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Thursday, August 26, 2010
Canadian Medical Association is wrong on MMA ban
The Canadian Medical Association has come out against Ontario’s recent move to allow Mixed Martial Arts. They claim that the sport is too dangerous, but they are suffering from a prejudice against the sport based on faulty assumptions. According to the Globe and Mail:
“It’s savage and brutal. The aim is to disable and maim your opponent. … We should not tolerate this so-called sport in a civilized society,” Victor Dirnfeld, an internal medicine specialist from Richmond, B.C., told the general council of the CMA in Niagara Falls, Ont. on Wednesday.
Savage and brutal? I confess that it can often look that way if you watch it for the first time, but if you keep watching there isn’t really that much brutality. There is rarely any blood spilt, and if there is the fight is called to an end. The opponents are almost always respectful of each other and the game is far more about tactics and strategy than anything else.
Disable and maim? The rules of the Ultimate Fighter are specifically made so that it is unlikely someone would be disabled or maimed. I challenge the CMA to look up the number of people that have been disabled in an Ultimate Fighter match then look up the number of competitive divers that have broken their backs. MMA is not about violence it is about controlled violence. It is certainly not about maiming or disabling.
The truth of the matter is that the opinion of the CMA doesn’t matter, or at least it shouldn’t matter. They may not like the sport but many other people do. And more importantly anyone who enters the Octagon knows the risk that he is taking. Much like any sport, as long as the rules were followed a person who is injured in a MMA match is responsible for putting himself at risk.
It is not the job of the MMA or the government to tell those men what choices they can make.
Posted by Hugh MacIntyre on August 26, 2010 | Permalink
Comments
You seem to forget that we have a public health system so we as taxpayers are going to be responsible for repairing whatever damage these clowns do to themselves.
Pointing out that 'something else over there is actually worse' is the weekest possible arguement you could make. I mean really way more people die in car crashes than are murdered. Do you support allowing our police to ignore murder since it is such a minor problem?
Posted by: KSW | 2010-08-26 7:34:59 AM
Actually, a journalist recently did some research on both the motives behind this ban and the actual harm that comes from it. This is what he found.
Now, to put this in context: How many a deaths a year do doctors cause?
Posted by: Shane Matthews | 2010-08-26 7:38:48 AM
So let's get rid of the public health care system. Then at least we would be responsible for our actions.
Posted by: Johan i Kanada | 2010-08-26 7:48:12 AM
Well then KSW, let's ban driving. That way it will cost less in health care. Let's also ban hockey, lacross, football, boxing, and every other violent sport out there because we have public health care. Or perhaps, the real problem is public health care.
Posted by: Charles | 2010-08-26 8:55:19 AM
Shane, excellent article. I don't know if his stats are correct but my seat of the pants guess is they are correct. I also believe there are fewer injuries in part because the fighters can tap out. This doesn't happen in boxing. And in spite of how violent it looks to see a guy getting punched in the face when he is lying on his back, the brain is probably not being rattled around in the skull as much as in boxing.
Charles, let's also ban motorcycles.
KSW, I can appreciate that you don't like the sport but you are combining several issues with your comments. Murder is a crime in part, in my opinion, because it is the ultimate violation of property rights. Driving and MMA fighting are not.
If the goal is to reduce healthcare expenses then why not ban other things like Charles has pointed out?
Besides, thnk of all the tax revenue these clowns generate. I'll bet even with the injuries, they are a net gain to the public system.
Posted by: TM | 2010-08-26 10:14:28 AM
The Canadian Medical Association is just one of numerous special interest lobby groups funded by our tax dollars, and like all the others believes people are too stupid to make their own decisions or form their own opinions. The elite know better than the people. It is shameful that these groups continue living off our tax dollars like the leeches they are, for were the funding to cease they would all fold.
Posted by: Alain | 2010-08-26 11:10:56 AM
TM, who said I don't like the sport? Certainly not me. I find it somewhat amusing.
I am just pointing out that the argument posed by Hugh is incredibly week.
This is the same argument made by the Onion http://onion.com/cTSM6B for approving salmonella for human consumption. The only difference is that they did it with tongue firmly in cheek.
Posted by: KSW | 2010-08-26 11:14:36 AM
KSW,
You seemed to have missed Hugh's last point. That consenting adults have every right to bash their brains out if they so wish. Bringing in the whole public health care thing as an argument is very weak.
Posted by: Charles | 2010-08-26 11:24:46 AM
Shane - excellent link.
KSW,
what the other commenters have pointed out is reasonable - and not weak.
Raising the 'we all pay for a common health-care system' bugaboo is just silly and rather insulting: much of the audience of this blog considers public healthcare to be an unreasonable encroachment on our freedoms already, so touting it as a reason to curb more freedom of choice is, well, misguided (at best).
But, since you have raised it...
People who do martial arts are not exactly 'clowns'. These are not simply people who walk in off the street and beat each other up.
They are true athletes in excellent physical shape as a result of their self-disciplined exercise and martial arts study regime: if they were not, they would never make it into the competition.
As such, these athletes are not likely to be 'heavy users' of our medical system....and if they get injured, they would likely seek private help (like private physiotherapy) to get well and back into training because they could not afford to wait for their turn in our publicly funded waiting lists!
Posted by: Xanthippa | 2010-08-26 5:16:22 PM
Xanthippa, what I was pointing out was that the original blog was weak. Stating that 'other things are worse' so this should be fine makes no logical sense at all. Since the blog is in opposition to a stance being taken by the Canadian Medica Associationit isn't me that brought our excellent publicly funded health care system into the conversation as it was involved from the beginning (or did you miss that).
There is certainly no right to allow consenting adults to do whatever they want if it is outside the common good the CMA's argument is that this activity is outside the common good and you have done nothing to disprove that.
The stance taken by the CMA was not opposed to martial arts but only to the current MMA fighting competions that have recently become popular. I personally have years of training in Judo and Aikido neither of which the CMA felt they should make any comment on.
Just to help you out if someone would have said 'hey this is a professional activity so any injuries shold be covered by workman's compensation not the health care system at large' it would have been a much more compelling argument than anything that was posted here.
Posted by: KSW | 2010-08-26 6:12:25 PM
Is the issue one of individual versus community rights?
Does the individual have the right to do what they want with their body or is this right outweighed by the community interests ? Is the community expected to bear the health care costs of those who abuse their bodies ? Are other members of the community likely to be adversly influenced by such events ? I think that it is significant that this so called sport has come from the US where individual rights are emphasized and where responsibilities to fellow citizens take second place. Seat belts and bike helmets ? You have to be kidding. Freedom means the right to bear arms no matter how many senseless deaths this causes and the right to have my brains bashed out in anyway I want.
The CMA is the voice of Canadian sanity.
Posted by: Rupert | 2010-08-26 7:54:21 PM
Rupert, you would choose to impose your morality on others. It's really that simple. You hold a dangerous faith in the benefits of democracy. My advice is to take resposnibility for your own life and stay out of others business.
Posted by: TM | 2010-08-26 8:31:13 PM
TM, Rupert is clearly a collectivist and like Trudeau sees collective "rights" superseding individual rights. Communism or socialism (soft communism) believes the same.
As I stated earlier the CMA is just another special interest lobby of busybodies receiving funding from the government, or more precisely our tax dollars. I would like to see a government with the courage to cut such funding to every single one of these lobby groups.
Posted by: Alain | 2010-08-26 8:48:26 PM
Alain, I think you are full of BS. I suspect you have no idea where the funding for the CMA comes from. You point the finger of accusation with no back-up. Show me the money.
Posted by: KSW | 2010-08-26 10:42:05 PM
It's entertainment. No one is abused. The CMA sucks the government tit and doctors have unlearned how to practise medicine for the good of their patients. [Did anyone hear the little bell or buzzer at the end of your four minute(?) session with your multicult doctor?] Social engineering costs more than doe-ray-me. It costs freedom, which enhances slavery. As my dead mother said: "Get the Hell out of my backyard!"
Posted by: Agha Ali Arkhan | 2010-08-27 12:25:29 AM
"There is certainly no right to allow consenting adults to do whatever they want if it is outside the common good"
Define the "common good" please. How is MMA worse for the "common good" than any other violent sport? If health care was private in this country, would allowing MMA be outside the "common good"?
Posted by: Charles | 2010-08-27 5:26:35 AM
I find it disturbing that so many people are willing to strip away human rights in favour of "the common good".
Posted by: Charles | 2010-08-27 5:27:16 AM
- Is the issue one of individual versus community rights?
I'd say it's more an issue of a special-interest group deciding that its influence in policymaking ought to be greater than the sum of the votes of its individual members. In fact, just today doctors weighed in on the gun registry. (Notice that in spite of all the emoting, they can't cite a single example where the registry actually prevented a shooting. Sound familiar?)
- Does the individual have the right to do what they want with their body or is this right outweighed by the community interests?
As the saying goes, your right to swing your fist stops where my head starts. However, if I put my head there willingly, and give you permission to swing, then...
- Is the community expected to bear the health care costs of those who abuse their bodies ?
You mean the way it now bears the costs of incarcerating those who have abused it, when execution is cheaper? How far do you want to take this argument, Rupert? Because I'll take it all the way to the event horizon.
- Are other members of the community likely to be adversly influenced by such events ?
Not in this case, no.
- I think that it is significant that this so called sport has come from the US where individual rights are emphasized and where responsibilities to fellow citizens take second place.
Don't think, Rupert; makes my dick itch. This is racist horseshit. Just once I'd like to see a member of the Canadian chattering classes criticize a policy on its own merit or lack thereof rather than its country of origin. Of course, merely wishing for something will not make it come true...
- Seat belts and bike helmets ? You have to be kidding.
31 states have primary seat-belt laws, meaning an officer can cite you for that offence alone. 18 additional states have secondary seat-belt laws, meaning the officer can ticket you for noncompliance in conjunction with another offence (like speeding). So what are you talking about, Rupert?
- Freedom means the right to bear arms no matter how many senseless deaths this causes and the right to have my brains bashed out in anyway I want.
Actually, statistics show that in areas of high legitimate gun ownership, crime rates go down, not up. Illegitimate gun ownership is another story altogether.
- The CMA is the voice of Canadian sanity.
The CMA is, on emotional grounds alone, throwing weight it imagines it has into an issue in which it has no competence, no stake, and no business. This seems to happen whenever the good doctors run out of tongue depressors.
Bottom line: A doctor's vote is worth no more than anyone else's. It's time they resigned themselves to that (for them) depressing fact.
Posted by: Shane Matthews | 2010-08-27 6:55:53 AM
- There is certainly no right to allow consenting adults to do whatever they want if it is outside the common good the CMA's argument is that this activity is outside the common good and you have done nothing to disprove that.
Except it's not for us to disprove; it's for them to prove. You are innocent until proven guilty in this country, not the other way round. And as the journalist has noted (and as I have noted, in the case of the gun registry), they haven't made their case.
Oh, and you should know it's impossible to prove a negative via the scientific method.
Posted by: Shane Matthews | 2010-08-27 6:58:37 AM
Shane, good comments.
Posted by: TM | 2010-08-27 8:51:43 AM
Unlike boxing, which most people don't seem to have a problem with, MMA fights END when a fighter is either knocked out or unable to defend himself. There is no "standing eight count" that allows a fighter to go back and continue to be beaten. There is no counting to ten while a half-conscious fighter regains his senses enough to stand up and nod and then go back to have the beating continue with only a limited ability to defend themselves.
One point that some don't seem to grasp in regards to the healthcare issue, groups like the UFC have to have expensive, extended insurance in order to operate. The cost of injuries in MMA is not going to be laid on the Canadian taxpayer, that is just another bogus argument.
Funny how in a society that allows euthanasia, we have a problem with two consenting, grown men, getting into a ring and fighting.
Posted by: burkanuck | 2010-08-29 10:16:33 AM
burkanuck, very well put!
Posted by: TM | 2010-08-29 8:08:32 PM
The problem, Burkanuck, is that much of society has convinced itself that it's owed a peaceful, tranquil, pleasant, and pain-free existence. It's a matter of sparing delicate sensibilities. From this frame of mind it makes perfect sense to demand an end to one's own life when one's body will no longer cooperate, as well as an end to anything else that may stir a ripple in one's innermost harmonies, like violent sports.
The same thinking drives the quest for the most "humane" execution method. British long-drop hanging has a perfect, botch-free record, but even with a hood, it's a disquieting thing to watch. Thus the electric chair and gas chamber, where the condemned remains shackled in a seated position, and ultimately lethal injection, complete with gurney and full body straps, to prevent any bothersome flailing. The concern is not for the pain the condemned may feel; rather, it's to spare the witnesses from having to watch anything disturbing. How much more comfortable for them if the executee appears to drift peacefully to sleep.
Narcissism makes monsters of people. And often the cultured and civilized ones are even more odious than the more barbaric variety.
Posted by: Shane Matthews | 2010-08-30 8:58:38 AM
"British long-drop hanging has a perfect, botch-free record, but even with a hood, it's a disquieting thing to watch."
Especially when the hangman miscalculates and snaps the victims head off. LOL
Posted by: Jim | 2010-08-31 3:52:58 PM
When kids mimic boxing in the backyard, the worst that can happen is a bloody nose, or black eye. When they try to mimic MMA, without supervision, the risk of serious injury or death is much greater. Other than that, the sport is probably safer than boxing. These guys go down pretty easily when they get hit. I've never seen one of them stand up long enough to sustain any real brain trauma.
The real problem with MMA is it's dirty fighting. You'd be charged with aggravated assault if you beat a guy who's on his back, or break someone's arm. In MMA, you'd probably get a bonus. The Brazilian stuff is even worse. They're allowed to jump on an opponent's face, as he lies on his back. Even drunken Newfoundlanders have more class than that.
Another thing that seems backward is the opposition to dog fighting, from people who fully support the UFC. There's a sport that's been unfairly maligned. If people enjoy watching violence so much, why not use a dumb animal to get their kicks? Pit bulls have no other value to society, so why not get some good use out of them?
Posted by: dp | 2010-09-01 8:29:37 PM
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