I'd like to add that I see a HUGE difference between killing an animal and torturing and then killing an animal. I am not a hunter, but I do watch hunting shows. There are specific rules in which hunters abide by to have a clean honorable kill. BTW, it's not like dog fighters stand alone in this brutality department. The Dolphin killers presented in the documentary, The Cove, are in the same category. And many of are farm animals in country are treated on a similar level. To me, it's a out a level of honor and integrity. It's not simply having dogs fight each other. It's the systematic abuse, training, and torture involved in the process that makes it so messed up.
Put me in the camp - well, maybe not a camp, I think I might be the only one going to this extreme - with those who think he SHOULDN'T be allowed back in the NFL at all. I'm not saying I don't believe in second chances, but... It seems like regardless of your position, and they certainly do vary both in this thread and what you hear and read, pretty much everyone agrees a crime was committed, what he did to the dogs was cruel and uncalled for, and significant jail time was called for and received. With that in mind, I don't think Vick should be allowed back into a sport that pays him millions and millions of dollars. It's not jealousy, its just a simple matter of fairness, to me. There are thousands of good kids out there struggling to make a living, trying to get in the NFL. I'd rather see one of them get a shot. There are millions and millions of kids out there looking up to these athletes as role models. I'd rather they have better role models to look up to. Doesn't matter what Charles Barkley thinks...athletes, and people in the public eye in general, ARE role models. I think venturing off into comparisons to Donte Stallworth, or white collar criminals, somewhat avoids the issue. I will say I don't think Stallworth should get a second shot a pro football either. And I don't think white collar criminals should get second shots at making millions managing money again either. Sorry, I just don't. I think the term "paid their debt to society" is overused. How has Vick's 2 years in prison paid a debt to society? That doesn't even make any sense. That said, I understand the system I'm calling for isn't realistic. Vick and others have to at least be given a chance to make a living, and we can't say you can't do this, this, this, this and this...here are the jobs you can have. I'm just saying I think from a fairness perspective, from a role model perspective...I don't think it's a human right to do something criminal, and generally morally and ethically wrong, serve some time in prison, and then be allowed to do whatever you want and be as successful as you want afterwards. The public will vote with their pocketbooks, as usual, and I think will vote overwhelmingly in the don't care or are intrigued by Vick playing again. So that is what it is.
He should definitely be given a second chance. He served his time, he paid for it. I find the outrage interesting, especially since some of the people who are so torn up about these dogs being tortured wouldn't even bat an eye if they were told the same stuff happens in slaughterhouses. It's arbitrarily elevating some animals over others...I have a hard time understanding.
The law disagrees with you. If that were the case you may as well lock people up forever, if you aren't willing to give second chances (society that is). I can see that logic for some crimes, but killing dogs is not one of them. As far as Vick paying his debt to society, considering that he served more time than a dude that killed a man while driving drunk and lost all his $$....yeah, I would say he paid his debt.
Exactly how I feel. It's compounded by the fact that he is a quarterback, the leader of the team, so he is expected to set an even higher example than the other players.
But it is because he's a quarterback, or more specifically Vick contains a skill set that few in the world have, that it allows him to play and work. The more rare your talent is, the more chances you'll get to use it. Of course there are other factors involved, but rare talent plays a huge role. If there were even dozens of Vick-like talents, then Vick would not be in the NFL. Similar leeway applies to the most talented in many fields.
On the flipside, role models are often people you can identify with and see a bit of yourself in. There are a lot of people out there who have messed up and are trying to fix their lives. Who's a better role model for them - someone who's never messed up or been through anything like they have, or someone who had it all, screwed it up, went to jail and lost it all, and is now putting it all back together? I'd say those people could identify with Vick a lot better than a guy who hasn't messed up. And those are the people that probably are most in need of role models. To not give 2nd chances would be telling all those people who screwed up that the world will never forgive you.
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I guess what irks me is I have seen people feed a dog before they would a homeless person. I have seen people refuse to leave before a hurricane because they couldn't take their pets. A dog in this country has been humanized to a degree. Like I've said he was wrong, he paid the price, lets move on. If the money hadn't crossed state lines,he wouldve served a couple of months. Anyone remember Qyntel Woods? Wasn't he caught dogfighting? How long did he go to jail? Exactly.
The indignation against Mike Vick can seem hypocritical to me at times. What he did was loathsome, and he repeatedly denied the charges (hard to blame him given the severity of them) against him. However, I think his punishment is an indictment of how backwards our society is when we look on a human being with more disgust because of his involvement with the mistreatment of animals when we all blindly enjoy the fruits of the Meat-Packing industry which subjects their animals to horrors that Michael Vick couldn't have imagined. A clear cut case of "out of sight, out of mind" if there ever was one. Animals are tortured and exploited every day, when a man does it... it is a heinous criminal act... when an industry does it... it is good business. What if Vick had been doing the same with roosters, like certain members of Major League baseball admit they partake in frequently? Dogs > Roosters? A dog's life is more valuable than a rooster's life because a dog is more suitable for human companionship? Sounds like blatant favoritism to me. You kill an animal, you kill an animal. If you murder somebody's pet... you go to jail. You hit a Moose with your car, and what the **** was that stupid Moose doing in the road? No vehicular manslaughter charges would be filed against Donte Stallworth if he plowed into a Moose in his Bentley. Donte Stallworth took a human life, although it was an accident... the punishment should fit the crime. 30 Days in jail for a life lost doesn't really seem like a big punishment. Leonard Little got a slap on the wrist too and he was caught driving drunk again 6 years later... and who knows how many times within that time frame he did it without getting caught. Former Cowboys CB Dwayne Goodrich is just now being released from jail where has been since 2003 because he plowed through an accident and killed 2 people on a freeway at 3 AM coming back from a strip club. There were differences. Goodrich didn't stop and call the police, he continued driving until he got home and somehow "failed to notice" he had human remains all over his BMV. Because it was hours later, nobody could prove if he was intoxicated or not. Had he handled the situation like Stallworth, who knows. He might have gotten a more favorable sentence, but still he (even if completely unaware) took human lives and had to do his time. To say Michael Vick deserves a second chance as much as anybody comes with a few disclaimers. If he was loosely involved with his dogfighting scheme, that would be one thing. But there are many accounts that seem to point to him being the mastermind behind the whole operation. Say what you will about the ethics behind the dogfighting, he was running an illegal operation across state lines, he could have been put away for many more years because of that alone. He is a criminal. He has to live with what he did. The backlash he has faced will haunt him the rest of his life. He's very lucky to be on an NFL field right now. Very lucky. I would hope for his sake he continues to say the right things and keeps on the straight and narrow. He's been afforded a second chance most people wouldn't get, but he will fight a tremendous uphill battle the rest of his life to ever repair his image, and more than likely his days as a starting NFL QB seem likely to be over. I think he paid his debt to the justice system, but he will be paying for what he did for the rest of his life.
To expand on that, I think it's a religious cultural thing. I read the whole Narnia series growing up and I remember all the talking animals ate stupid non-talking animals. But then there was an evil animal that ate talking-animals and that was very bad. So that was like a Christian lesson about how some animals are to be valued more and others were okay to eat...am I way off on this one? Oh, and I am disgusted with a lot of what the food industry gets away with in this country.
i think you're way off because animals don't talk in real life as they do in those stories. and because those animals were metaphors for something else. you read narnia as a fundamentalist. "C.S. Lewis says Jesus is a lion!!! No, literally a lion!!"
I feel pretty stupid. I always thought that was a way of teaching kids that eating animals is okay, but some higher up animals shouldn't be eaten. Cause I came from a culture that accepted eating dogs, so things were kind of confusing to me growing up.
not meant to make you feel stupid. i'm guessing you read those books when you were a little kid. and their literary works, like art, subject to everyone's individual interpretation.
At least he didn't put Fido in the oven to baked unlike cats... Let's face it the human race is sick minded and twisted to say the least...
I understand that point of view and I wonder how much counseling he had to treat what I consider to be a diseased mind. Hopefully a great deal. As someone who had an amazing dog for 12 years, one who went with me everywhere and was not only one of my best friends, but was loved by many others, I just have to conclude that Vick wouldn't know a decent dog, much less one like I had, if he stuck his nose in his face and licked him. And I wouldn't have valued The Wonder Dog over a human being, with a few possible exceptions.
