Asymmetrical Information

What's the point of football? It attracts rapists, murderers, bible thumpers, and now abusers of dogs.

"What's the point of football? It attracts rapists, murderers, bible thumpers, and now abusers of dogs."

What's the point of internet? It attracts A, B, and now C. (insert any groups of people you don't like)

The point of any sport organized at the local level is exercise, diversion. Above the equivalent of little league (in small towns), sports are about gambling, and cash flow management. Even Olympics are about politics.

Tell me that sports are about sportsmanship when Bozo demands pay for an autograph.

As for the dogs, I imagine it is the sound of the dogs dying that is supposed to impress the 'haven't lost yet' group. Sounds gruesome to me.

The point? What makes you think there has to be a point? Trying to force this into a little rational box seriously underestimates how nasty people can be.

The pain is the point. They aren't hoping to accomplish any even remotely rational end. They engage in cruelty for its own sake, which they enjoy because they are really terrible people.

You execute the dogs that lost instead of just random dogs because labeling them Losers sets up a moral distance that lets you do terrible things to them and not feel bad about it.

I say, don't listen to the BBC. I know it makes me upset every time.

Well, it doesn't look like these guys were experts in animal husbandry, so maybe they did think it was a "motivational tool." But it seems that the whole point of dogfighting in this culture is a display of human viciousness, toughness, and coldbloodedness.

I've heard this Macauly quote about the Puritans hating bear baiting not because of the pain it gave to the bear, but because of the pleasure it gave to the spectators. It's usually offered up in a context that suggests Macauly thought the Puritans were wrong. Perhaps they had a point.

These forms of killing avoid butchering and the resulting mess.

The "point" of executing dogs that lost is that it's not like a human boxing or ultimate fighting match where the loser usually gets up and fights the next day. Dogs that lost are usually crippled to the point where they can't fight again, so they're useless to the owners. Why keep them around when they're no longer useful? And these aren't exactly animal-loving people who'd think to euthanize the dogs with a painless shot.

Adding to Hei Lun Chan, fighting dogs also don't exactly make for good pets. Unlike greyhounds - the other "sport dog" frequently killed after their career is over - a horribly mangled pit bull trained to kill other dogs with a not-so-great track record of differentiating between dogs and small children just doesn't seem to adoptable.

I doubt that the killing of the dogs who had outlived their usefulness would have been mentioned in the inditement if it had not been done in such a vicious manner. (Must not even be illegal? Done in shelters every day.) And I think that Jane's post was a reaction to the manner rather than the fact of their killing. (Though I gather that Jane would disagree with this former farm boy's rather utilitarian view of the relationship between people and animals.)

I am amazed. Megan, you are incredibly naive, or have so much time spent on worthwhile pursuits that the trivia of sports and bestial animal torturers don't even provide a glow on your horizon.

I really don't think it is motivational to the survivors to kill a dog who lost a match. Those people who insist on getting hopped up on drugs, be they the very 'benign' like mj, to speed, to heroine, to steroids, etc., lose a certain rationality of thought and perspective.

There are in sports that involve a large proportion of people who decide to take steroids and other such drugs to enhance performance, with a side effect of altering the brain. Not all are affected the same way, but it is not beyond the pale to believe they can become mean and vicious.

Let's assume you are one of these pumped up bodies, you tend to be surly and grouchy (like certain football and baseball players), and you just lost a bunch of dough to someone because your dog failed you. I'd propose that they might want to do something ugly to them. It isn't warranted or right, but people pumped with drugs can be pretty horrible creatures.

Mr. Vick is most likely a sadist, and it has nothing to do with any drugs he may have taken.

Why do you think these methods of killing were intended to be painful and protracted rather than just expedient? I believe hanging and execution remain Supreme Court approved for human executions.

I am not a dogfighter,but I believe that once a dog loses a dogfight, he doesn't fight as hard in subsequent fights. Since he becomes useless as a fighting dog and they make bad pets, they are disposed of.

I haven't followed this story either, because I'm a big dog lover and it upsets me, but let's hope that all the embarrassments to the human race who were involved (and convicted, of course) do long long stretches in the pen, where they belong.

James: True, but only done "professionally" under controlled circumstances deliberately designed to produce a quick death.

Hanging can be quick and essentially painless (by all available data, at least), if done correctly (such as modern hangings in US executions).

It can also be slow and horrible, if done in a way meant to maximise suffering (see the Nazi executions of the Stauffenberg plotters; hung slowly by piano-wire from meathooks).

The most expedient way to kill a crippled fighting dog is probably with a .22 to the head; fast, cheap, kills the dog instantly, and it's a lot easier on the executioner, too. Fighting dogs aren't small and light, and hanging one can't be trivially easy.

One thus concludes that the probable goal was not strictly a quick, humane death.

what is the point of executing dogs that lost in painful and protracted ways?

a) Sadism
b) Letting out one's own frustrations at the supposedly guilty party
c) Trevor's last paragraph

Any psychologists care to weigh in on this? Dr. Helen, perhaps?

Nobody has yet thought to comment on Dave's equating of Christians with rapists, murderers, and animal abusers? I'm a little dismayed at Jane's readers. This blog had never struck me as a hangout for those who are reflexively hostile to religion before.

For that matter, it's a bit of a gratuitous swipe at the NFL, which actually has a lower rate of criminality than you'll find among any other randomly selected group of 1,500 young men. But I can see how it would seem otherwise if your only exposure to the game is the front page.

But the fact that Dave's swipe at Christians was unchallenged by any other reader...that still has me a little surprised. I don't consider myself a Christian (I'm a lapsed Catholic), but that definitely seemed like a case of "One of these is not like the other..."

perplexed, it is often best to ignore comments like that instead of engaging them. "Don't feed the trolls," as they say. If commenters had some affirmative duty to object every time someone said something, no internet discussion would ever go anywhere. As it is, most don't anyway.

Jane's commenter's silence probably speaks more to their relative sophistication as internet users than to any anti-religious sentiment.

i'm a little late to the game on this, but i'd like to offer the idea that those involved in this "sport" are not accultured to the love of animals in general, dogs specifically in this instance, that most of us in this discussion are. though no government in asia wants to discuss it or confront it, dogs are raised and cultivated as food in many areas in asia, not beloved members of the family. they are fed and farmed the same way we feed and farm cows and pigs.

by no means am i trying to ameliorate the mendacity and savagery of what dog pimps in this country are doing by establishing some sort of moral equivalence. i only mean to propose another aspect of this backward culture for consideration so that it may be understood. i believe it's a lack of the essential recognition of the soul of these animals that is missing in these cultures. without that animal-to-animal connection, harvesting these dogs to be homicidal puppets in a macabre theater isn't much of a stretch.

> - perplexed

Sure. NFL players have a lot to lose and little to gain by engaging in criminal activity. However, compare them with with a randomly selected group of 1,500 young men in the same salary range (the average NFL salary was $1.4 million in 2006), and I bet the NFL doesn't come out looking so rosy.

what is the point of executing dogs that lost in painful and protracted ways?

This : Cruelty’s Rewards: The Gratifications of Perpetrators and Spectators

Main (hypothetical) points:
- cruelty is a behavioural by-product of predation.
- it is driven by reinforcers that derive from this adaptation.
- since cruelty presupposes the intention to inflict pain, and is therefore exclusively a hominid behaviour, it dates to no earlier than H. erectus, about 1.5 million years ago (Ma).
- cruelty has fitness benefits in solving problems of survival and reproduction in forager, pastoral, and urban societies.
- enjoyment of cruelty is a culturally elaborated manifestation of the predatory adaptation.

(Though I gather that Jane would disagree with this former farm boy's rather utilitarian view of the relationship between people and animals)

This former farm boy rather successfully treats animals as something more than utilitarian, particularly dogs.

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