Football should be banned. It’s a “sport” which is dangerous and encourages violence and a militaristic way of thinking.
Roll the tumbrils!
Explain why you think this…I happen to love football and I am not violent nor military oriented…
There’s no debate based on you short statement.
No way. I love watching the Packers play. Someday I want to be at a Packer game and have Brett Favre do the Lambeau Leap and land on me! 
MaryAnn
“I don’t care if it’s the queen!”
As techchick68 said: more info please.
You have not presented an argument worthy of debate. A topic, yes. Argument, no.
Are you talking about all types of football (professional, college, high school, Pop Warner, etc…)? Do you think the values (or lack thereof) that drive the professionals are the same that kids playing on the YMCA league face? Are you suggesting that we (I’m assuming the U.S. here) ban all types of football? Would you extrapolate this to other sports (hockey perhaps)?
While I disagree most vehemently with your OP, I would like you to expand upon it before I spend more time addressing it.
Robbespiere has indeed made the assertion that “football should be banned” for the reasons that:
[list=1][li]it is “dangerous,”[/li][li]it “encourages violence”[/li][li]it “encourages … a militaristic way of thinking”[/list=1][/li]
All of these are explicit points which can be debated on both their accuracy and implication.
Only (1) above is obviously accurate. The second two are not so obvious, and I would invite Robbespiere or another to make the case for their accuracy.
Since I accept the premise that football is dangerous, I can argue the point. Generally, prohibitions made on the basis of danger to oneself (i.e. the players) are made on utilitarian grounds: The danger must outweigh any benefit to society or the participant individuals.
In the case of football, we have a massive benefit to society in the millions of dollars people and advertisers are willing to spend to promote this form of entertainment as well as considerable benefit to the individual, in the considerable salary and social prestige they can earn.
Additionally, the dangers are not so severe (I don’t believe football has killed any of it’s participants, and severe injury (e.g. brain damage, paralysis or loss of limb) is very rare. Moderate disabling injury (especially to the knees) is quite common, but this form of injury is well known and accepted by the players.
The comparison of football and boxing is quite illuminating. Unlike football, most boxing participants do not earn significant salaries, and the frequency of severe injury, especially brain damage, is much higher than football. On a utilitarian basis, boxing is a much closer call than football.
Whether it be illegal or not is one thing. But what certainly should be made illegal is all those lame fans painting their bodies, wearing dorky “team” colors and “team” paraphenalia, decorating their cars, and houses. And getting drunk at the games, taking it all waaaay too seriously, and being complete pains in the ass.
If people could just enjoy it in a civilized manner (and I am aware many people do enjoy the game more descreetly) then I wouldn’t find the whole thing so all-fired annoying.
I’m not a fan of football, as anyone who’s known me a while knows. However, I don’t think it should be illegal.
{{In the case of football, we have a massive benefit to society in the millions of dollars people and advertisers are willing to spend to promote this form of entertainment as well as considerable benefit to the individual, in the considerable salary and social prestige they can earn. }}
I think that the taxes that support football more than offset these advantages. I don’t have any hard figures to back this up, I just read that City X is raising money for a new arena or whatever. However, I live in Fort Worth, and I hear about all sorts of excesses when it comes to sports.
Lynn
If it’s helpful, I’ll compare everyone to Hitler so we can get this
over with as soon as possible.
Tell me about it. I live near Denver, possibly the most sports-mad city in the country. We’re building our third new stadium in ten years.
I didn’t think the taxes are justified, and I voted against them, but the majority good citizens approved them. Oh well, I have bigger fish to fry.
As to the weird fans, I think we should allow them their freedom, if only to serve as a bad example and a warning to others. 
“Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away”. - Phillip K. Dick
Oh that would be so much fun. Then football would be like tennis.
:shudder:
Gypsy: Tom, I don’t get you.
Tom Servo: Nobody does. I’m the wind, baby.
One “city X” is Green Bay, which is currently attempting to extort the good people of Wisconsin for money to either renovate Lambeau Field or build a new stadium. They want millions of tax dollars to build it and in return, those people who actually care about football get fewer seats and probably higher ticket prices. Those of us who couldn’t care less about football get nothing out of it. My feeling is, if it’s so important to have a new field, then raise money from among those people willing to give it freely, and stop paying players outlandish sums (or better yet, ask those players to donate a million or two of their salaries to the building fund). There seems to be a lot of resistance to the plan, thankfully. Since the Packers are a publicly owned corporation, they can’t just pack up and leave like other teams do when their extortion attempts fail.
For God’s sake Singledad,
Football is not violent, it is a game. Yeah people can get out of hand but I see worse happening in other areas of life.
It may come down to who is bigger and stronger but I would rather be witness to that than many things that happens in my life.
No I don’t believe that the tax payers should have approved the new stadium, I think that’s wrong, but I am a huge Broncos fan and go to every game I possibly can.
As for the OP, I find it elementary and why the fuck ('scuse my Pit language here) must you pick apart things that aren’t there Singledad?
I want to know specifics as to why this person feels this way. There’s nothing to back this claim, it’s a statement. I don’t want that from you, I want that from the OP creator.
Personally, I am sick of people that want to “debate” something without any meat or substance, it’s a worthless point if you can’t give a reason for the beliefs you have. Hence the reasoning behind my question…
If you have a debate give us some meat to chew on, not some lame ass statement only for another (like Singledad) to rip apart with no true understanding of why the post was created.
Come on people you can do better than this.
And personally, sorry here, but Singledad you are way out there my friend, pull back your reigns and get with the program. Your “overly intellectual” concerns tend to be over thought and push things beyond the intention of what you think things should be. Again, maybe that’s Pit material, but somehow you seem to grab things out of the air.
To the contrary, techchick68, I suggest that singledad did a very credible job of identifying, from a very barren field, the possible explicit points raised in the OP, and analyzing the one that seemed to stand on its own merits.
Undoubtedly, the OP author may have a more expansive view to share with us. In the interim, however, it is certainly not inappropriate to discuss at least a subset of the concerns raised. The OP clearly saus that football should be banned, and lists as a supporting reason “it is dangerous”. We are absolutely entitled to discuss and refute this point.
You seem upset at the thought that we’re reading something into the OP that isn’t there. What of it? The author is free to re-direct our attention to his true points. But when we’re discussing somethinng, and a new issue is raised, we often discuss the new issue as well, assuming it’s not manifestly different from the OP. (Even then, we often toss in a start- and end-hijack tag set and have at it anyway!)
In this case, it’s not even fair to yell “hijack” – the discussion Singledad offered was well within the bounds of the OP.
If anything, this response of mine is a hijack, as it relates not to the merits of the OP but to your response to Singledad.
That being the case…
[/hijack]
- Rick
Robbespierre:
On the other hand, professional football (and to some extent, it’s farm system, college football), can be said to embody several aspects of what our culture is all about: acquisitiveness, cutthroat competition as the only viable method of achieving a goal (“it is not enough that I succeed; others must fail” --somebody or other), jingoism (check out the riots, err, celebrations in the home town of the Super Bowl champions in any given year), consumerism (c’mon, you know that the very reason we exist is so we can buy stuff like potato chips, and nacho hats, and huge foam rubber hands that point a single finger into the air from each other), and bread and circuses for the masses.
Besides, to misquote Dave Barry, if we didn’t give football fans football, they’d spend their time doing things much worse, like clubbing baby seals.
Sheesh. If it bothers you that much, vote with your feet and your pocketbook. Find out which institutions encourage and benefit from the existence of this spectacle, and withhold your custom from them.
good morning friends.
i have never been a sports fan. living in nebraska, the cornhusker state, i am surrounded by people who take this game way too seriously.
our third district congressional candidate for 2000 is tom osborne, the retired football coach. he is running unopposed on name recognition alone.
it is a sad day for nebraska politics.
Trust the dreams, for in them is hidden the gate to eternity -Kahlil Gibran
Well, that got a rise out of the crowd!!
Let’s take “militaristic thinking”. The two teams (armies) are dug in accross a front line to protect their homeland (the end zone). The general staff of the team (army)huddles (meets) to plan the play (offensive. When the signal is given they go over the top a la the Somme in 1916. They either charge directly into the defesive line (machine guns) or attemt an end run (flanking meneuver) or possibly take to the air. (Send in the air force1) The defensive line has to quickly organize to defeat the offensive. This might be a quick counter-attack directly at the enemy HQ (sack the quarterback) or a tactical withdrawal allowing the enemy a small territorial gain but at the same time protecting most of the rear area and the homeland (goalposts).
Of course the players (soldiers) wear protective clothing; helmets and such. And of course there are numerous injuries (dead and wounded) and consequently the need for reserves which are sent in to replace the casulties.
The coach is the Sarge. He is not an officer. He’s tough and he wants his players (soldiers) to be tough too. “Jones, go man that machine gun. Kawalski just took a Jap round through the head, poor bastard!” Right out of John Wayne.
And of course the winners are entitled to the spoils of war; the goalposts. Theres a home front (fans)which vicariously shares in every victory. Too many defeats ,however, and support on the home front evaporates(fans stay home). There’s a propaganda apparatus to produce belligerent slogans. And of course there’s the girls we left behind (cheerleaders). Of course, the Captain of the team is the real hero in victory and gets his choice of the women.
Is that enough. There’s a lot more. Football is different from any other sport. Even though boxing is very violent, it is in the nature of a gladitorial match and not of contending armies and in that sense less socially destructive. Also, take note of the fact that alone among major sports, possibly excluding hockey, it is not a sport engaged in by women. We men simply don’t send women out to fight our wars!
I would only comment upon the thesis that football is somehow positive because it produces a lot of economic activity. A war does the same thing. There is a need for huge amounts of materiel and resources to rebuild when it is over, but it is all a waste.
Now, put that in your pipe and smoke it!
Let the tumbrils roll!!
Let’s keep professional football, but take away all their helmets and pads and things. Those smash-ups and bone-crushing pile-ups will be much more entertaining…
Heck, make 'em play naked.
Just out of curiosity, Robbespiere, what do you think of chess?
This is obviosly an attempt to wind up as many folk as possible what with it’s unreasonable assertion that football=war.
Who cares if it makes lots of money or not so long as non-participants don’t lose out?
Seems to be very sad when we have to justify our entertainment to all comers.
I’ll bet I could make a case against all manner of things but just because I can doesn’t mean I have to.
Do you think we should ban chess on the grounds of militarism?Remember Spassky & co ,was that militarism or what?
I know lets ban karate because it is a dangerous sport and is used etensively round the Middle East to condition irregular troops.
How effective do you imagine a football team would be on the battlefield?
If by militarism you mean a group of highly paid individuals working togther to overcome competition then I suppose most business should be banned too.
Do you find the idea of winners and losers upsetting?Perhaps evolution is militaristic too.
How does football damage society?From where I stand I see that it brings people together as communities and it is as inclusive as you like.
You say that women don’t play I suspect strongly that you’ll find a womens league somewhere, can’t see the feminists letting us get away with that
Of course, the Captain of the team is the real hero in victory and gets his choice of the women.
Women have all sorts of ideals why on earth would they want to stick with losers?This sounds like jealousy to me.
our third district congressional candidate for 2000 is tom osborne, the retired football coach. he is running unopposed on name recognition alone
You telling me you’d vote for someone you never heard of?
I would only comment upon the thesis that football is somehow positive because it produces a lot of economic activity. A war does the same thing. There is a need for huge amounts of materiel and resources to rebuild when it is over, but it is all a waste.
War promotes economic activity?Not always the destruction of infrastructure throughout the remains if Yugoslavia is a real handicap to economic activity.
I’ll bet the Russians don’t feel well off having just lost the cold war.
Britain lost it’s position of economic primacy after WW1 even though it was on the winning side.
Lop the heads off the dissenters if you want but don’t forget the ending Robbespierre
I confess to not taking this topic with the grave seriousness that some of you do. I do not believe for a second that the OP really thinks football has a chance of being banned. But it’s a fun debate, and some good ideas are being brought up.
Like the poor soul from Nebraska, who is living in an area where football is nothing less than a religion, I too am currently living in an area where football is taken way too seriously. It’s not only the fans, and their slavish dedication, the way they decorate their cars, houses, and themselves - it’s how gravely important it all is. It’s a money-making venture (ask the people who produce the football tie-in ICE CREAM!!! Seriously, folks, does a football team need it’s own ICE CREAM?!?!) It’s a way to keep people entertained in the winter - I don’t know what it is, but I know that it isn’t that important - nothing is.
So to many fans, sure, it’s just a “game”, but if someone pokes a little fun at it, oh my gosh, this is terrible. If someone criticises it, oh my gosh, let’s freak out. If someone brings out some valid points about violence/injuries - oh my gosh. The fans get their knickers in a bunch. Oh. My. Gosh. Someone has criticised the sacred game of football. Let’s become a little unglued about it.
I fear my English sense of irony and fun don’t came across, cultural differances I suppose.
Golly, golly ,gosh.