Dog Fighting

[woodchip]

Listening to Rush the other day, a interesting comment (not by Rush) was brought up. We all know about Michel Vicks and his dog fighting charges. The question is, how is dog fighting any different from college football players. Both the dogs and the player get injured from their "sport". Both are loyal and have a high regard for their "handlers?
So why did Vicks have to do jail time and college coaches get paid big bucks and receive adulation from the adoring masses for essentiall doing the same thing?

[Spidey]

The dogs don’t have any choice.

And boxing would have been a better analogy.

[CUDA]

The dogs don’t have any choice.

+1

[Will Robinson]

College coaches create wealth for powerful people.
Vick and other dog fighters don't.
If the audience for dog fighting ever reaches the mass profit tipping point you can bet the campaign to legitimize it will begin.

Limbaugh no doubt wanted to illustrate how a liberal can get away with equating athletes, most of them black, with dogs without being vilified where he was attacked as a racist merely for suggesting the media has been uncharacteristically deferential to a black quarterback (Donovan McNabb) only because of his race, who otherwise wouldnt be exempt from their usual harsh criticism of a veteran starting quarterback with McNabbs performance record...

[callmeslick]

anyone who suggests that the media was ever deferential to Donovan McNabb(a solid, but never great QB) clearly never lived in the media markets around Philadelphia. As for the dog fighting analogy on Rush, as was pointed out, the dogs don't get to choose whether to fight, and the dog/human bond is of a different nature than a player/coach bond(the former is essentially an inbred trait developed over thousands of years and borders on instinctual). The closest analogy in 'civilized' sport is with horse racing, but any sport involving purely humans deals with human choice, so the analogy with dogfighting doesn't hold up.

[Tunnelcat]

The dogs don’t have any choice.

And boxing would have been a better analogy.

They don't get paid royal salaries either. And when they fail, they die in the fight or are put down afterwards like so much dead meat.

[callmeslick]

I think the real problem with this type of analogy lies in Woody's initial sentence:"Listening to Rush the other day....." The wheels of rationality come off at that point, generally.

[woodchip]

I think the real problem with this type of analogy lies in Woody's initial sentence:"Listening to Rush the other day....." The wheels of rationality come off at that point, generally.

And in your case the mere mention of Rush voids any rationality no matter what might be on his program.

[Foil]

anyone who suggests that the media was ever deferential to Donovan McNabb(a solid, but never great QB) clearly never lived in the media markets around Philadelphia.

McNabb wasn't getting a "pass" from national sports media, either. From what I recall, he was often heavily criticized by analysts even when the Eagles were winning (which they did most of the time, to my dismay as a Cowboys fan). Rush was not only off-base by insisting it was about race, he was off-base by insisting McNabb got preferential treatment.

[Note: Back around '90-'92 or so, I used to listen to Rush's national radio show with my Dad. He had an obvious political bent, but he was generally humorous and good-natured. Some years later I heard him again at the workplace, and it was night and day; he'd become a cranky ranting polarized caricature, even to my then-staunch-Republican ears.]

[CobGobbler]

And in your case the mere mention of Rush voids any rationality no matter what might be on his program.

Pretty much.

[LEON]

Was this guy, Michel Vicks, charged for animal cruelty, or because money and gambling was involved? I don't know in US, but in my country (Norway), gambling is outlawed (if not run by the state). So if some guys plays poker for money, they run the risk of police bum rush the whole house. Which actually happened here just recently. For the record, poker is legal, but, not the money bidding.

[callmeslick]

Vick was convicted of gambling related offenses AND animal cruelty offenses.

[woodchip]

Vick was convicted of gambling related offenses AND animal cruelty offenses.

Could you not say the same charges could apply to football and cage fighting?