Should Kid's be Allowed to Wallop Each Other? or Most People Were Kung Fu Fighting

John Stossel's latest article takes John McCain to task for not defending the right of parents to allow their kids to participate in mixed martial arts tournaments. Mixed Martial Arts is akin to the Ultimate Fighting Challenge, in which you are allowed to use any martial art to wail on each other but no weapons and no eye gouging or finger twisting. Apparently McCain has been critical of this sport. And that makes John Stossel angry.

Sen. John McCain -- yes, that John McCain -- once called the adult version of MMA "human cockfighting." He wrote letters to the governor of every state asking them to ban it.

Also, according to John Stossel all sports are dangerous, even cheer leading. So why shouldn't kids be allowed to beat the hell out of each other for their parents amusement?

I have to say I find this an odd angle from which to attack Senator McCain; but I would like to point out the vapidity of argument that all sports are dangerous by suggesting competitive Russian Roulette. Six kids. Six Chambers. That's a 83.3% survival rate. Since some kids get injured in all sports, why not competitive Russian Roulette? Because the odds that at least one kid will die or get seriously injured in Russian Roulette is pretty much one to one. The odds aren't as bad in this Mixed Martial Arts, but it certainly seems more likely to injure kids than other sports.

Even regular Martial Arts, for example. Martial Arts usually stresses discipline and safety (yeah there was that one bad teacher in The Karate Kid, but most teachers aren't like that (I hope). The bravado that saturates Mixed Martial Arts (hell just think Ultimate Fighting Championship), well, that's something else entirely.

I don't actually have that strong a feeling on this issue; I just don't think that McCain's position is so bizarre that it will hurt him in the election.