A look at Bob Reilly's rhetoric

Lisa Olson, of MMA Fanhouse, has a fascinating new profile of MMA opponent and New York Assemblyman Bob Reilly

Reilly continues to make his argument around a moral compass. Constantly bringing up the adage, 'violence begets violence.'

"the fights among young people, half the time it's girls, which I find a little more disturbing. That might sound sexist, excuse me. But it's no different than ultimate fighting, when I see one woman grab another woman by the head and knee her in the stomach."

"I find that even more offensive than man doing that to man. I don't think we should show that to kids," Reilly says. "We don't want that in our schools. We legislate bullying and domestic violence all the time, but how can kids tell the difference when they're seeing it on TV, as a legitimate sport?"

Reilly's rhetoric has always focused around the moral necessity to oppose mixed martial arts. Of course Reilly is ignorant to the various martial art forms that are being integrated into a new sport but that ignorance doesn't change the fact that he is hunkering into the moral high ground.

Even if Reilly loses, and he inevitably will, Reilly still wins. He will be portrayed as the lone crusader standing up for 'family values' and tradition against the evil forces of big business, lobbyists and money.

This is a tricky debate in politics and one that has long breed ineptitude and stagnation. When morality becomes the guiding factor in policy we lose rationality. Why? Because morality is not a definable nor tangible. All individuals have different morals which inform their views of right and wrong. One man's saint is often another man's sinner.

That is not meant to dismiss morality as a compass for policy but it needs to be tempered with facts and the realities of the situation, something that Reilly and other anti-MMA zealots refuse to do.

The studies they cite as evidence of MMA's brutality actually conclude that MMA is no more violent than boxing. The zealots ignore data that points to the NFL as the most physically damaging professional sport in favor of trading in cheap talking points like 'human cockfighting.'

Is MMA a moral vice? Just ask the thousands enrolled in karate, jiu-jitsu, wrestling and MMA classes. They will tell you no. In fact they will respond that by honing their body through physical competition they have become a better and more healthy individual. The simple truth is that physical competition between individuals sanctioned by the state is not a sin and does not degrade our society any more than a QuentinTarantino movie.

But how does one argue that point to someone who closes their ears and eyes? Who focuses only on what they want to see and ignores the voices of the practitioners.

It is hard but we cannot devolve into verbal abuse. In stead we must patiently point out that MMA is a sport that while violent is no different than the violence of hockey or football. That it teaches discipline and respect while an appreciation for martial arts across a varying degree of civilizations.