A post by Maynard
Can any of you boys and girls explain to me why everyone is mad at Michael Vick? Honestly, I don’t get it.
This is not to excuse a man who’s clearly a first-class jerk, and of course a criminal. But why does the intense focus go to someone who mistreats animals when so many other sports “heroes” have done so much dirt to their fellow man?
How bad are our professional athletes? Google the phrase “National Felons League”, and you’ll get a whiff of how endemic the problems are. Here’s an article by Larry Elder entitled “Role Models from Hell”.
Jeff Benedict has written three books on the subject: Pros and Cons: The Criminals Who Play in the NFL and Out of Bounds: Inside the NBA’s Culture of Rape, Violence, and Crime and Public Heroes, Private Felons: Athletes and Crimes Against Women.
When the authors checked a sample consisting of a third of the players on National Football League teams during the 1996/97 season, they discovered that 21 percent had been arrested or indicted for serious crimes ranging from fraud to homicide. Upon investigating the specific instances behind the statistics, they uncovered a disturbing trend: The NFL continues to employ players with multiple arrests and multiple convictions, just as long as they are capable of playing winning football.
Some argue that the most successful sports figures will inherently be bad human beings. The traits that make one successful at sports include aggression and risk-taking and impulsiveness. These are, so the argument goes, the traits that make one inclined towards antisocial behavior.
I disagree. I think the responsibility of humanity is to hold our darker impulses — and we’ve all got them! — in check. Is it too much to expect these men to let loose on the playing field and control themselves elsewhere? Isn’t it possible to be a gentleman without being a girlie-man? Isn’t this what being human is all about?
Maynard – the concise answer is *PETA*!
1) Professional sports players have the idea they can do anything since they have been coddled by their leagues, teams, managers, and adoring press.
2) Most people probably have a feeling deep down that person who associates with these thugs deserves what they get.
3) “Man’s Best Friend”, however has no choice about associating with these moral midgets.
4) When domestic pets are abused in ways they can’t understand, and killed for frivolous reasons in vicious and barbaric ways, people get ticked off.
5) Most people have read “Beautiful Joe” or some derivative book or story.
6) The appropriate punishment for Vik is to be thrown into a cage with a 600 pound, hungry, tiger and left to see if he can escape.
Thor, that’s part of Maynard’s point, I think. Remember the sportscaster who pointed out that Vick would be in less hot water if he’d raped a woman, and was fired for it.
Actually, most in the animal world are pretty sick of PETA — in speaking of dark shadows, PETA has perhaps the longest, darkest shadow of all, as it was revealed earlier this year in a highly publicized trial in N.C., re: PETA dumping animal carcasses (also see http://www.petakillsanimals.com) that PETA is a for animal “liberation” not especially for animal “welfare”; they don’t even own a shelter, and they euthanized nearly 15,000 animals between 1998 and 2005; the philosophy of their CEO is that the pit bull breed should be exterminated because of the punishment they receive being alive. So much for PETA. As for Michael Vick, I think the outrage is so voluminous, because M.V.’s pre-notoriety persona was extremely light-filled, grand and heroic. There is an old Chinese medicine reference that comes to mind: “The bigger the front, the bigger the back.” Thus M.V.’s front was quite stellar, who knew his shadow was so dark. Additionally, I think M.V. set himself up to be publicly crucified. His dogfighting enterprise was huge, and, wierdly, beyond the black-painted buildings, not particularly hidden. His dark side was arrogant, testing, and ultimately hugely self-destructive. That addictive, self-destructive impulse is also what attracts people to this case. It is an archetypal wound that many of us suffer from or fear. I was struck yesterday by a reference to Vick’s psychology from his minister: “He has been hurt and extremely embarrassed,” Terry [the minister]said. “I don’t believe he knows how he got involved in this.” The unconscious mind can be a really scarey place. Vick reminded us all of just how scarey.
“The NFL continues to employ players with multiple arrests and multiple convictions, just as long as they are capable of playing winning football.”
It’s ultimately about the almighty dollar. And the NFL hiring these immoral thugs is just as unethical, in its way, as the actions of the criminals themselves. In supporting these all-star losers, the NFL has succeeded in propagating the depraved behavior. There have been many talented athletes that are also decent, law-abiding human beings, so you can obviously have one without the other.
I’d like to think that people are just fed up with these morally corrupt individuals–who happen to have been born with natural athletic ability–being paid ridiculous sums of money and being role models for their children, and that is why “everyone” seems to be mad at Vick now. Money talks, and if public support for teams tolerating any criminal behavior within its rank would wane, standards would change.
The coddling of athletes starts long before they get to the NFL (or pro-anything). It starts before they get to college – assuming they go to college.
He got crucified for fighting dogs.
This would have been a 15-minutes-of-fame deal if had beaten his wife or girlfriend.
And that is the sad comment on the whole thing.
I have found that if you don’t love dog-owner’s pets the way they do, they tend to be very nasty to you, which goes right along with the inhumanity to humans. It didn’t used to be this way. It makes me feel that dog lovers are people haters. Is this true?
Ask Whoopie Goldbug about the outrage… The new View scum defended Sick Vick because dog fighting is common in the South. Well, it seems to me SLAVERY was also common on the South. And it seems that HONOR KILLINGS are common the Islamic World. So I guess that is OK too…
Women in the world should unite to bring down The View. As far as Sick Vick and is buddies go…how about a moratorium on professional sports, allowing us to send them to kill our enemies. If they do it real good, I’d say all meanness to dogs can be forgotten, and we can get back to showing these steroid freaks with millions of dollars.
Ahh F-Islam, I think I love you.
I think it is very interesting that Whoopi Goldberg gets by with saying, “You can take the black man out of the jungle, but you can’t take the jungle out of the black man.” What a put down of black men. Her disdain for them explains why she dates white guys like Ted Danson.
There is simply something that provokes a visceral reaction in most people–i.e., people who are not sociopathic sickos like Vick and his friends–from inflicting gratuitous pain on a helpless animal. Maybe it’s perverse, or maybe there’s a logic to it, but as prosecutor I know quite a few judges who’d impose a stiffer sentence for animal cruelty than battery. At the most extreme end, of course, torturing animals is the classic red flag for a future serial killer.
“The new View scum defended Sick Vick because dog fighting is common in the South.”
Oh, for the wisdom of General Napier…
When told upon seeking to ban the practice of suttee that it was a longstanding local custom, Napier as the new Viceroy of India informed the native princes that in England his people also had a custom, which was that men who burned women got hanged.