Sure, but the Rams and the NFL are morally poorer for it.
p.s. Thanks for the lookup.
Since Vick has copped to a guilty charge, I wonder if his old alma mater, Virginia Tech (from which he never graduated, just attended long enough to get into the NFL) will change the name of “Michael Vick Hall” there now?
While I’m of the opinion that Leonard Little should have been done in the NFL at that point, his case helps illustrate 3 points why Vick likely is done.
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The victim matters - Little killed someone as a drunk driver and while horrible, there’s not really anyone around who could have told you one bit about the person killed. With Little, a faceless person died because we didn’t see the family on TV, it wasn’t someone that caused massive protests or had hugely pre-populated advocacy groups. Vick fought and killed dogs. When a dog owner thinks of Vick killing dogs, they will likely picture their pet which causes more emotional attachment than an unknown person. Killing dogs brings with it the full wrath of PETA, the Humane Society, and any number of other organizations that have a full PR gauntlet ready to go. Which leads to point #2.
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The media matters - Granted it wasn’t all that long ago, but think of the difference in media between 1998 and now. Many more cable channels, blogs, internet sites, radio shows, etc that allow people to vocalize their thoughts on the story and create the size of the story that follows Vick. With the growth of accessible outlets, I can’t imagine the shellacking someone will take in 10 years when a scandal hits.
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The position matters - Little is a good defensive player, but if you had him in a group of 5 guys of similar size, could anyone besides some Rams diehards pick him out of a group? He wasn’t a national scale endorser, he didn’t play a skills position, and short of a really fantastic play, wouldn’t be on Sportscenter. Vick was the face of a franchise, had multiple national endorsements, has been ballhooed since college, and if there were Falcons highlights on Sportscenter, you can just about bet that he was involved. His extreme level of fame adds to the vitriol against him because it fits into the “the bigger they are, the harder they fall” concept of relishing in the demise of a famed person that isn’t highly loved. If this story centered around a player like Chris Crocker or Michael Boley, it would merit mention as a new event happened, not round the clock coverage. And, 3 years down the road, that person re-emerging and going to training camp would merit mention but be largely overlooked. If Vick walks into your camp, so well a throng of media, protestors, and on-lookers. And that’s why a team isn’t going to bring him in unless he spends those same 3 years on the biggest personality overhaul since The Stepford Wives.
Bit o’ irony. Sorry.
This, I believe, is the thing that will prevent him from ever coming back into the NFL. The mental images are just too horrifying, for too many millions of people who can see their own beloved pet in his brutal hands.
That other guy who came back after killing someone in a drunk driving accident? Sad to say, vehicular homicide while DUI is so common as to be unremarkable for most folks. Yes, it was very sad, very bad, but stuff like that happens every day, and a lot of people can picture themselves or a friend or relative having the same thing happen to them when they’ve had too much to drink. It’s a crime, but it’s also an accident, not a deliberately committed act (beyond the driving and drinking itself, of course).
Killing dogs, though, by hanging, or electrocution, or slamming them on the ground – that’s utterly foreign to almost everyone. It’s even worse, I suspect, to a lot of people than the dog fighting itself. Too many folks, when they see Vick or hear his name, will always have a horrifying image of him in the act of smashing a helpless dog into the ground, too many for him ever to make it back into the public eye with any respect.
It is truly fucked up when killing somebody while driving drunk is considered less troubling than killing a dog bred to kill. That’s one of the things that kinda caught me unawares about this thing. Maybe it’s that I’ve spent too much of my life with dealing with criminals and the victims that killing a dog just doesn’t register compared to killing a person while driving drunk.
It’s striking and saddening to see how quick many of you are to wish pain, bankruptcy and even death on another human being, all while claiming to take the moral high ground. Michael Vick did a horrible thing, and he deserves the sentence he gets, but this needs to be looked at in perspective. Michael Vick didn’t kill another human being. He didn’t even hurt another human being. He hurt/killed dogs. I know a lot of people (myself included) are dog owners/lovers, and it’s so easy to picture someone doing this to your dog and get riled up, but dogs are not people.
As for Vick’s NFL future, those who claim that he has no chance of being a starter again are crazy. I’d say that any given year, at least ten teams do not have a strong starting quarterback. Michael Vick is, regardless of his low passer rating (which is a significantly flawed system anyway), an above average quarterback with flashes of greatness. I’d bet dollars to donuts Mike will have no trouble landing another starting job. Personal issues start to look a hell of a lot less like a problem when your starting quarterback is Jon Kitna.
Yes, it is fucked up, but it’s one of the reasons that penalties for vehicular homicide are so low, I believe.
I think a number of things account in part for the difference. The first is intent. It is certainly possible to act so incredibly negligently that your actions morally equal having acted intentionally, but the fact is that nobody can say that the DUI guy meant to kill the person he killed. The same cannot be said for Vick, who deliberately destroyed those dogs. The second is affinity. Anyone who drinks can at least conceive of how an irresponsible drunk person could kill someone in a traffic accident. It’s not really “there by for the grace of God go I,” but it as least “I can see how that might happen.” Most people cannot imagine treating an animal as Vick treated those dogs. The third is the perceived helplessness of the victim. Obviously a random person blithely driving down the road is as innocent and helpless as any animal could be, but animal cruelty cases resonate with people because animals are so completely dominated by humans and so dependent on us for humane treatment. The fourth is good press. PETA may be a bunch of complete wackos (IMO, of course), but they have been effective in raising awareness of animal cruelty issues in a way that, say, MADD has not been regarding drunk driving.
But in general human death IS considered more troubling that animal death, as it certainly should. In many jurisdictions there are very few prosecutions for animal cruelty because prosecutors are too busy with crimes against people. I have no problem with that ordering of priorities; I think it’s appropriate. (I just wish there were enough resources to do both.) The only reason this case received the zealous prosecution it did is because it was “Michael Vick.”
But it is not killing a dog via criminal negligence. It is six years of deliberate actions of abusing and killing many dogs for personal enjoyment. If he had killed a dog in a drunken driving incident it would probably not have gotten exposure beyond the state it took place in. You probably have a good point about people not caring enough about drunk driving but this is a lot more than killing a dog.
I think a salient difference is the matter of intent. Killing someone in a drunk driving accident is, at its core, an accident, if one that was caused by the extreme recklessness of the drunk driver. Further, everyone who has gotten behind the wheel has imagined the possibility of getting into a fatal accident, and all too many of us have made foolish choices when borderline tipsy or worse.
On the other hand, very few of us can imagine sponsoring a dogfighting kennel, and intentionally killing dogs who fail to measure up is just beyond the scope of contemplation. The deaths that were consequence of Vick’s actions, though only of dogs, were intentional acts.
(Or, on edit, what Jodi and Gazpacho said.)
Exactly. Hamlet is comparing apples and oranges. Try to imagine the outcry if instead of dogs, Vick hanged, beat and drowned humans to death.
The reason drunk drivers are not punished as severely as they should be is it could happen to almost anyone. (I’m one of the few folks that never drove drunk - ever. I hardly touch the stuff actually).
So, let’s suppose someone is ready to pass a tough piece of legislation guaranteed to make it very tough on drunk drivers. How many politicians will go “hey what if I’m caught?” And so the legislation would lose a lot of its power, if it passes at all.
How about a drunk driver on trial? Don’t you think a few folks on the jury are thinking “what if that were me”?
With dogfighting (and I’m happy to say this), I don’t think there are going to be too many people saying “wow, maybe the next time I beat a dog to death for bad performance, that could be me on trial. Think I’ll go easy on this guy.”
Friend, I will tell you this; the perspective I have is not actually visiting Michael Vick personally. I’ve been fighting fires for 16 years, and my heart breaks the same if I pull the body of a dog (or cat or other beloved pet) or the body of Aunt Sadie out of that burning building, because the heart of whoever loved either the pet or Aunt Sadie breaks as well.
Admittedly, it breaks more when it’s a human child, that’s just nature. Still, the love I have for my dogs (and by proxy, all dogs) is the same as one might have for thier child, and by proxy, all children. I have had dogs my entire life, I will have them until I die. They are pure, innocent and good, they love without condition, and are loyal beyond all imagination. These qualities are hardly found in humans, yet we tolerate them anyway, because it is necessary to do so. Anyone that would treat something so good, so kind and so loving with the disdain, violence and abject hatred that Michael Vick did, deserves the same fate (IMO)as one who molests and/or kills innocent children. Though I won’t say it outright, that fate involves a weedwacker, a woodchipper, sulfuric acid, a #12 syringe and a yard of hungry pigs.
I hope for the sake of the NFL, you’re wrong.
I had someone bring this point up to me today, and I was a bit surprised they made it. Of course dogs aren’t people. And no one thinks they are. No one seems to think that killing a dogs is equivalent to killing a person.
If Michael Vick was accused of electrocuting, drowning and slamming around people, he would not be looking at 18 months, and the possible loss of his career. He would be looking at 18 life sentences, and the definite loss of everything he ever had.
Just because dogs != people, does not mean that killing dogs is just no big deal.
I can tell you right now, it’s not going to happen. I am loosely connected through my animal shelter volunteer work with way too many communities who will make it their mission to make sure Michael Vick never plays for the NFL again. I’m not talking about PETA crazies, either… I’m talking about thousands and thousands of ordinary people who will call and protest any team that tries to hire him, even five years from now. In the last few months, I’ve gotten into arguments with otherwise rational people who basically wanted to lynch Vick for this.
I’m not saying it’s good, bad, or indifferent – and I would be lying if I didn’t say I wasn’t occasionally disgusted and wondered if some of these people would have batted an eye if Vick had been accused of spousal abuse or something more prosaic but still horrible – I’m just saying that’s how I see it.
That we know of… that house Gates built is pretty big and private. This thing could be a lot bigger than we know of- I’m guessing Liza Minnelli, Rosie O’Donnell, Alan Thicke and Warren Beatty all have dogs in this fight, if you know what I mean.
(Wilford Brimley used to be a champion dogfighter, but he finally quit when he was mauled by a dachshund on steroids; after that he never fought another dog except for charity.)
I heard an NPR piece on this earlier today and there was an absolutely amazing caller who claimed that Vick is being persecuted because of race. Apparently since dog fighting was once a “sport” of upper-class British and nobody convicted them of it there’s no justification for vilifying Vick. The logic was so incredibly twisted I couldn’t believe it.
As far as I’m concerned Vick should spend about 15 minutes with some of his champion dogs.
It’s the right thing to do.
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Don’t even bother complaining to the NFL. Organize boycotts of the sponsors, and do it very loudly. Let them know they face a year without your business for every minute Vick spends on a football field. Getting it right a day late should cost them sixty years.
Tris