Fighting Cocks in Wisconsin

The St. Paul Pioneer Press via Twin Cities.com has informed us of a multi-agency task force, together with the ASPCA, putting the collar on at least three cockfighting devotees in the bucolic regions of Polk County and St. Croix County, Wisconsin in this story.

While cockfighting is even now a popular pastime in many parts of the world and was once a regular entertainment in the UK and the US as well, some contemporary Americans are so disgusted by the idea that they've managed to create legislation making the sport illegal. While the basis for this is apparently cruelty to animals, the same idea doesn't extend to fish, as we noted earlier. Doesn't extend to baby boys, either, perhaps because circumcision isn't a sport and nobody bets on it.

Diversity, a liberal mantra, is encouraged in the US when people of other cultures make their home there as long as it's restricted to exotic foods, costumes, music and dance routines. Other cultural traits, like marrying several 13 year-old girls, chewing khat and betting on chicken fights aren't the kind of diversity the societal guardians are looking for.  America's toughest sheriff, the legendary Joe Arpaio, puts the hammer down on cockfighting also and has some serious help, as this story tells. After discovering a battalion of chicken warriors, Sheriff Joe arrests and charges the putative owner and euthanizes ( read that as "kills") over one hundred roosters. They're given the death penalty for unwittingly participating in an activity frowned on by the guys in the capitol.



Surplus military vehicle used by Sheriff Joe's posse to arrest shameless felon engaged in the husbandry of bad roosters.

The prohibition of cock fighting is supposedly because it's a cruel, inhuman activity, In reality cruelty is a major feature of human behavior, toward animals or one another. The actual reason for punishing cock fighting devotees is that the sport is a vehicle for gambling, just like NFL football. Neither of the two activities would have any significant level of participation without betting. The government encourages illegal betting on football by building new, huge television studios for their games but confiscates and kills fighting cocks. Something doesn't add up.