"While the Observer is talking to Bobby and Moira, the phone rings and a landowner who has let them camp at his land for the last 25 years tells them that he'd rather they didn't come this year."
- Sunday 10th April

I like circuses.

This thread reinforces the perception that there is nothing so 'fascist' as UK anarchists!

You have no tolerance of other people's attitudes whatsoever. Everyone must submit to your dictates. And anyone who disagrees with you is to be shut down, whether it is the EDL or the local circus.

Animals eat eachother! Did anyone ever tell you that? So its OK for animals to eat eachother because that is "nature" but humans cant enjoy a circus (upward glance).

Get off your high horse! Anarchism is supposed to be about freedom from authority but you want to set up the worst dictatorship in history, the PC vegan regime where the family business is destroyed of anyone who disagrees with you.

Fascist!

Bobby Roberts is welcome to his "family business", and as soon as he lets the rest of the animals go then he will be left alone, (like the countless other circuses in the UK that don't use animals)!

Or maybe you condone the mistreatment of animals shown in the ADI expose of Bobby Roberts Circus? Although if you do then you'd be in the 5% of the population who supports wild animals in circuses, but as the other 95% want it stopped it is not "fascist" to close down animal circuses but "democratic" because it is the overwhelming will of the people of this country!

Was that your stone over there? Time to start crawling back maybe?

I just looked it up on the circus website and the old elephent would probably be dead if it were in the wild. The Roberts family has looked after the elephant for decades, even in its retirement and at their own expense. The TV footage that you allude to showed a single rogue hired groom beating it with a plastic pitch fork. He disappeared and the family would be happy to see him arrested. Possibly he was involved in a set up with animal activists.

Circus animals are not against the law and you are using bully boy tactics to intimidate circuses. Maybe you could even be prosecuted for harassment and any loss of earnings (I dont know about that). If you disagree with a law then you should work to change it and not bully folk you disagee with.

These are my own views and have nothing to do with any circus. You speak as if animal suffering is an exception to the normal state of affairs but it isnt. Animals live by hunting and killing each other. They rip each other up and eat each other alive, often while the prey is fully conscious. That is nature's way. The vast majority of animal suffering is inflicted by other non-human animals. You are the abberation with your humane sentimentalism that cannot accept the way that nature is. Am I opposed to animal suffering? Of course not, that would oppose nature and it would make no sense whatsoever.

We pass laws to protect humans as part of a "social contract" and for our own interests. It is not possible for us to extend that care for animals and it would be totally against nature and a gross interference in its course. The most that we can do is to protect animals from "abuse" within society but that is really for our own illusion and to further cushion us from the harsher realities of nature. It makes almost no difference to animal suffering in the world.

There is no "moral law" against harming animals. There is only your own emotional response, which says more about you than it does about the world. You are not a "superior" person because you care about animal abuse. People use "morality" all the time to pretend that they are superior to others. They also use religion or lack of religion, political allegiance, wealth, background and many other pretenses to pretend that they are somehow superior. The desire to be in some way superior is a human instinct that is related to the instinct to survive and to give oneself some advantage or other in the struggle against other individuals for survival. That instinct has long taken on an essentially psychological character in humans.

Are you saying that we shouldnt hurt animals but that it is OK to kill them and to eat them? That would make a very strange proposition if applied to humans. Or are you saying that it is "wrong" to kill and eat animals? Do you want to ban meat? But it is OK for animals to eat each other? Or do you want to ban that too? Do you have any coherent agenda or is this all a self-righteous illusion where you pretend that you are a "moral" person and somehow "better" than the Roberts family and the rest of us and that you somehow have the "right" to intimidate people who disagree with you? Do you not show the desire for tyranny? Does your will-to-power disguise itself as moral concern?

I have been a vegan for 30 years btw but I dont feel any need to agree with you. And I dont like political bully boys!

What a load of nonsense!

"The TV footage that you allude to showed a single rogue hired groom beating it with a plastic pitch fork. He disappeared and the family would be happy to see him arrested" -- Er, Bobby Roberts was shown as present in some of the footage so it's clear he knew what was going on!

You also say a "single rogue groom" was responsible for beating the animals, so I assume it was exactly the same guy filmed doing exactly the same thing at the Great British Circus in 2009 then was it? Have a look at this video and see whether you recognise him:  http://youtu.be/bta6UxBX6xM

Don't worry about the political effort, that's already complete and wild animals in circuses will soon be banned in Britain...although Bobby Roberts and his scumbag animal abusing circus will still have animals and it will still face protests.

30 years vegan? Not related to the circus? Not full of shit? Not likely!

You don't like bullies but bullies pick on people weaker than them, (such as chained animals), and Bobby Roberts is one of the biggest bullies of them all...only outdone by Martin Lacey from the Great British Circus, who even attacks BBC journalists when they refer to a camel which is tied up as being "tethered"!

Anyway, you're just a lying troll who's more full of shit than the average sewage treatment plant so your lies have no value and won't redeem Bobby Roberts and his barbaric freak show....

I should have explained clearer to you that animals kill and eat each other because every species has the will to survive as its basic instinct from which all other instincts are derived. And it is nature's way that they should do combat with each other for survival. That is how evolution works and it is how the quality of the species is maintained and improved, through the survival of the fittest. So suffering is part and parcel of sentient life. The capacity for pain and pleasure is aimed at keeping us alive.

The world has no "moral" import, all that is happening is the evolution of the species through the survival of the fittest. "Morality" is a human construct that is ultimately aimed at our own survival; we evolved the tendency to view the world in moral terms as an evolutionary strategy. Religions pretend that morality is somehow "written in stone" and that we all have to "serve" the moral law. Religions pretend that we are "good" or better" people if we submit to the moral code. But that is a deluded and servile view of the world. "God is dead" and there is nothing for us to serve. There is no moral law that justifies or condemns us or our actions. We are free agents because we understand and embrace the amoral nature of reality and we embrace the fundamental life instinct to maintain and to improve life.

Anyway, the point is that we should give more attention to the survival of species than to the welfare of individual beasts if we really are concerned with the animal world. A UK species goes extinct every two weeks and that sort of thing has been going on for decades. Up to half of species worldwide may go extinct this century. The death or "abuse" of an individual animal is pretty insignificant within that perspective. The real problem is not the circuses or animal "abuse" or "bad" people; the problem is all of us, the "good" people who go to work every day and raise their families in the modern life-style as people normally do. The problem is not human "evil" but human "good". The solution can lie only in the rational re-organisation of human society and in a reintegration of humanity with nature. We should look to maintain and to improve our species while limiting our numbers and the harm that we do to other species as species. That is a different kind of "good" that focuses on species as species and on the survival of species and on the improvement of our own species. The old ways of seeing and doing things is literally destroying the world. Circuses or veganism may be good starting points (or not) but they shouldnt be the end horizon of animal activism. I dont think that UK animal activists show much awareness of the situation and if anything their actions give a false impression of the situation and even help to obscure the real issue.

You cant win arguments btw by calling people a "troll" and by saying that they work for a circus, Anyone can call their opponent that, it means nothing and it certainly doesnt win arguments.

The troll posting here as "Animal World" turns up regularly on Indymedia to defend animal abusers. Uses a variety of aliases, one being "A Scientist". No surprise really as he is a vivisector who once tried to set up a zoo.

NP, I have some questions for you.

Can you explain to us what animal "abuse" is?

Is it "abuse" to turn animals into shoes and belts? What about key rings and wallets? My wallet is made of leather, does that make me an animal "abuser"? Do you want to ban leather goods?

Is fox hunting animal "abuse"? The fox hunts its own prey. How is it OK for the fox to hunt but not for humans? And what about cats and birds, they hunt too? Are they animal "abusers"? In fact the whole animal world is based on hunting and gathering other species. How is it suddenly animal "abuse" when humans hunt? And since when, since you decided?

Is it animal "abuse" to eat live fish? What about fish and chips? What about saveloy and chips or steak and kidney pie? And what about the fish that eat other fish? Are fish animal "abusers" or only us?

How is it "abuse" for us to use animals for our own ends? Can you explain? Are animals "sacred" and they are to be protected from humans, even though they kill and eat each other?

The whole concept of animal "abuse" doesnt seem to have been thought out very clearly. Do we really want to constrain humans with this senseless sentimentalism?

Are you a "better" or a more "holy" person than the rest of us? Are we evil reprobates in your opinion? You remind me of the Puritans. You seem to have some sort of vegan regime planned where bbqs are outlawed as "abuse" and as an "abomination" and a "crime".

"I have been a vegan for 30 years" followed by "My wallet is made of leather".

Human animals, with the exception of small children and the mentally impaired, are moral agents. You are not a child.

NP, Why dont you answer the questions about what animal "abuse" is?

You cant accuse people of animal "abuse" unless you can define "abuse".

See the questions above and answer them one by one. And then give us a coherent definition of animal "abuse".

If you dont, then it shows that you cant.

It shows that your position is ridiculous and incoherent.

Your tactic is to sit there calling people names without any discussion of principles. I say "boo" to that nonsense.

NP, I am not a "moral agent" in the sense that you propose. I am a citizen who shares a "social contract" with my compatriots and that binds me to certain laws, which I am nevertheless free to try to change.

There is no objective "moral" order in the world that I must "submit" to. That is a medieval view of the world. I dont "believe" in "god" and I dont believe in "moral" laws written in stone. We create our own "morality" to suit us and to express our instincts and our sensibilities. Laws vary from people to people and from time to time and that is how it should be.

I am no more obliged to protect animals than they are obliged to protect me. That doesnt make me a "psycho", it makes me a normal and free agent who is not intimidated by shrill vegan activists.

I am free to use, kill, eat and wear animals and there is no "moral" law against that. Your claim to the contrary is medieval, delusional and simply wrong.

In fact it is ridiculous in the extreme. The entire animal world is based on the use of other species. We are animals, get over it!

NP, I am an animal and that means that I use other species for my own interests. That is what all animals do.

Humans are animals and in effect you are saying that animals shuldnt use other animals. But the use of other animals is part and parcel of nature.

If you could you would stop all animals from eating each other, not just humans. But that is what animals naturally do.

So really you are against animals. You pretend that you "love" them but you dont, you "hate" them. You cant bear animals the way that they are and you want to change them.

This isnt about "morality" or reality it is about your own subjective response to animal suffering and your own incoherent and authoritarian agenda.

I "love" animals and I am happy to take them as they are, with tooth and claw red from combat.

I am also happy to take human animals as they are, with their pets, their hunts, their farms, their circuses and with the meat section in the local supermarket.

How come you said you were a vegan of 30 years, yet now you claim the right to eat animals and you have a leather wallet?

It's interesting that you're alleged to be a former vivisector who also tried to set up a zoo, and it's obvious that you are lying through your teeth in your comments so the question should be what is your agenda?

This is a story about circuses, and despite telling a few lies and discrediting yourself you've added nothing to this debate. You have an unhealthy interest in pursuing AR stories, with stupid comments, lies and very little validation but what I don't understand is why?

I believe that, according to internet slang, you would be defined as a "Troll". To clarify the meaning, so there is no ambiguity, according to Wikipedia:

"A troll is someone who posts inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum, chat room, or blog, with the primary intent of provoking other users into a desired emotional response or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion."

If you want to answer your questions, (which would more commonly be described as trolling), then you could find all the answers online, but you are trying to attract attention for no discernible reason, in a forum where nobody's going to be convinced by your mixture of dishonesty and bullshit, so the question remains...

Just to clarify. Although "Animal World" is definitely the troll who defends animal abusers on Indymedia as "A Scientist" etc. I'm not 100% sure he is the vivisector and would be zoo owner I was thinking of earlier. Not that it matters who he is but interesting that he has not denied it.