Originally Posted by AnonymousIdiotSavant

But trying to stick it to them on any level, simply out of spite, doesn't make you or your cause any better than any other example of bigotry. If they don't like being oppressed for no good reason they can try to get it overturned is a pretty shoddy defense too.

QFT.

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Originally Posted by contracycle

Well, what's the alternative, that we have our laws created and administered by an enlightened despot?

Vote for me?

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I'm just being realistic here. I've never claimed the majority can never be spiteful or vindictive or oppressive. But the remedy for that is open debate and political process.

... or safeguard to make sure that the majority, when it is spiteful or vindictive or oppressive DOESN'T get its wishes.

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Plus, the "no good reason" is tendentious and disputed. Remember the Michael Vick scandal? Dog fighting, chicken fighting etc. are banned here just as they are in the US. Why should it be unacceptable to make a sport of watching an animal torn to pieces in one case and not in another? It looks suspiciously like bloodsports are banned for the poor but not for the rich, doesn't it?

Well, bullfighting is legal in quite a few countries where it's traditional. Personally cockerels fights wouldn't bother me. Dog fights a bit more but I have to admit it's not entirely rational so I wouldn't push it.

Dog fight is a bit different because dogs are pets, by and large. Cockerels aren't and neither are foxes or bulls. Thus, cruelty to a pet tend to reveal a capacity for cruelty to humans that cruelty to a wild animal or a farm animal doesn't.

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Originally Posted by Gilles de Rais

... or safeguard to make sure that the majority, when it is spiteful or vindictive or oppressive DOESN'T get its wishes.

A blade that doesn't cut is no use to anyone. Any form of power can be used for good or ill. Knives may kill but scalpels can save.

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Dog fight is a bit different because dogs are pets, by and large. Cockerels aren't and neither are foxes or bulls. Thus, cruelty to a pet tend to reveal a capacity for cruelty to humans that cruelty to a wild animal or a farm animal doesn't.

Saw a prog about bullfighting getting banned in Spain the other day. Attendance is way down anyway. Anyway, it's unlikely someone raising a dog for the ring would be as attached to it as they would to a family pet, any more than farmers are to sheep.

And people raising dogs for fight are probably pretty jaded and insensitive, the same way pimps must be to their human chattel.

Up to a point, I wouldn't mind. The spectators, though, are a bit different. I don't agree that violent computer games jade players but I think there might be something into the argument that gladiatorial fights to the death and spectacles of torture contributed to desensitising Roman citizens.

Just as the tradition of Krypteia might have had consequences on the mindset of your young Spartan...

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