Cockfight Culture and Tradition
Cockfight Culture and Tradition Banished
I received the following letter from a reader who is concerned that their cultural tradition has been unjustly trampled upon by the ideas and actions of an outside group:
Hello Wade,
My name is XXXX I enjoyed reading your article and applaud you for printing it. I am from New Mexico and I am a cockfighter it has been in my family for 6 generations it is a proud and honorable tradition for us. Last year Animal Rights Activist felt that this was cruel and helped outlaw it in New Mexico. (with large sums of donations to legislators) It was a very sad day. Your comment "This is how traditions and cultures disappear" this is very true because of a groups opinion my tradition and culture is now illegal I feel this is wrong.
The person that commented about female genital mutilation is comparing young women to CHICKENS how outrages is that. We eat CHICKENS they should not have the same right as HUMANS or the same WORTH.
I hope you continue to print the truth about various cultures and injustices around the world. Good Luck to you.
Cockfight Culture and Tradition Banished
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I received the following letter from a reader who is concerned that their cultural tradition has been unjustly trampled upon by the ideas and actions of an outside group:
Hello Wade,
My name is XXXX I enjoyed reading your article and applaud you for printing it. I am from New Mexico and I am a cockfighter it has been in my family for 6 generations it is a proud and honorable tradition for us. Last year Animal Rights Activist felt that this was cruel and helped outlaw it in New Mexico. (with large sums of donations to legislators) It was a very sad day. Your comment "This is how traditions and cultures disappear" this is very true because of a groups opinion my tradition and culture is now illegal I feel this is wrong.
The person that commented about female genital mutilation is comparing young women to CHICKENS how outrages is that. We eat CHICKENS they should not have the same right as HUMANS or the same WORTH.
I hope you continue to print the truth about various cultures and injustices around the world. Good Luck to you.
Links to related pages:
Cockfight video censured
Of Men and Cocks
At the Cockfight
Links to previous travelogue entries:
Traveler Returns Home
Words of the Buddha
Living Off Psychological Research
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Labels: usa
posted by Wade Vagabond Journey.com at
11:35 AM
5 Comments:
Too funny New Mexico. I wasn't comparing women to chickens, silly. I was merely giving a few extreme examples of other cultural traditions around the world that are violent, cause suffering, and are often deemed barbaric by outsiders.
Your comment here is very revealing, "We eat CHICKENS they should not have the same right as HUMANS or the same WORTH."
That's really what it comes down to here, doesn't it? The worth of an animal; whether it has a soul; whether it has complex thoughts and feelings? If you view animals as souless and worthless, who's only purpose is to serve as human fodder, for food, entertainment, and beasts of burden; well, of course how easy it becomes to kill them, to hurt them, to use and abuse them as if they were only inanimate objects, doesn't it?
Even if we must use animals as a source of food and energy, I see a world of difference between a quick and painless kill for the purpose of survival, and the killing/suffering of an animal purely for the entertainment of it; and it don't mean squat if you plan to eat it afterwards either. They used to do the same thing in ancient Rome with people. Some people get off on watching murderous bloodbaths. If you think its fun to watch two life forms kill each other, you are pathologically sick, period. And if you want to use your family tradition as a justification for this, be my guest. But cockfighting is a felony is most of the United States and Europe. The fact is most people in the U.S. oppose cockfighting. And here in America we have a democratic government, and that means more than rule by the people, it means majority rule. If you don't like it, maybe you ought to move back to Old Mexico, or Latin America, where cockfighting is still going strong, and there are no such thing as animal rights or even basic human rights, or the constitutional protections of civil liberties, where the rule of law is characterized by lawlessness and corruption.
P.S. Wade, this comment moderation thing sucks. You'd probably have more comments without it.
Your post of cockfighting was thought provoking, that's for sure. I guess I finally decided after much thought that even though something has a long history and is part of the culture, it doesn't necessarily make it right.
Examples like female genital mutilation, stoning for adultery, slavary, etc., just proves the point. IMHO.
Peace,
Diane
Hello Cym,
Thanks for the comment again. I am going to get a post up soon with some of the points that you made . . . . though I am now in the middle of some rarely severe personal uphevals and I am really taking the piss out of myself thinking dead-end thoughts.
I suppose this crap happens to everyone once in a while.
Will get back to you in a couple of days.
I have the comment moderation on because it allows me to better keep track of what is going on.
Thanks,
Wade
Actually the US is a constitutional republic, "in which majority rule is tempered by minority rights protected by law. Just because the majority of people are against something, does not make it OK to ban it. Just as.. just because the majority of people are for something does not mean it is OK to do it. Pick a subject: Gays, boxing, eating meat, listening to ganster rap, football, horse racing, the study of science. There are/were people who felt all of these should be banned. At times, some were.
There are few absolutes in morality. Morality is a moving target, changing with time, location, culture, situations etc.
Just because something was moral, does not necessarily mean it is moral. Just because something is immoral does not mean that it might not be considered moral in the future.
Wade: No problem. Sorry to be a pest. I was originally just going to drop the whole subject, as there's no way to win this debate, but only commented because "New Mexico" misconstrued something I said.
ct_bob: Mostly agreed, except that with the exception of racing horses, those examples you give all involve the individual choices of consenting adults. Personally, I try to live by the rule, "if it harm none, do what you will." I don't care what anyone else does, so long as all parties involved are consciously willing participants, and it don't hurt anybody else.
Animals, and children, and the mentally disabled, are not fully conscious and willing participants. Someone has to speak up for them in their defense, otherwise no one will, because they themselves are voiceless.
Also you said: "Just because the majority of people are against something, does not make it OK to ban it." By this logic you could also say that just because a minority is for something, doesn't make it okay to un-ban it either, right?
Also you said: "There are few absolutes in morality." But aren't there any? And if so, what are they? For example, Can random murder, rape, or torture ever really be right?
I admit that majority rule is not an accurate gauge of truth or morality. I agree that just because something is favored or disfavored by the majority doesn't make it right. After all, it is often said that democracy is nothing more than mob rule.
I think a better way of determining justice is to weigh the good versus the bad. For example, for cockfighting, you have to ask yourself, what good is actually coming out of? Does the good outweigh the bad, or does the bad outweigh the good?
I don't see how the quality of peoples lives would be significantly improved by the legalization of cockfighting. Are people really suffering by not being able to watch cockfights? Wouldn't watching boxing, or any other legal sports betting, be equally gratifying, without having to injure/kill an animal for your amusement?
P.S. I would like to add that the criminalization of cockfighting in New Mexico was not so much because of pressure from animal rights groups, it was primarily a result of pressure from the Catholic Church.
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