The Law Should Be The Law

This won't be up to my normal essay length blogs (hooray I hear you all cry) but I just wanted to comment on something my wife showed me after she received an e-mail today from the League Against Cruel Sports regarding a Fox Hunt that went through a village in Kent. I won't give you all the gory details, but please visit the story on their website for the full story.

Whatever your beliefs on Fox Hunting (yes as a life long veggie I am against it), the big problem with this story for me is that what occured is currently against the law. Allowing the fox hounds to kill the fox is illegal, and to do it in front of a village full of people means that the hunt cannot claim it did not happen. Yet it is normally the kind of people who go fox hunting are amongst those cry out against light sentencing and criminal behaviour. I am sure many of the people on that hunt would have been baying for blood after the recent riots, crying for harsh sentences for all rioters. Surely law breakers are law breakers, and if you break the law you should face the consequences?

To me if you want a society that works, but believe that some laws are unfair or wrong, then you don't just do as you want. You campaign and work to change how society feels about the laws and thus bring pressure on the government to change them. Those who feel they are being unfairly targeted by out of touch city based governments should be running campaigns to explain the reason behind their desire to hunt and to try to change the law. Instead it appears that many are choosing to break the law, just like a teenage rioter.

So surely all involved with this hunt should be hunted down themselves and prosecuted with an equal vigour as any other criminal? I know I do not want to be part of a society that allows this level of cruelty in the name of sport, and I am sure many of you agree with me. This lack of support from the majority of the country is the real excuse behind the flouting of the current laws. If we all feel that rioting is wrong and we also feel that fox hunting is wrong then there should be no difference between them in the action undertaken by the police and courts. I just hope that the proof gathered by the LACS leads to legal action and prosecutions.