Dogfighting is bad, and so are you Mr. White.
Here’s a little background info: R.L. White is the president (for now) of the Atlanta chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. He feels Michael Vick should be given a chance to redeem himself. Here’s one of my favorite quotes from White ():
“In some instances, I believe Michael Vick has received more negative press than if he would’ve killed a human being,” White said. “The way he is being persecuted, he wouldn’t have been persecuted that much had he killed somebody.”
Really? persecuted? Guess what - HE COMMITTED A HEINOUS F***ING CRIME! Does White really think Vick has been persecuted more than O.J. Simpson who (was accused of killing) killed someone. OK, OK, so they found him not guilty.
White also said he didn’t understand the uproar over dogfighting, when hunting deer and other animals is perfectly acceptable. That’s when my idiot alarm went to “hyperactive”. This guy has clearly never hunted. If he had, he’d understand that hunting game isn’t a game at all. Every single hunter I know does it for food. I’m pretty sure Vick didn’t fight dogs so he could cook him up some dead dog viddles. Unless that’s a big thing in Atlanta? I didn’t think so.
How does The National Association for the ADVANCEMENT of Colored people benefit from supporting a black athlete who seems to have done nothing but the opposite of advancement for his race?
At the core, this issue isn’t about being black, about dogs, about black dogs, or even about black dogs that were electrocuted and drowned by Vick. This is about a morality clause in his contract with the NFL. He broke the rules, and not just by a tad. He gambled with animals’ lives on the line. He tortured animals. He shouldn’t be in the NFL anymore — it’s that simple.
That the NAACP allows its leaders to support such sorry examples of black men, shows that they have lost focus and shows that they care more about blindly supporting black people, and not just the advancement of colored people.
Hearing this news about the NAACP is almost as bad as when they blindly supported Tawana Bradley. I hope the NAACP remembers two of their lawyers were disbarred because of that debacle. Those two didn’ even show up for their disbarment trial.
August 23rd, 2007 at 6:54 pm
Man, I have so many comments of aggrees and disagrees I dont know where to start. I’ll just list some of my personal thoughts:
AGREE:
1. NAACP is bad and hipocritical on many things.
2. The deer hunt dog fight analogy was stupid on many more reasons than just the eating of meat. An NBA player actually used that anlogoy. Obviously, he doesnt hunt.
3. Ethics clause on for NFL was violated. Regardless of personal feelings on dog fighting it is illegal, the gambling, and on purely sterotypical grounds, all the dog fighters I know here are drug dealers. I’d gamble some of my money there were known drug dealers there
5. Ive seen many pit bulls bred to fight. They are ticking time bombs and very dangerous to kids and other people if/when they get loose. I think we are just safer not having it.
DISAGREE:
1. I think this is way overhyped. Suspension and tickets I thought were more appropirate punishment. Banishment from NFL? Maybe so. Jail time? No - way over board. Its just a dog. All those dogs are going to be killed anyway.
2. The OJ point does a great job of furthering the opposite point you are trying to make. Had OJ gone over to Nicoles house that night (when she wasnt there) and hacked her cute doggy to pieces with a knife, same evidence; you could bet your bottom dollar he would have served some jail time and been a public outcast never to be allowed on gold courses again.
Face the fact, perfectly reasonable people DO care and sympathzie more with animals than they do people. These same reasonable people will fly off the handle being shown pictures of cutting a chickens head off with a knife or butchering a pig named Houdini, but will still eat chicken and pork all day blocking out of mind how it got on their plate.
We get over emotional with animals and that is what is going on here.
I dont like what he did, I would not do it. But he did not hurt “someone”. It was just a dog, and a ticket is more appropriate. People just need to calm down.
Of course, I do slaughter much of my own food and would eat dog meat if put on my plate
Maybe everyone needs to raise, kill and butcher a chicken once in their life to put things into perspective. You do get attached to those little buggers. I cut their heads off anyway
August 23rd, 2007 at 7:33 pm
With all due respect to you, Ryan, you must be COMPLETELY out of your mind, or an animal-hater to the extreme. I can’t imagine any other explanation for what you just wrote.
“Its [sic] just a dog.”
Wow, that makes me so mad I’m not even sure what to say. That statement alone pretty much proves the point that everything you just posted is irrational. It’s JUST a dog? WTF??? Yes, it is a JUST a dog, a living, breathing creature that feels pain JUST like a human being. Just because you are so ego-centric, apathetic, and heartless as to think that only humans should be spared from pain doesn’t make that belief ethical or just or right. You know what the number one sign of potential for future homicidal tendencies is? Ask any criminal psychologist – cruelty to animals. The type of people who see no fault in harming innocent, defenseless creatures are the exact same type of people who eventually make the transition to torturing and murdering human beings. If anything, the penalties for animal cruelty should be STIFFER than they are now. Might as well stop these psychos before they move on to people.
“Had OJ gone over to Nicoles house that night (when she wasnt there) and hacked her cute doggy to pieces with a knife, same evidence; you could bet your bottom dollar he would have served some jail time and been a public outcast never to be allowed on gold courses again.”
That is incredibly absurd. One look at the sad lack of legislature punishing animal cruelty perpetrators clearly shows that our legal system hardly gives a damn about them. For the record, OJ paid MILLIONS to the families of his victims (and is still paying), had every one of his awards and records stripped, and is pretty much an outcast everywhere he goes (except, of course, to the NAACP headquarters.. I’m sure they’re his #1 fan). He didn’t serve any time, which is a tragedy, but he certainly didn’t escape punishment. I will be shocked if Vick sees the inside of a jail cell at all. He’ll do some community service, pay some fines, and be back in the NFL making millions before you know it. THAT is the real crime.
“A ticket is more appropriate.”
Wow.. Just wow… I cannot believe that anyone in their right mind would look at what Vick did and say that a ticket is appropriate. You, sir, need to take a serious look at your priorities. It really worries me that any person would ever say that.
If Vick does any real jail time, it will be because of the felony gambling charges – NOT the misdemeanor animal cruelty charges, and if he is banned from the NFL, it will be because of their extremely strict no-gambling rule. So it looks like we both get our wish. For heartlessly strangling, drowning, electrocuting, and beating countless dogs to death and torturing so many more, he will receive a slap on the wrist from the law and no punishment at all from the NFL – just like you want. For “conspiracy to travel in interstate commerce in aid of unlawful activities, conspiracy to sponsor a dog in an animal fighting venture, and racketeering,” his life and career are (hopefully) ruined. Just the way it should be.
August 24th, 2007 at 8:58 am
No, I love animals. They are delicious
Just kidding. I do have pets that I would never eat or kill. But I also have a lot of utility animals that we eat Pigs, Chickens Goats.
I don’t believe in torturing animals, but a dog IS just a dog. I think something along the lines of a speeding ticket is the right way to go in terms of punishment.
If we are going to base how we treat animals on the fact that they feel pain and eat and breathe, then we all need to become vegetarians. Cows and Pigs are very intelligent and even more so that some Dogs. Yet, most people do have them killed and eat them.
I was going to say that “Just because you are so emotionally sappy, weak willed and double minded”, but then I realized that is childish. So just ignore that part and start here:
Just because people get emotionally attached to animals does not mean that people are not indeed superior to animals and people should have the right to treat their animals as personal property.
In the scheme of things, while I think Dog Fighting should be illegal, I don’t find it as big a deal as most people are hyperventilating about.
August 24th, 2007 at 9:30 am
Torturing and murdering a living, feeling being for no reason other than profit and the pure entertainment of seeing something suffer is not equal to speeding, and there’s no possible way you can justify saying that it is. How are the two on the same level at all??
The fact that people get emotionally attached to animals is not the justification for animal cruelty laws. Perhaps that has helped in getting them passed, but no “thing” that has a brain can ever be considered purely property, with no regard for that “thing’s” conscious status. Should human laws apply? Probably not. But neither should property laws. Animals, by the nature of who and what they are, have to be regarded in a class of their own.
It wasn’t all that long ago that these same arguments were used to justify slavery, and the murdering of black babies who were retarded, handicapped, or otherwise incapable of working. Granted, comparing the treatment of humans to the treatment of animals isn’t fair, and I’m not saying it’s the same thing, but there are some parallels. Animals are capable of thought.. Perhaps not higher complex thinking and reasoning, but they do think, they feel, they are happy and sad, they haves wants and fears, they feel pain and pleasure. They are not inanimate objects whose only purpose is to serve us.
Yeah, a dog is just a dog. A person is just a person. A tree is just a tree. So what?
August 24th, 2007 at 10:45 am
Lets see, you listed Slavery, Black Babies, the Handicapped, cute animals, and torture. All of that sprinkled with cutesy feelings and allegations of no heart.
You should run for political office
People kill animals every day in brutal and tortuous ways. You can’t tell me that animals do not suffer at Chicken and Beef factories. Yet, the public accepts it because it’s the most economical way to get quality low costing meat.
People do not simply hunt to eat, but because it is fun. We have dogs on hogs, bow fishing, and other exotic fun ways to hunt. Met a guy a few weeks ago who has a federal permit to hunt with hawks. None of these people are starving so they hunt.
Animals that are killed every day have brains, they did feel some level of pain, and you probably personally contributed to that.
I can understand the public rightfully deeming dog fighting as an unethical use of animals. But to get worked up that dog fighting is some horrendous heinous crime and evil simply because the dog suffered for entertainment that put the animal through unspeakable pain that animals usually never go through is total hog wash.
The public lets animals suffer every day for the benefit of entertainment and food. We don’t with people. People should be outraged over slavery, abortion, euthanasia and other such things concerning people.
But an animal IS in a different class and the public DOES make that distinction by treating animals as property as I outlined above. To all of a sudden be outraged to the point of putting Vick in the same class as a serial killer is in my view quite hypocritical.
I agree he unethically used animals. But until he actually DOES do commit a crime against a person, it’s not time to lock him up.
I know lots of people who fit the bill as potential serial killers. But we still don’t lock them up just because of symptoms. If we are smart, we are just really nice to them
August 24th, 2007 at 10:51 am
Just a note:
Dog fighting is a crime for more than just because of the torture the animals go through.
1.4 million animals were euthanized last year, half of which were pit bulls, and 30-50% of those were fighting dogs.
Why is dogfighting bad? Because these animals have a habit of getting loose and killing dogs, kids, and sometimes adults. These are dangerous animals and mistreating them makes them vicious killers. It’s a big deal whether you believe it or not. The numbers speak for themselves.
August 24th, 2007 at 11:03 am
Clearly you view animals as nothing more than property. I find that appalling and fundamentally flawed and very very sad, but obviously I can’t change it. Call me a hippie, but I just can’t bring myself to believe that torturing and slaughtering that dog should only be worth a speeding ticket. Give me a break. Murder for fun is not a misdemeanor.
I see your point in arguing that the meat industry isn’t far off from dogfighting, and I’ll be honest, I don’t really have much of a comeback. I don’t believe that hunting for food is a bad thing.. I recognize that the circle of life has to be allowed to happen, even if it’s not always pretty or nice or fair. I eat meat. Does that make me a hypocrite? Maybe. I like to think that it doesn’t, because I eat meat just to eat it, because my body needs it, not because I get joy in the thought of the animal dying. But the thing is, at least the meat industry has an important live-giving purpose - feeding carnivorous people - that can’t necessarily be accomplished in other ways. The dogfighting industry, on the other hand, has no such justification.
August 24th, 2007 at 12:34 pm
A discussion on Ramdac again, i love it.
First of all, the punishment for killing a dog is no where near as bad as killing a person.
Vick will probably be in jail about 2 years for the Dogfighting Charges, if he would have plead guilty to killing a person it would be min. of around 15 years, and that is if was a quick killing of one person. Micheal vick, Hung dogs, drowned them in 5 gal buckets, soaked them in water to elec. them. IF Vick had done that to a person he would be looking would be looking at a little electricity himself.
If people didnt hunt, then there would be huge over population of animals in many areas that would be a major problem. I can’t personally shoot or kill animals, just something about is just tugs at me. That being said, i love eating meat. Does that make some sort of hypocrite, i dont know.
Anyone who kills helpless animals in the manner in which Vick did, shows a serious lack of moral fortitude, and i dont believe he has the right to be a part of the NFL influencing young children.
August 24th, 2007 at 1:03 pm
I’m doing my best to resist the urge to make a comment saying, “I’m glad Michael Vick is going to jail because I’m a huge Saints fan.”
Obviously I failed, and I do see the err of my ways.
August 24th, 2007 at 1:24 pm
Ramdac: “Why is dogfighting bad? Because these animals have a habit of getting loose and killing dogs, kids, and sometimes adults.”
** I agree with you. Those are the main reasons why I think it should be illegal. Because of that, should the penalty be harsher than a ticket? …maybe so. But those facts should determine the punishment.
Stacy: “Clearly you view animals as nothing more than property”
***I have no problems with believing that animals are for us to use for food, utility and companionship in a responsible way and the individual person gets to decide how they will be used. In the end, God will judge if we were a good stewart with what he gave us.
Joey: “Does that make some sort of hypocrite, i dont know.”
*** I think in terms of do we believe something and do another, we are all probably guilty of that in one form or another. But what is far worse is when we believe one thing, do another, then condemn others for the very behavior we do.
August 24th, 2007 at 5:31 pm
Ryan,
I agree that I believe people have to right to view animals differently. People who have pets for companionship will definetly see this differently than someone who has animals for food or utility.
I do think that Jail time is appropriate for the way in which Vick and his posse went about their actions. There is something about taking anything that is deemed helpless and putting that person or animal in harms way for personal enjoyment.
It is why we react differently to acts against children versus adults.
I know when i see videos of dogs trying to kill each other, something just pulls at my heart a little, But I also feel the same way when I watch a hunting show, and watch everyone slap hands over their trophy buck. Hurm..
August 25th, 2007 at 3:44 pm
I don’t get too emotional over the whole Vick thing because I don’t feel sorry for him. I mean really, how stupid can you be! I am pretty sure stuff went down there that jail time is probably appropriate.
I keep wondering to myself WHY did he do it. I am sure he knew it was illegal and I am fairly he sure knew he could get in very serious trouble, so why do it?
The best I can come up with is I think he really like the power and notoriety it gave him with the people he was doing this with. You would think being an NFL star quarter back would be enough.
Speaking of high fives, check this pic out.
And I’ll tell you right now I enjoyed every minute of that entire experience