RubyLove...
I'm aware.... I wasn't aware tho, that being a dog lover negated a person's ability an responsibility to also respect human life?
I personally find it sad that if Vick had killed a person..someone's mother, father, son or daughter....people wouldn't hate him nearly as much. Last I heard it was because people have a say in whether they are murdered or not...who knew? I've never hated anyone I didn't know on a personal level...because I consider hate a pretty strong emotion.
The law is the law, breaking it is breaking it...bad examples are bad examples. Period. As a parent I'd be no more happy about my child idolizing Jimi Hendrix or Jim Morrison, both self destructive drug users, than Michael Vick. My scale is different than yours, and that's why I suppose...we have juries and a court system now. I consider that a good thing.
I don't mean to sound rude, and I'm not trying to be rude. But this is a subject (dogfighting, not Michael Vick) that is something I am passionate about because it is the worst form of animal cruelty and a HUGE problem in the US and elsewhere. A huge problem.
Being a dog lover doesn't negate anything - nor does being a famous football star. I find it really hard to believe that people could still be a fan of someone who has admitted guilt to such a thing.
And I have to disagree that `bad examples are bad examples'. When my folks were growing up, Elvis was a bad example. Are you saying that Elvis and Michael Vick are on a par?
And what you say is true - those artists were SELF-destructive. Sure, they're not great examples, but you seem to be suggesting that those guys are on the same level as someone who funded, organised and personally participated in systematic brutality, torture, violence, depravity and murder for six years, and has only stopped because by chance he got found out?
Have you seen photographs and watched videos of what happens to dogs during dogfights? If not, I don't suggest you do, because it will never leave you as long as you live.
I am so tired of hearing people compare this to murder or rape of humans. As if by being outraged at this issue you are somehow making light of these other issues. It's so frustrating.
Let me approach it this way. When someone murders their wife, they have committed a terrible crime. When someone murders their wife after systematically abusing her for years it is a more terrible crime. If somebody organised and funded an operation where wives were produced and enslaved for systematic abuse and torture over a number of years, ending in the violent death of those wives, would that not be the worst crime of all?
Michael Vick did not kill one dog in a fit of rage. He did not even abuse one dog for six years and then kill it. He did this every week, every month, every year, to
hundreds of dogs. He bred them
specifically for this purpose, and they spent their
entire lives from the moment they were born until the moment they were viciously ripped apart in a pit or brutally murdered by Vick himself in abject misery, abuse and suffering.
It is not the victims of the crime here that are necessarily the issue. Whether it be a person or a dog or a cat or a child or a bird or a fish, the fact is that this man
had it in him to organise a large operation geared around violence, torture and death (that could have gone on indefinitely) - for FUN. To make MONEY.
Yeah, he's SO on a par with Jimi Hendrix.