I don't think Vick should be allowed back. Goodell should make an example out of him! It's just like Pete Rose. Yea, he was the greatest hitter in baseball, but he fucked up big time, and now he has to pay but not getting into the Hall of Fame. I'm not saying gambling is like killing dogs, but the same principle applies. You do the crime, you do the time...
Vick committed the crime and he did the time. What else do you want from the guy?
I may be biased because I have a two year old Siberian Husky that I would do anything for an love as much as the next pet owner does their pet, but still...
I own a 13 year old Shitzu. Not a 'real' dog, but he's still a loving animal and a loyal member of my family. I also own a turtle and a guinea pig. Given American society and culture and the value we place on pets, what Vick did is all the more vile as it regards US social standards.
But he did the crime and he paid the price. Whether he actually feels contrite about his actions is irrelevant. He did what American law and society demanded of him. That is all jail does in the end. It punishes him for the act. It isn't social conditioning in there, as much as we want it to be. It isn't fucking Clockwork Orange in there, nor should it be.
That he paid his debt to society is all that matters to me. And I'm a Bears fan. I could give fuckall about Michael Vick the football player. So I'm not defending him as a fan by any stretch.
Vick made millions of dollars a year to play football. Was that not enough money for him to be entertained in his spare time that he couldn't do anything else but resort to dog fighting?
All the money in the world doesn't always unfuck someone mentally. In many cases, it makes it worse by enabling it. People that make that kind of money live in a different world, where they feel that they now have the power to do things they couldn't before the payday. So asking Vick to 'find something else to do' isn't addressing the problem at hand in a realistic fashion.
I hate to sound like an angry parent, but think about all the kids that looked up to him? Hell, my 11 year old nephew still has his Vick jersey in his closet. He used to wear it all the time, but now my sister refuses to let him wear it. Letting him play again is like telling a kid that it's ok to murder their pet as long as you're sorry and do something to make up for it.
Well...yeah. That's the point of the legal system.
You commit a wrongdoing.
You get caught.
You get punished.
You apologize for comitting the crime.
You make up for the crime you committed.
Why don't we just fucking brand Vick while we're at it? Just put a 'dog killer' brand on his forehead, like they did to that Pig Killer guy in Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome? That way, no one will ever forget what he did. That way, the convicted criminal will never get the opportunity to move on with his life after comitting the crime and paying for it.
I know Tony Dungy has been saying that Vick is concentrating on "bettering his life", but he's not even a month out of prison, and he's already practicing with the Eagles? Vick says he's sorry, and realizes he made a mistake, but I don't buy it. Is he really sorry? Is he really trying to change his life in a positive manner or is he just in a hurry to play in the NFL again so he can get back in the spotlight and make millions to pay off his fines?
Maybe he isn't sorry.
Maybe it doesn't matter.
Society, the society Americans live in, judged Vick according to its own standards. All that money and all that fame didn't get him out of doing time or taking a hit to his career or causing him a lifetime of grief and embarassment for his actions.
Even though he paid for his crime, he's never going to completely live it down. Nothing will ever be the same as it was for him before he got caught. I'd say he's paid MORE than a less famous person would have paid in his shoes.
As for the kids and what they feel of guys like Vick and how they idolize him, that is all just bullshit I blame the parents for.
This is a true story.
A guy I know used to work at the United Center in the 90s during the Jordan era and he used to think the world of Michael Jordan. And in fairness, Jordan had a very positive public persona back in those days. My friend is a fly on the wall for this event.
A father rolls up on Michael Jordan with his wheelchair bound kid and says 'Michael, can you autograph something for my kid?'
Michael says 'Sorry, I haven't got the time.'
Five minutes later, he sees Jordan laughing it up with a couple of the other Bulls' players and they're talking about hanging out and playing cards all night.
Granted, Michael could have thought it was a scam and was simply protecting himself, or maybe he had some personal politics about the situation we don't know about. But again, to use common US societal standards as the barometer of such acts, what Jordan did in refusing to do the autograph and then laughing it up with teammates five minutes later is telling about the real man in some way.
Really, Michael Jordan? Does one autograph for a person you're likely to never see again, even if they WERE just trying to get a John Hancock from you, really upset the balance of the universe so much? Isn't it worth taking the small risk that someone might make a couple hundred bucks off the ten seconds it would take to write your name on something for the possibility of giving a bit of brightness to a child who will never be able to dribble a basketball or slam dunk or, for fuck's sake, even hold a video game controller so that he can PRETEND to do these things?
What's the point of this story?
The point is that no matter how much a professional athlete pretends to be the fucking second coming, they are probably just assholes like everyone else. As a parent, it's your responsibility to make sure your kids don't buy into all that bullshit and believe that what they see on TV is real.
The kids that idolized Vick...that's not Vick's fault and it's not his problem. The parents are to blame for being too stupid to sit their kids down and say 'it's okay to like a person for their skill with a football, but there are probably better people to choose to be your heroes.'
Growing up, my hero was Captain America. He wasn't real, but his values and beliefs were very noble ones for a child to aspire to. I'd rather my kids idolized people that didn't exist who embodied noble ideals, and saw people like Michael Vick for the talented but flawed people that they really are, and not buy into the marketing of a real person as someone whose shit doesn't stink when the parents should know, all too well, it probably stinks just as bad or worse than anyone else's.