The deep sucking sound you heard yesterday, was Michael Vick’s career going down the toilet. Having cut a plea deal on dogfighting, the Atlanta Falcons quarterback grabbed the handle and flushed his career away in a press conference.
The story that Vick had been running a dogfighting ring and betting on the outcomes is almost too grisly to comment upon. Historically, dogfighting, bearbaiting and the rest of the animal bloodsports have been going on since shortly after humans started walking upright. Given the right circumstances you could probably get rabbits to fight to the death and it is a given that somewhere nearby a person would be taking bets on the outcome. Humans are like that.
My bias, I’ll put up front: I do eat beef and wear leather shoes. Pork is a wondrous meat and fish, fresh from a stream, pan fried on the shore is about as good as you can get. Veal, I will eat if served, but I don’t buy it, as I think immobilizing a year-old cow or steer merely for tender meat is not right. Yes, I know we boil lobsters alive and I have done it personally. I have skinned and dressed the carcasses of a few animals and fish that I have either hunted, or caught. I know what goes into sausages and I have been to a slaughterhouse, so I know how my steak was made.
I will live with the contradictions, as being a carnivore does not make my opinion regarding animal cruelty less important. I’m merely going to recognize my contradictions up front.
Wagering on organized animal cruelty compounds the offense. Which explains the instant suspension without pay from the NFL. One bright light at the Atlanta-Journal Constitution newspaper has done a bit of back of the envelope calculating and figured that dogfighting has cost Michael Vick about $51 million in endorsements. The other shoe that we’re waiting on, is how much jail time?
The likelihood is a year, plus probation, which means three to six months, then the probation, as Michael Vick is not your next door neighbor. If you or I ran a dogfighting ring, we’d be looking at five years, then three on probation.
The mere fact that we have dogfighting, cockfighting or other animal blood sports and I include bullfighting in there, as well as calf-roping and steer wrestling, is the part that makes no sense in the year 2007. There is no need for it.
Is it some kind of fashion statement? Some kind of street-cred machismo to engender respect?
The dumb part is it isn’t actually that difficult. There is no physical danger, no real personal blood involved. You’re watching something else do your posing, fighting and dying for you. It doesn’t take any more bravery than going to the 7-11 in a tricked out Land Rover.
If you want to butch up and show how tough you are, enter bare knuckles fistfights, take boxing lessons, or become an Ultimate Fighter type of athlete. The truly tough sure as hell aren’t on a football field, ball diamond, race track, soccer pitch, or in the back yard organizing dogfights.
Those who think they get a bigger dick and more respect from watching pair of dogs fight are cowards and poseurs of the first order because they are not in any danger whatsoever. None. They’re in more danger when they go on a roller coaster than running an animal bloodsport.
Want to show the world how big your dick really is and how much respect you really deserve? Why not enlist? You get to prove how tough you are when people shoot real bullets at you. You get to prove how tough you really are if your leg gets removed with an IED and the blood is your own blood, not some dog blood. Wager on the patrols if betting is what gets you off.
Those who serve in the military, male and female, have a big set that clank when they walk. They are truly tough, deserve true respect and have more street-cred in their little finger than Michael Vick or his ilk would have in their whole extended families.
Poseurs and cowards run things like dogfights and deserve exactly how much ‘respect’ and street-cred?
RoadDave 