There is one business — and perhaps, only one business — that needs more government regulation.
No, not the hedge funds or the private equity guys or the aluminum siding salesmen or the unfriendly skies of the airline industry.
What needs a good dollop of government massaging is the dogfight and cockfighting industry. The full government cha-cha-cha: regulatory agencies, legislative and regulatory standards, licensing (complete with boring continuing education requirements).
I know, I know. You don’t “regulate” the animal-fighting “industry;” you outlaw it, you banish it.
But it should make us just the tiniest bit uneasy when we use the police powers of government to banish a business enterprise because we are squeamish about it; because it isn’t necessarily something we would patronize or invest in or brag to our mothers that we were engaged in.
The animal-fighting industry is not a threat to public health and safety.
It is, to use the technical legal language, “icky” — and for that, we in the United States outlaw it and unleash police raids more appropriate to Iraq.
There are techniques to discourage people from doing things that we find objectionable: speeches, church sermons, protest parades. What we don’t necessarily have to do is throw people in jail.
That’s where the government regulation could perform miracles for the animal-fighting trade.
Think about Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick’s arrest and subsequent public relations nightmare for his involvement in a dogfighting enterprise. To be sure, there will be some assorted gambling and tax-evasion issues, but at the core of the displeasure with Vick is the casual and cruel ways in which he and his pals apparently killed the dogs, when their useful time as fighters was over.
Since the business is illegal, the Vick team couldn’t exactly take the doggies to the vet and have them put down with a needle. To be sure, the apparent method of execution in some cases was unusually thuggish and repulsive — but there is no “approved” method of extermination for this illegal enterprise.
Several unsettling and odd things come to light after one of those overblown raids on dogfight or cockfighting enterprises. First, those arrested on the scene, for the most part, don’t believe what they are doing should be illegal — nor do many of them appear the least bit remorseful.
Cockfighting, for instance, in some countries and cultures and neighborhoods, is a long-standing recreation that deserves no scorn, yet alone feelings of guilt. Dogfights were popular in stuffy English society of centuries past.
Second, the fate of most of the “rescued” animals is, of course, that they are killed. Dogs trained to fight, and cranky roosters, don’t make good pets.
A third, rarely discussed issue, is the philosophical question of whether it is healthy to enlist government to stamp out sporting pursuits that some may find distasteful. Today the cockfights. Tomorrow the greyhound racing. The day after, the elephants in the circus. And next week, the ox-pull contests at the agricultural fairs. And then, boxing, involving human animals.
Since Vick is black, his arrest and avalanche of accompanying publicity prompted the NAACP to weigh in, suggesting that if Vick weren’t black, we wouldn’t be treating a dogfighting business as if it were a terrorist cell.
But at the heart of the uneasy, relatively cautious NAACP critique was the more basic complaint: For God’s sakes, it was dogfighting.
Imagine a Connecticut-style regulatory apparatus, to replace the current ban. First, there would be a Permanent Commission on the Status of Dogs and Roosters, to remind us that animals are people, too.
Next, vets would be on hand at every licensed site to determine when an animal should be put down, as humanely as possible.
Next, we would sell off the gambling rights to various Indian tribes that would handle all the action and remind the betting crowd to file proper tax returns.
And finally, we would create a state agency to issue public-service television and radio ads, suggesting to animal-fight fans that, perhaps, they are sick bastards who could use a little help — or a new hobby.
There. Government regulation that provides a real service — and gets government out of the business of enforcing ill-defined moral codes, best left to the marketplace of ideas.n
Laurence D. Cohen is a freelance writer.