But we've always...

Mentioned foxhunting in passing the other day, and of course it's now that time of year where the pros and antis trade verbal blows with each other.  It's now ten years since legislation made it illegal to hunt wild animals with dogs and yet attitudes do not seem to have changed.  Hunt meets still go on - and indeed seem more popular than ever - although today they are theoretically chasing a man-made trail rather then a real fox.  And hunt saboteurs continue to monitor and disrupt.  I've made my attitude plain in previous posts but one of the arguments consistently put forward by those in favour of hunting is that it is "tradition" - which seems to me to be one of those "it means what it means" words.  A tradition is something which has gone on for a long time - nothing more, nothing less.  It certainly carries with it no suggestion of right or wrong.  You can have bad traditions, good traditions and meaningless traditions.  So I don't think that particular word adds anything useful to the argument.