Uh oh Pedro

[thedude]

As long as the video doesn't show Pedro losing or collecting large wads of cash (i.e. gambling), i could care less. Cock fighting isn't illegal in the DR, so as long as he isn't gambling MLB really can take no action. If PETA wants to flip out, then what else is new? They are always protesting something or someone.

[hybrid]

Honestly it's a better sporting chance to live then we give the same animals over here. I dont get how the majority of Americans can look at this poorly with all things considered. Not trying to start a debate on an entirely different subject, just saying.

What's that supposed to mean, they don't get eaten if they win?

If you don't get animal cruelty then you just don't get it I guess.

Well it doesnt seem like you got my point at all. I was hoping most would so I wouldnt have to elaborate and potentially get off topic. The point being this is by far less animal cruelty then what goes on every day with millions of chickens in the U.S. Is cock fighting animal cruelty, yes easily IMO. But everyone in the U.S. who eats chicken is causing a worse fate than these cock fights. So my post was basically asking what right do most people have at getting upset at this type of "sport".

[moochman]

[tangent]

Not that I want to include any personal feelings that I have or don't have in regards to this topic, but it seems rather silly that in the thousands of years of recorded human history we haven't learned to accept our own human nature yet. From gladiatorial combat in ancient Rome, to entire cultures going from religiously persecuted to religiously intolerant in a matter of decades, to the prolific culture of pedarasts in ancient Greece, we somehow constantly seem to pretend like we, as a society, should be "better than this"... while history constantly reminds us that not only are we not "better than this", there's not anything particularly "better" about the rules we make, and we're probably capable of much, much worse.

Discussions like these always end up in the meta-ethical range, where everyday logic and reasoning don't seem to matter anymore, so I won't assume that we're going to have one of those discussions here... it just baffles me.

You'd think at some point we'd all just embrace our own animal desires, throw off the fake veil of "civilization" and go back to doing what we all want to do again... being animals. I can guarantee you that chicken-fights, dog-fighting, and bull-fighting would be the least concerning thing on your mind.

Look around you... take off the rosy colored glasses and witness the atrocities that go on everyday in this world. Around the world. In your backyard. Stop pretending like we're so much more advanced and civilized than other species and stop ignoring the grotesque amount of human scum on this planet. The crazies, freaks, murderers, rapists, and psychos aren't nearly as "abnormal" as you think they are... they're all around you, waiting for the first good excuse to become less than human again.

[/tangent]

It's the Hobbes-ian struggle with our baser self that causes us to bond as a society for the betterment of us all. Hobbes asserted that left to his own desires man life would be nasty, brutish and short. We see how society helps to curb man's baser nature when you read of people outrage of an individual's actions. Eventually these actions succumb to the pressure of society and for the most part cease. You don't see a lot of fights to the death for general public consumption. That there are areas you can still find this only proves Hobbes point on the baser instincts of man and the importance of community in preventing man from a nasty, brutish, short life.