Cockfighting?

[Jan Libourel]

I noticed in a recent newspaper article that a home in Val Verde, California, was raided and 8,000 roosters were confiscated on the suspicion that they were to be used for cockfighting. The usual public authorities and humane advocates were quoted about how shocking this animal cruelty was...positively shocking!

Maybe my moral compass is out of joint, but it seems to me that the cruelty of comparatively few fighting cocks dying in the ring pales in comparison to the cruelty of over 9 billion chickens slaughtered annually in the name of food production. The chickens are dumped en masse onto a conveyor belt, trussed upside down and sent through blades that (hopefully) slash their throats. Sometimes the blades miss and the live chickens are then dumped into scalding water along with the more fortunate ones who had their throats slashed and the surviving chickens are then scalded to death. The scalding enables de-feathering and the bodies are then gutted and dismembered.

So why, given the horrible things we do to billions of chickens annually, does cockfighting arouse so much indignation? It wasn't always that way. For example, Andrew Jackson was an avid cockfighter. I have sometimes remarked that if there is anything to the doctrine of metempsychosis and for my many sins I am condemned to live my next life as a chicken, I would far, far prefer to be a fighting cock than some poor, short-lived broiler capon!

 

[Fwiffo]

I believe it has something to do with breeding militant animals whose only goal in life is hacking its own kind to death - often hopped up on drugs and conditioned less than humane way.

Of course we do the same to humans and put meat heads in a ring or octagon so who knows.

 

[The Shooman]

Of course human beings have the right to eat meat and chicken, humans just live that way, but the issue here is the unnecessary cruelty involved with slaughter houses and cock fighting. Both things bring unnecessary cruelty, so neither is good. Regarding the killing of animals for meat, it needs to be done in the most humane way possible.

 

[Fwiffo]

Balanced with humans need the meat. And frankly, humans are the only ones that will save the planet.

 

[Jan Libourel]

I was just looking at a number of videos on cocking. Most of them were in what I presume to be Tagalog (Pilipino) and hence incomprehensible to me. However, I saw carefully nourished, beautifully cared for birds in the pink of condition. If some die in fights (not all do), so be it. I repeat, "Better to be a fighting cock than a broiler capon!"

 

[Pimpernel Smith]

I don't get it, are you for the motion or against it?

 

[Fwiffo]

I believe he is for chicken fights as it's more noble than chicken as a source of food.

I'm for whatever is politically correct. Unfortunately I don't see an stance that someone can take with a clear conscience.

 

[formby]

I don't get it, are you for the motion or against it?

This is what happens after 4 years studying Greats at Oxford, you learn to ponder important questions like: Would it be better, in the next life, to come back as a capon or a cock?

And you thought PPE was bad...

 

[Fwiffo]

What do you have against Oxford? Are you going to rail against Eton next?

 

[formby]

What do you have against Oxford? Are you going to rail against Eton next?

Is this directed at moi? If so, there's a clue in the second line of my signature.

 

[Fwiffo]

Is this directed at moi? If so, there's a clue in the second line of my signature.

Not sure my Microsoft Edge on android is showing it.

When I was in uni, I was asked by my professors to treat OED as canon.

 

[Pimpernel Smith]

Formby is an Oxford college graduate as I remember?

 

[formby]

Formby is an Oxford college graduate as I remember?

Aggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh Noooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm a Johnian amongst other things...

 

[Pimpernel Smith]

Aggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh Noooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm a Johnian amongst other things...

Good for you, never trusted them Oxford goons!

The nearest I've got to Cambridge is TWI, which was part of the university, until they started making too much noise researching why all the welded Liberty ships were sinking in WWII and not by U-Boats.

 

[formby]

Good for you, never trusted them Oxford goons!

The nearest I've got to Cambridge is TWI, which was part of the university, until they started making too much noise researching why all the welded Liberty ships were sinking in WWII and not by U-Boats.

Oxford's fine.

Ah, the welding institute. Is this where your knowledge of fabricating duplex stainless steel came from?

 

[Jan Libourel]

Just to set the record straight, I spent two years as a senior student reading Greats at Balliol. I had already graduated from a large public university in the States. Also, nobody is an Oxford "college" graduate properly speaking. Only the university grants degrees.

Perhaps it was a mistake for me to have returned to the States, since having been a "Balliol Greatsman" has a lot of kudos in Britain (at least in those days). Few people in the States would know what a Balliol Greatsman was. I was merely an "Oxford grad" over here. However, had I stayed in Britain, I could never have owned all the handguns I have, nor could I have owned my magnificent Tosa dogs.

As to "pondering" the question of whether it would be better to be a capon or a fighting cock in your next life, I should hardly think it would need to be "pondered." The answer should be obvious to any man worthy of the term. However, I suppose if you took this karma business seriously, it might be better to get the "chicken" incarnation over with as quickly as possible in order to be reborn on a somewhat higher plane of existence.

 

[formby]

Just to set the record straight, I spent two years as a senior student reading Greats at Balliol. I had already graduated from a large public university in the States. Also, nobody is an Oxford "college" graduate properly speaking. Only the university grants degrees.

Perhaps it was a mistake for me to have returned to the States, since having been a "Balliol Greatsman" has a lot of kudos in Britain (at least in those days). Few people in the States would know what a Balliol Greatsman was. I was merely an "Oxford grad" over here. However, had I stayed in Britain, I could never have owned all the handguns I have, nor could I have owned my magnificent Tosa dogs.

As to "pondering" the question of whether it would be better to be a capon or a fighting cock in your next life, I should hardly think it would need to be "pondered." The answer should be obvious to any man worthy of the term. However, I suppose if you took this karma business seriously, it might be better to get the "chicken" incarnation over with as quickly as possible in order to be reborn on a somewhat higher plane of existence.

Easy tiger, I'm only teasing. 2 years, never mind 4, studying classics, is not for the faint-hearted. I couldn't have done it. I can't read Latin or Greek for a start. Odd, in the case of Latin as I was brought up a Catholic.

You're in good company though, Boris Johnson read Greats, and like you, at the ugly sister too.

 

[Jan Libourel]

Johnson and I both fell a bit short of getting firsts but did get high seconds in Greats. They didn't divide Second Class Honours in my day (unlike Cambridge), but if they had, I would have gotten a high second. That seems to have been the lot of many good men, including such notable Balliol classicists as the late Colin McLeod and M.L. Lang and eminent Catholic theologian Fr. Ian Ker.