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Michael Vick

reviewed by LanceRoxas

Michael Vick was drafted out of Virginia Tech by the Atlanta Falcons. To rate Michael Vick, click the big yellow "Rate It!" button in the middle of the page.

LanceRoxas
08/24/2007

Michael Vick 1

I am completely worn out with all this sanctimonious and blatantly self righteous outrage with regards Michael Vick.  These were DOGS people!  Not humans, but DOGS!  Where to start?  I agree that the treatment of these animals is somewhat unpleasant and surely don’t condone such behavior but lets be objective and honest in our analysis.  We live in a country where child molesters routinely serve sentences less than three years.  Some murderers are let out of jail in less than ten.  Many rapists serve less than six years.  This is simply a reality of our judicial system.  The peculiar thing here is how no one is running to Vick’s defense. 

 

Where are all the liberal apologists for Vick’s behavior?  Hasn’t his environment impacted his egregious choices? Hasn’t our oppressive society had a negative impact on poor Michael Vick?  Shouldn’t he be rehabilitated instead of imprisoned in our racially biased penal system?   Or are dogs the only animal on the planet we treat sacrosanct?

 

We rightfully slaughter animals for dinner (the food chain is a part of the natural order of things).  Are all these outraged citizens vegetarians? We rightfully hunt animals for sport.  Do we really believe that every deer, buck, bear or whatever gets a perfect kill shot?  Or do you think it’s possible some get hit with an arrow and then painfully starve to death after escaping?   We fish.  Do you think it’s pleasurable for the fish while they fight for their lives with a hook in their mouth?   We race horses around tracks and bet on them, then put them down if they get injured.  We even bet on two grown men beating the hell out of each other, sometimes until accidental death, and almost always to some form of brain damage.  But oh my, Vick bet on dogs killing each other and treated the losers horribly.  For this, we needed the full weight of the federal government and possible RICO violations that could have gotten him 20 years.  I sure sleep better at night knowing the federal government and Americans have their priorities straight. 

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magellan commented 830 days ago.
I think those are some fair points. Stephon Marbury recently made some similar points, but was jumped on by the media. Besides Lance's, the best description of the hypocrisy that I've seen can be found here: http://myespn.go.com/blogs/truehoop/0-27-95/A-Note-About-Dog-Fighting--and-Stephon-Marbury.html

irishgit commented 830 days ago.
Good points. I recall Bryant and Tyson getting more support when they were accused of rape than Vick is getting now. For some reason, I think animal abuse has become the great pariah activity. Celebrities can get stupid drunk, shout racial invectives, commit assault (sexual and otherwise)be criminally negligent with firearms, be accused of murder, beat their spouse, abuse or abandon their kids, and they will find defenders. But don't get involved in abusing a dog or you're toast.

magellan commented 830 days ago.
Here's a quote from the Henry Abbot article I link to above: "But consider what I learned recently from a friend who is involved in duck hunting. One of the jobs you can get if you go duck hunting is to wring the ducks' necks. It goes like this: The duck is flying. The duck is shot. The duck falls from the sky, and slams into the ground. Then a dog picks up the maimed but often very alive duck, and either maims it a little more (if it's a bad dog) or brings it to his handler. Then the poor sucker who drew the short straw comes over and wrings that neck with gloved hands, finally killing the duck quite some time after the duck nightmare began. This is sport. Something people do for fun on the weekends, instead of playing softball, going for a swim, or barbecuing. And many of them do not eat those ducks. Make sense? And here's the craziest part of all. The worst accusations about these dog fighters are that they executed the dogs they did not want. The state thought that was atrocious, and seized the dogs ... which will now likely be killed by the state, in a procedure that is replicated millions of times in humane societies and veterinarians' offices the world over. I recognize the method of killing is different, but is that really the key? If these dog fighters used lethal injection, are we no longer outraged? (Does the moral high ground really rest on the difference between the experiences of lethal injection and drowning? Is one "more pleasant?")"

irishgit commented 830 days ago.
Jeez magellan, I was planning to order Duck l'Orange for dinner tonight...

magellan commented 830 days ago.
je ne parle pas francais

FranksWildYears commented 740 days ago.
Oh, I've heard plenty of journalists pitch the other side of the story and claim that it is a cultural thing that middle class suburban white people don't understand. But in reality, Vick has to realize that he lives in the public eye and PR is the coin of the realm. He made a conscious decision to refuse to publically say "I regret that I did a bad thing" and chose to live with the consequence. It has little to do with mangy dogs.

ihatemikevick commented 715 days ago.
Lance, YOU SIR are just another animal. Like it or not you have nothing but a overgrown ape or monkey. I know it is out of your range of intelligence to think this way, but it is the truth. Dogs have more intelligence than many of the species that you mentioned. You can as an vet, they will tell you that you average dog has the intelligence of a 1 to 2 year old child. A Fish does not and a cow does not have this same level of intelligence. It is illegal in the US to slaughter horses for this same reason, they are more intelligent. Maybe you should lay off the roids. Stop and think for a second and look at yourself. Also did you not read how this asshole killed these poor dogs? I know that most hunters don't electrocute their prey. Also they don't set them on fire while alive. Most livestock are killed with a captive bolt gun, in case you are not aware this is an air powered gun that shoots a bolt into the brain rendering them dead. They don't torture them to death. Believe it or not, I am somewhat of a conservative. But I am not mindless to think that humanity is so much greater than any animal. As evolution continues, the human race will be lowered on the food chain.

Wiseguy commented 560 days ago.
Certainly not one of your better posts :(

earthbound commented 193 days ago.
Some good points as usual from Lance. People tend to get very emotional when the animals being abused are dogs. Most would think that eating a dog is utterly repellent, although they eat pigs, and would not give a second thought to the sort of misery inflicted on the pigs in their short lives before slaughter.

What distinguishes Vick is that, at some level, he did not make the culturally accepted distinction between what sort of animal killing is accepted (and I would not say 'rightful', Lance), and what is not.

Another point to note is that the killing of the animal (e.g. for food) and the abuse of the animal are very different things.

If you get beyond the thorny argument of whether or not we as humans are entitled to kill other animals to satisy our whims (non-essential clothing, non-essential food), the argument of whether or not we are allowed to torture animals is one where most people fall on the same side.

Michael Vick fell on the other side, and that is why he was imprisoned.

Glad to see him locked up for what he did, but now that he is out, let him get on with life.

Wiseguy commented 193 days ago.
I'm not into killing for sport, in fact I don't like it at all. But for Lance to start out by stating "These were dogs people" He loses the argument right there. If pigs were domesticated like dogs, the outrage would be the same.

What good way is there to slaughter pigs on a mass scale?

Gris commented 193 days ago.
Lack of support? Clearly you all do not Live in A-Town.
Albert Einstein once said that Our task must be to free ourselves...
by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all Living creatures and the whole of Nature and it's Beauty.
Sadly, it looks like some of us our still De-Evolving.
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