Shouldn't the NFL, College Football, MMA Fighting, and Boxing all be banned?

[Yavin4]

It's been demonstrated through study after study of the health hazards to the performers in these sports. Performers in these sports have died early deaths and suffered from major brain trauma.

Or is it because this form of entertainment does not involve sex, then people don't really care.

[Shrike47]

1. Around where I live, nobody gets kidnapped and forced to play in the NFL.

False analogy.

[Yavin4]

27. Please. Stop it.

If anyone is getting kidnapped then that's a crime. Come on.

[yeoman6987]

31. I see you are getting razed about your post

but I think you are spot on.

[Yavin4]

38. In certain parts of America, young boys are coerced into playing football.

Which probably happens a hell of a lot more than the woman being forced into porn.

[former9thward]

49. Young boys are "coerced" into a lot of things.

It is called socialization. We don't let young boys decide their life. If we did all they would do is eat ice cream and candy while playing video games.

[Inkfreak]

2. No. (nt)

[hifiguy]

3. Participants should be informed of all the risks,

but it's an open choice freely made. It should be an informed choice, but that's as far as I could ever go.

[Throd]

4. Absolutely. All risky activity should be banned.

People must be protected from themselves.

[GeorgeGist]

5. Next you'll be calling to ban dueling.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

13. and bear baiting! nt

[Throd]

17. and narwhal jousting!

[pipi_k]

23. And wolverine rodeos!

[Calista241]

6. People die from driving cars, swimming, hiking, all kinds of things.

BAN EVERYTHING!!

[JaneyVee]

7. No. And I hate to say it, but...

This is exactly the kind of "nanny-state" bullshit that gives liberalism a bad name. Liberalism is freedom, not fascism.

[NightWatcher]

9. Grand Slam!!!

People slip and fall in the shower, yet those are still legal.

[brachism]

21. TBBT

Cause of Injury: Lack of Adhesive Ducks

[DavidDvorkin]

8. They mystery is that anyone watches them.

[blueamy66]

22. What's the mystery?

Just because you don't enjoy those sports, doesn't mean that others don't and cannot.

Tell me what you enjoy doing/watching/playing....then I'll give you my opinion.

[DavidDvorkin]

25. I understand that people enjoy watching them

But that's a mystery to me.

[blueamy66]

54. What do you enjoy watching?

nt

[DavidDvorkin]

55. Not team sports

Opera, ballet, gymnastics, diving, plays.

Of course many people don't understand how anyone can watch those. That's irrelevant to my post.

[blueamy66]

56. There you go.

I could not watch an opera or a ballet. Plays, yes.

To each their own.

Just don't put down what others enjoy.

I have so many great memories of going to games with my late Father.

[DavidDvorkin]

57. I'm glad you have those great memories

Last edited Sat Aug 9, 2014, 10:45 AM - Edit history (1)

When I was a kid, I watched some sports and enjoyed it. But when I grew up, I lost all interest in watching them, and now it's a complete mystery to me that anyone but a kid does so.

[ClarkeVII]

10. I think...

in 50 years it gets banned. High school football gets banned first and I'm all for it. The NFL and College football scam taxpayers so hard.

[yeoman6987]

34. Well like others have said, everything is a risk

I think your premonition is not going to happen.

[LanternWaste]

47. Yet there is a cost/benefit ratio to everything also.

Yet there is a cost/benefit ratio to everything also.

"The myriad ways we justify to ourselves the casual and lavish consumptions we so desire, exceeded only by our excesses we defend to the last..."

[NightWatcher]

11. red meat is bad, alcohol is bad, people are injured everyday doing everything

I fell mountain climbing, should we level all the mountains and pave the sidewalks with rubber mats?

It's a free country and people should be free to play sports, watch sports, pay for sports....

Why do you want to control what people do? Why don't you like freedom?

[The Straight Story]

15. Freedom is oppression

when we let people have freedom they often make personal choices we don't like, which oppresses us. Smokers, porn, Home schooling, guns, fast food, large sodas, SUV's, pit bulls, This would be a much better society if we lived to pleased some god or other and punished choices we didn't like (or at least shamed them more for their sins).

We must examine the money it costs for each moment and choice of your life and then either charge you for your choices or raise taxes so high only the good people (the wealthy) can do those things. Freedom should only be for those amongst us who are superior and make the 'right' choices we think they should - it's the liberal way these days, not like them silly 'free love' style hippies (A lot of them were smokers and nearly destroyed our entire society, but jeebus saved us! Now go, and 'sin' no more).

[LanternWaste]

48. Yeah... speed limits are so authoritarian.

Yeah... speed limits are so authoritarian. Everyone should drive where and how they deem best for themselves, without outside interference from traffic laws, stop signs, speed limits or lighted intersections... all the better to advertise our love of freedom.

[NightWatcher]

52. Quick, your straw man is blowing away.

I did not advocate for total anarchy.

Banning all sports and traffic laws are not the same thing.

If you cannot see that, you are being intellectually dishonest.

[seveneyes]

12. A beautiful mind

Is a terrible thing to waste on symmetry.

[Rex]

14. Contact sports are important for both society and as a good national distraction.

The Staples Center performs a function.

OTOH sex, violence, deviated behavior will always attract those that feel...curious?

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

18. Bread and circuses.

Useful for keeping the masses pacified, or, as you put it, distracted.

[Throd]

19. Maybe people just enjoy watching sports with no nefarious back-story involved.

[delta17]

33. Do you spend your free time in quiet solitude?

People like entertainment after a long work week. God forbid someone watch a game or an action movie.

[dembotoz]

16. only if you want open revolt

[Baclava]

20. If you try to ban hockey Canada will rise up and declare war to protect their national interests

well, that's what I heard

[TransitJohn]

24. I'd say base jumping, skydiving, alpine skiing, too!

Stop everything! SAFETY!

[Throd]

26. All car races should be de-tuned 1985 Toyota Tercels

with a 70mph governor.

[TransitJohn]

41. That sounds more like bumper cars, lol.

[zappaman]

28. Yes, in fact we should ban everything.

[madinmaryland]

29. Well, now that you say. The New York Yankees, Boston Red Sox, and...

the Sports Group on DU should be banned.



ETA: The Washington DC football team should be banned, also, for having a racist name.

[Yavin4]

36. I think that your list is missing a team.

Read it over again.

[ohnoyoudidnt]

30. We can ban everything bad for you.

Like in the society in Demolition Man.

[Inkfreak]

42. The shells....they're still a mystery to me.

Guilty pleasure movie. And where I first developed my Sandra Bullock crush.

[NM_Birder]

45. LOl ....."you really matched his meat" !

[Lint Head]

32. From early childhood boys and some girls are conditioned to accept contact sports as a

display of patriotism and the American way of life. I played football all though High School. In the deep south at that time it was expected. I was on the team that is depicted in the movie Radio. I didn't realize how brutal people could be until I had my faced stepped on intentionally, kicked in the groin an run over by guys twice as heavy as myself. I would have preferred to have just been the creative person I eventually became when I turned my back on it my senior year. It was during the Vietnam War and I decided that brutality was not my thing.

Banning it would be next to impossible even today.

[YOHABLO]

35. In the case of Football: we start these kids at such a young age .. it could be life changing.

[Prophet 451]

37. Um, no

The performers of these sports (and amateur and semi-pro wrestling which I did) know the risks and choose to accept them.

[Yavin4]

39. Thank you.

[tblue37]

40. As parents become more informed about the very real risks

to their kids' brains, more and more will decide not to let their kids play football. It won't stop being a popular and lucrative form of entertainment, but like boxing, it will become more and more a sport that is populated by disadvantaged kids who see putting their bodies on the line that way to be a possible ticket out of poverty.

When more and more middle-class parents stop letting their own kids play football, peewee leagues and middle school/junior high school, high school, and college football will no longer be producing the ready stream of players, except for those who are recruited from poorer neighborhoods.

Already some of the best athletic talent in both college football and college basketball is being recruited from poorer neighborhoods, without regard for whether the kids even want to attend college or have the academic preparation to succeed in college. But since they see the sport as a way to achieve success in an economy that is rigged against them (and because most of them do enjoy playing the games), a lot of these kids are devoted to practice and become extraordinarily skilled.


So what I think is that football will eventually become more like boxing. People will still watch it, and there will still be a lot of money in it for promoters, but most of the players won't see much benefit from it (so that part at least will remain the same as it is today). And many, perhaps most of the athletes who will perform for the entertainment and profit of others will be disadvantaged young men who see the sport as their way out of poverty.

[shedevil69taz]

53. Football is America's version of the Roman Colosseum

Though I'm not ashamed to admit I very much enjoy watching it (on TV)...the objective is not to kill or injure the players even though it can happen, and by now they should know the risks involved...

[MineralMan]

43. There are more important issues to be dealt with first, I think.

This isn't a serious proposal.

I do suggest that you not participate in such activities, though.

[Taitertots]

44. Don't ban them. Institute vice taxes against them

Like cigarettes, beer, wine, weed....

Oh wait. People who support those only want vice taxes applied to things that THEY don't like doing.

[trumad]

46. Sure

but let's wait until next season.

My Phins are looking better.

[11 Bravo]

50. Better than who? The Jaguars?

(Hey, we kid because we love! My Redskins haven't exactly covered themselves in glory since Gibbs left.)

[trumad]

51. I always have optimism at the beginning of the season.

Give me until Nov. until I come back to reality.

[redqueen]

58. Do the people in those professions get PTSD from it?

Are they raped on the job?

Are they threatened with violence if they try to leave the job?


It's disgusting that so many here are so committed to pushing the idea that prostitution is just a job like any other.