I mentioned to a friend last night that Falcons quarterback Michael Vick has been indicted on dog-fighting charges, and he sort of shrugged. “Don’t you eat meat? What’s wrong with letting animals kill each other?” The problem is, of course, that hunting animals or raising them for food doesn’t require—in theory—any unnecessary cruelty. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with eating meat, per se, but we’re cognizant enough now as a people to realize that preventing unnecessary suffering isn’t just the polite thing to do, it also makes the meat taste better. That’s why we don’t send bulldogs after bulls any longer.
But for me it’s just worse because it’s dogs. Dogs aren’t just animals anymore, to my mind. They’re a symbiotic species that’s evolved to feed on our love. That’s why I can see racks and racks of pigs in a window, animals just as smart as dogs, and not feel a lick of remorse: pigs are dicks. I’d probably eat dog in another country, just like I’d eat whale or anything else at least once, but the pangs I feel when I see pictures of food dogs on the street in Asia are unavoidable.
My point: Michael Vick, a man who made millions of dollars to play a game, should know better than to electrocute, torture, and otherwise treat as completely disposable one of the nicest species on the planet. I hope he goes to jail for a suitable amount of time.
It didn’t really bother me that much until I read the part about how they executed dogs who lost or weren’t ready to fight (not that I condone the fighting, I just wasn’t all that surprised or affected by it). But wetting them down and then electrocuting, hanging, shooting them, and one was apparently slammed against the ground until it died…that’s fucked up. I don’t typically form any kind of attachment or bond to animals, but that kind of cruelty is straight-up sickening. And as an Atlanta resident, I hope the Falcons management are able to use this to boot his ass off the team.
Lets have as fair a trial as possible before we find Michael Vick guilty of his accused crimes. If and when they do find Vick and his “friends” guilty of these crimes, by all means we can judge the guy. I have one question for him, ” The gatorade contract wasn’t paying enuf out Mike?”
As far as the Falcons are concerned, I don’t care if he’s guilty or not, I just want them to have reason enough to fire him. He’s been nothing but a pain in the ass, despite how good he is.
Michael Vick IS the D-bag of the year. I hope he goes to jail for twenty years.
Pigs, however, are not ALL dicks. Click on my name above to go to the flickr set of the potbellied piggy I keep as a pet.
But yeah, I still eat bacon.
i get the whole “innocent until proven guilty thing.” it’s a pain the in ass, because i’m a prosecutor, but i understand it’s value. that having been said, the case is about as airtight as it can get. he should be banned from the NFL permanently.
Yeah, I’m with you.
Cockfighting is altogether another subject.
I actually have a experience with this right now though not through fighting. We have 2 litters of stray kittens in our yard. Both are pretty skittish of humans but where warming up to us enough that I was hoping to take them in eventually as they where gorgeous cats (long haired, beautiful coloring)
Over the weekend one of our shitbag neighbors put out anti-freeze tainted catfood to kill them for going to the bathroom in their garden.
3 of the kittens and one of the Toms (though not their Tom, but the one from the other litter) are all we can find alive now. 2 of the kittens I have found dead, both with obvious signs of poisoning. Their mothers and the 2 kittens from one of the litters as well as the last Tom, no clue. One of those mothers have been in our backyards for almost 7 years now and was loved by all of our neighbors, the other, her daughter, was also 4 years old.
I know its the Spanish immigrants in our neighborhood, as they have done it in the past and had Animal Control called on them for it, as well as they cut down our tree in our yard because its leaves fell on their property (we SHOULD have had them arrested for tresspassing for that, but they did it while we where gone so the only evidence we had was that they asked us previously to do it which we said hell no to) but what can you do? The authorities wont do jack about it because they have more important things to worry about, as well as a lack of evidence it was them.
I really shouldn’t be shocked people can be this cruel to animals. What makes a animal any less different to humans, and we have thousands of years of evidence of how sadistic we are.
They gotta put this guy away. What an ass. Signed a contract all but guaranteeing him $130mm for playing mediocre football and he pisses it away. I’ll never understand these guys in the public spotlight who just can’t for the life of them stay out of trouble.
The world is theirs. I think they take it literally.
people like this Disgust me… I cannot even put it into words. What I Can put into words is what should happen to them, this C&*T, and all his buddies. I don’t give a flying F&*K if this guy is the greatest football player of all time, who god damn cares, lock is ass away until he is an old man, incapable of fending for himself, take away his contracted millions, and then see how He likes being the helpless one relying on others.
Animals depend on us as their owners, they are essentially children, they need us too feed them, clean up after then, take care of them etc. If a person treated another human the way these pathetic pieces of S&*T treated animals, they’d be locked away forever. Maybe we can just do to them what they did to the animals… they at least they can know Exactly what they did.
Remember, a society should be judged by how it treats it’s most dependent members. Pets.
Sorry for the rant, but this truly makes my blood boil.. I hope he ends up broke and in the gutter.
J.
Tank Johnson gets cut by the Bears the day after a not-even-DUI, and still no word from the Falcons on their franchise fucking quarterback being served a federal indictment for horrible felonies.
He needs to wind up unemployed as soon as possible.
Usually I agree with you, Joel, but as a vegetarian, Vick is kind of right. Spend ten minutes watching footage from a slaughterhouse and you’ll see that we’re all (I’m wearing leather shoes right now) complicit in really terrible treatment of animals. That “in theory” bit is in the press materials, but the practice is much closer to Vick than I think a lot of people realize. Because of the total gutting of regulations, even animals supposedly on “free range” farms get treated very very poorly.
I personally don’t buy into the idea of vegetarianism as a political campaign, which is why I don’t mention it on my website or leave comments usually (e.g., when you talk about things like bacon-soaked vodka), but I think people should think before being quick to suggest Vick should go to jail for torturing and killing animals. Why are the rest of us that different just because we paid someone to hurt and kill our animals for us before delivering it all neatly sewn into our clothes or wrapped on a handy shrinkwrapped styrofoam plate.
It’s a murky topic, for sure, and not one I’m ready to get into at the moment, but my point abotu dogs, irrational as it may be, remains. Dogs are too awesome to mistreat.
… and cats, don’t forget cats
Yes, kitties are lovely.
How about some perspective. Roman Coliseum, anyone remember that little height of Western Civilization? I doubt so many people would be squeamish about cows fighting to the death. This is an essential hypocrisy of our culture, we assign more anthropomorphic to those animals that we take as pets when in fact there is no difference between dogs and horse-flies.
Having said that, I love my German Shepherd.
i don’t think anyone on here is defending gladiator fights. also, i would have a problem with any “sport” that involves any animals being forced to fight for human entertainment.
honestly use my tax dollars for something better. I bet the federal government has better things it could be doing than prosecuting some one for killing dogs. Go cure cancer so people I know stop dying. Go fight drugs so people don’t ruin their lives. Have better gun control like every other civilized country. Maybe give a couple kids, who deserve it, the chance to go to a top flight university. The 1+ million they are going to spend on this case could have done so much good some where else. Hell just about anywhere else. It really is a shame that animal rights nut jobs have so much pull. They are vocal majority in this case. People like me that don’t even care, have no reason to be vocal or interviewed. this country need priorities and dog fighting is not one of them. Hell make vick donate 20% of his salary for the remainder of his contract to these causes and make him do community service for the next 20 years. something to be productive. jail time isn’t going to help anyone in a near victim-less crime.
for you that think the animals are treated humanely at slaughter houses need to watch some of those animal rights videos. you are kidding yourself to think any different.