with terms like "Marxist drivel" being used.
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