When I called him a criminal earlier, I was chastised for rushing to judgment. Now that he's agreed to plead guilty, I say again: this guy is a sadistic, heartless criminal.
This entry was posted by SBG on Monday, August 20th, 2007 at 1:42 pm and is filed under Shorts. It is one of 2393 entries by the author. We are no longer accepting Letters to the Editor on this post. Why?
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Just another game at Target Center tonight.
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SBG, I think you're being a little harsh here. Maybe "Cold-Hearted, Sadistic Criminal" would have been better.
Not to get gruesome here, but even when trapping gophers as a youth or (#%$^@) moles as an adult, I would dispatch live ones with a lethal rap to the skull with a blunt instrument. I would not even consider using hanging or drowning for a rodent, let alone a pet, and consider its use on a dog to be the worst kind of inhumane sadism.
The significance of this is huge for the legal system - finally a celebrity criminal will spend some signiciant time behind bars rather than walk off free like Kobe, OJ, etc.
Those guys weren't up against the Feds.
And the dogs can't retract their statements or screw up on the stand.
Reusse weighs in and compares Vick to a couple of yahoos in Minnesota and asks why those guys get off with a $500 fine and Vick goes to a federal prison for a year?
1. Vick was involved with interstate shenanigans, which implicates the Feds. Big no-no.
2. The guys in Minnesota got off too lightly. If a speeding ticket is $117, dog fighting should be a lot more -- and jail time should be a part of any sentence.
3. If Vick being made an example of, I'm okay with that.
I'm not necessarily opposed to Vick getting a second chance at some point in the future, although I think we have to wait a while before it happens. Also, giving someone a second chance sort of implies that, at some level, that person realizes how they screwed up on their first chance. That means recognizing that what you did was wrong and taking steps to change, as opposed to simply being sorry that you got caught. Assuming that what we've heard of his involvement in all this is true, it's going to take some time for anyone to believe any remorse he claims to feel.
I think that breeding dogs to fight each other to the death is inhumane and deserves a harsher punishment than those Minnesota guys got, but electrocuting, hanging, and drowning the dogs takes it to another level that I couldn't forgive. Whether that's a common part of the dogfighting culture, I don't know. Maybe they're all just as sadistic. All I know is what's in the charges against Vick and Co., and that they're now admitting guilt. If some team wants to give Vick another chance to play, and can take the backlash, that's their business. It doesn't mean that I'll ever revise my opinion of his character. He executed dogs for sport. That's a stain on him for life, whether he plays pro football again or not.
I don't understand why the NFL would consider anything short of a lifetime ban here. Seriously, can you think of any other job in America where you wouldn't get fired immediately for something like this? If pro sports leagues really wanted to get serious about cleaning up their images, they should use this as an opportunity for setting significant mandatory bans for violent crimes, not do something like institute some silly dress code.
I watched Vick's public apology with my little son who USED TO wear Michael Vick jerseys to school. It is disturbing to think a certain percentage of the population is honestly going to be swayed by Michael Vick's "enlightenment" carefully crafted by his overpaid attorneys. Call me a cynic, but I don't believe a man who has been allegedly torturing animals since childhood coincidentally has a religious epiphany as a result of getting caught and losing his job. I hope I am wrong.
If there is anything good about the Michael Vick story, it is that there is an emerging increased awareness about animal cruelty and animal fighting. There is so much anger about this issue. If we channel it into a positive direction, hopefully, something good can come of it. However...
I think it is a sad commentary that we, as a culture, are using the Vick story to compare "What's worse?" "What's worse", we ask, "carelessly fathering illegitimate children, or dogfighting?". "Dogfighting or gambling?" "Dogfighting or rape?" "Dogfighting or racism?" "Dogfighting or hateful nationalism?" "Dogfighting or (fill in the blank)....?" The comparisons to dogfighting have been endless.
Dogfighting is one more piece of evidence our country is in need of a spiritual transformation (please note I said spiritual and not necessarily religious). Animals are sentient beings - they feel pain, and they suffer, just like we do. They are not more important, or less important than human beings, but like human beings, they are important, too.
Dogfighting pits one dog against another until one of them dies. The survivor gets his flesh torn off, ears ripped off, eyes pulled out, etc., and the reward for being "a winner" is to writhe in pain until the next fight. Enough said. The pictures make my flesh crawl. The losers are tortured, beaten, starved, electrocuted or drowned. For what? Because these poor creatures were unlucky enough to be born a dog!
Every major faith teaches its followers to be responsible stewards of animals and the Earth. Please help us get the word out that caring for animals, just like caring for people, is an important part of just being a decent person and citizen. If we make this a priority, there will be no more dogfighting horror stories, and no more pointless comparisons of evils. Let us all rise, together, to be better people than we are today, shall we?
Chaplain Nancy Cronk
Founder, http://www.AnimalChaplains.com