Rodeo Why It Isn't Evil

2356 Words10 Pages
Rodeo: The Pros and the Amateurs “If the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch,” (qtd. In Wisdom Quotes) America is full of diversity and people with different opinions and thoughts. With such a “melting pot” of people, some were bound to be leaders and some were bound to be followers. Just because someone is a leader, does not mean they are a leader for the right thing. Founding members of Showing Animals Respect and Kindness (SHARK) and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) are groups of people that do not understand the origin of rodeo and its sensitivity to animal welfare issues. When something is not understood, it is commonly misconstrued. Rodeo is being protested against because the people of PETA and SHARK play on readers emotions. Emotions, especially “blind” ones, are strong enough to cause people to take action against organizations or activities about which they have no background information. If more people did not rely so much on emotions and relied more on intelligence, then problems like this would not arise. Despite groups’ protests, there have been no laws established in banning rodeo in the United States because of lack of evidence in the immoral treatment of animals with which rodeos are accused. Rodeo is not a sport that supports the cruelty of animals. Research shows there are many rules, regulations and even dedicated veterinarians put into place to safeguard the wellbeing of the animals. Organizations and people who protest rodeo accuse “rodeo thugs” of partaking in animal abuse. SHARK and other organizations see the promoting of rodeo as an extremely horrible thing. They could argue that rodeo is nothing but a show full of nothing but abuse instead of family entertainment that derived from Spain hundreds of years ago (Olympic Showdown, n.d.). Not only will they argue that abuse takes place during the show
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