The Sport of Cowards
How does something like dog fighting get classified as a sport? Maybe because it’s barbaric and violent and there is real bloodshed and death. Maybe because the animals are “trained” to fight. Or maybe because we don’t know what “sport” means.
What kind of person could enjoy watching animals viciously tear each other apart, and have no objection to the loser being drowned, hung, shot, burned, or beaten to death? The animals that are used for fighting, pit bulls, stand between 18” and 22” tall, and their average weight is 65 pounds, although they may weigh as little as 20 pounds and as much as 110 pounds (dogbreedinfo.com). The most common weight for a pit bull is 35-55 pounds.
So here’s the sport: take two relatively small animals (20” tall, 45 pounds), train them to fight to the death savagely and ferociously, and allow people to watch them fight (for a price) and bet on them. The entire “point” of the “show” is to present two animals ripping each other apart. How brave the trainers must be. How sophisticated the audiences.
What is the attraction to this sport? It’s not just gambling; those who bet on dog fights could just as easily and illegally bet on people fights (boxing, football, hockey) in which the fighters are adults who choose to engage in battle. There are plenty of legal casinos, as well as illegal gambling clubs, which allow the gamblers to lose their money and participate in the game. And then there’s the lottery—if one just wants to lose some money, one can’t go wrong there.
Reportedly, professionally organized dog fighting has decreased, but street dog fighting has increased, particularly “among young men in at-risk neighborhoods” (NakedLaw), reportedly encouraged by the beatification and capitalization/monetization of Michael Vick (Huffington Post). What does this allegedly macho endeavor say about its (sub)human participants?
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