Posted on 07/23/2007 6:42:58 AM PDT by GeorgiaDawg32
At this point I'm sure that I don't have to do to much to bring you up to speed on Michael Vick and his latest troubles. A federal grand jury has indicted Vick on charges related to dog fighting. That may be just the beginning. The State of Virginia has yet to be heard from, and as I understand it mere ownership of property on which dog fights are held is a felony under Virginia law. Just one felony conviction and Vick is through with professional football in this country.
Let's put this "innocent until proven guilty" nonsense to rest right here at the beginning. When you kill someone you are a killer. If you do so in violation of the law; if it is not in self defense, for instance, you are a murderer. A person who kills a girlfriend because she merely wants out of the relationship is a murderer as soon as his victim's heart stops beating .. you don't have to wait for a jury to come in with a verdict.
So, where does this "innocent until proven guilty" stuff come in? The presumption of innocence is, in my view, a limitation that is primarily place on government. Generally speaking, only government can use force deadly force to deprive you of your property, your liberty or your life. If the government is going to do so as punishment for the commission of a crime, then the government must afford you your constitutional rights and prove your guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. It is the government, then, that must consider you to be innocent until otherwise proven. After the act, the rapist is only innocent in the eyes of government. The victim views him quite differently.
O.J. Simpson is a murderer. There is not one rational-thinking American familiar with knowledge of the facts of his case who honestly believes otherwise. A renegade jury failed to convict him however, so the government cannot punish him for his butchery. If O.J. objects to my characterization of him as a murderer he has civil remedies he can pursue. I, however, am powerless to punish him for the slaughter of his wife and Ron Goldman.
Now .. back to Vick. Personally, I have no doubt that he knew of and was a willing and eager participant in this blood "sport" of dog fighting. I'm an animal lover. I particularly love dogs. I would have no problem whatsoever seeing him serve some time in jail for his crime. I believe that people can be judged by how they treat animals. If what they allege about Michael Vick is true then he is completely lacking any sense of morality and human decency. Jail might be too good for him. Better to baste him in steak sauce and throw him into a cage full of the very dogs he so loved to brutalize.
What should the Falcons do with Vick? Totally their choice. They have a contract with this thug that would allow them to fire him on the spot. I'm not Arthur Blank and I have no idea what it would feel like to invest tens of millions of dollars in someone only to have them turn out to be such a miserable person and a complete embarrassment to the entire organization off-field. How do you explain to Vick's teammates that their season is about to be negatively affected because of these indictments? What do you say when they cry "He hasn't been convicted yet!" Perhaps if Blank and the Falcons had not invested so much time, effort and money into protecting Michael Vick from his own persona over the years things might not have come to this. But Vick was a jock .. a hero .. a prized gladiator. He generated massive amounts of revenue, not only for the team, but for the league ... and was thus entitled to treatment that would insulate him from his own repugnant actions.
If someone in a position of authority had smacked him down a few years ago, the team might not be going through this today.
As I said, the Falcons can do with Vick as they please. If he's convicted of a felony we should expect the NFL to follow the rules they've set and send him packing. We'll see. But I, as a fan, have my own choices to make, and my choice will be to have absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the Falcons as long as this thug is wearing their uniform. As long as Michael Vick is part of the organization, the organization, for me, ceases to exist. My wife is from Jacksonville, so I'm now officially a Jaguars fan.
Now ... let's address the race angle. I've been reading some of the blogs out there, and I did have a chance to listen to some sports talk radio over the weekend. What I've read and heard is entirely predictable. Everyone is out to get Michael Vick because he's black. The whole investigation is racially based.
This isn't about race. It's about culture. Black urban culture, to be more precise. The Humane Society of the United States estimates that organized dogfighting has increased by well over 300% since 1992. In many cases the dogfighting takes place in conjunction with drug dealing. The director of the Capital Area Humane Society in Ohio told the Cincinnati Inquirer ""Dogfighting is a family event, often held in a large warehouse. Children watch and there can be concession stands at one end, gambling somewhere else, and over in this corner they'll be selling cocaine and crack."
I'm sure it will come as no surprise to you that dogfighting has been glorified in rap music. DMX and Snoop Dog have promoted the practice in their "music" videos.
Eileen Lou-Harrist wrote "In recent years, pit bull terriers have become a macho accessory in urban culture, where kids are attracted to the animals' reputation as inherently mean dogs. Add the hard-edged glamour of the dogfightthe gambling, drugs and weapons; the illegality; the 'fight 'til you die' credoand dogfighting flourishes in places where cultivating a tough reputation is often paramount to survival." Now is Lou-Harrist describing any sort of a racial characteristic with those words? Hardly. She's describing a culture; urban street culture. Gangsta culture. So for all of you out there who will try to make this whole Michael Vick affair into a racial issue, put a sock in it. We're talking culture here, not race; a violent, immoral and cruel culture that promotes violence and disrespect for common decency and the law; a culture now vividly represented by Michael Vick.
I'm told that if you visit animal rescue shelters in many urban areas you'll find that over 60% of the dogs there are pit bulls or some variation. Slam a few of these people in jail for some extended sentences and let's see how quickly that changes.
FYI...go to ajc.com..sports..the paper’s a rag, but their sports section has been doing a superb job of covering this...there’s a video clip of one of their columnists, ( who happens to be black, BTW), absolutely shredding Vick, Blank, and the Falcons for this...he connects the dots..well worth watching.
You would have to ask Neal Boortz that question.
I love dogs as much as anybody, rescued more than my fair share. But I wish the media - and individuals - would get this upset about the death of a single unborn innocent child.
One would think after reading many of the words written on this topic that Vick and his hip-hop, gangsta, thug lifestyle flippin’ invented dog fighting.
I am in no way defending Vick, or dog fighting (hell, I think boxing is stupid, but at least the boxers choose to do it), but pretending that dogfighting is somehow unique to the hip hop lifestyle ignores several thousand years of human history.
For the record - dog owner - 5 y/o golden and a 14 y/o beagle.
“The government and the courts MUST consider a suspect charged with a crime innocent until proven guilty, but there’s not a DAMN THING that says we, as individuals, must do so.”
Exactly. If we, as individuals, wish to opine as to his guilt or innocence, that is perfectly within our rights. We are not the judicial system. If we end up looking stupid for our opinion, whichever side you choose, and it ends up being wrong, then that’s our individual burden to bear.
But what about non-individual entities like the NFL? Are they bound by the “guilty until proven innocent” precept? I would hope not. If we saw a player on videotape killing someone, would the NFL continue to let him play simply bec he has not been found guilty by a court of law? I certainly hope not.
Maybe you didn't read the entire article. "Innocent until proved guilty" is a legal concept. A person is guilty when he or she commits a crime even if no one but the perpetrator knows a crime was committed, but the perpetrator isn't liable to prosecution until sufficient evidence of guilt is submitted to a prosecutor.
I don't know if Vick is guilty or not, but if he is proved to be guilty I hope he gets the maximum sentence as a message to other animal abusers that such cruel, medieval "sports" as dogfighting and bear-baiting are no more acceptable in America today than crucifying convicted criminals on a cross.
I agree with Boortz's distinction between the way the government must treat the accused and the way other people must treat them. The government is held to a higher standard. But there is no reason that a person should not be held responsible for his actions by individuals and polite society pending conviction.
If somebody has committed a murder, you don't just ignore that fact for a couple of three years until the state gets around to convicting him. His technical legal status has not changed, but that doesn't mean you need to invite him over for Sunday Tea.
Even the state recongnizes this fact, and often requires impossibly high bail or binds people over for trial without bail, even though they have been convicted of nothing.
I heard Clinton Portis on the radio over the weekend saying that Vick's dog fighting operation was no big deal, and folks just don't understand that it's all just good sport. I got the definite impression that he was familiar with the dog fighting world.
Certainly they didn’t invent it, but dog fighting, like female genital mutilation, is something given up by civilized people a long, long, time ago.
He's not talking about our system of justice...he's talking about the ridiculous notion that the rest of us have to wait until the jury comes back before we can know for sure whether or not the man who committed his crime in front of dozens of witnesses is guilty or not before we can draw any conclusions. I portions of the indictment agaianst Vick and I have no trouble believing that he is a barbaric, cruel and evil person.
The special treatment begins as soon as a boy is found to excel at any given sport. From there on he is treated as a special person who is entitled to special treatment and to live above the almost universal trials and tribulations of ordinary boys. By the time the boy has become a young man and reaches the college level he quite naturally believes that he deserves the benefits that attend his talent being desired by several colleges and universities, and especially desired by the wealthy alumni of those schools.
After he graduates, usually with the minimum required education, and is given a multi-million dollar contract for throwing a ball accurately or his ability to manhandle another 7-foot tall player under the basket he quite naturally believes that he is a special individual whose talents entitle him to the money he needs to support his lifestyle, the women he wants, and the adoration of his fans. Fans who BTW will dump him in a heartbeat if his talents prove to be less stellar than expected.
In many cases, not all by any means, he also believe that his status as a star athlete elevates him above the laws that ordinary people are obliged to either obey or suffer the consequences of disobedience, and that often results in illegal behavior such as Mr. Vick is accused of committing. If he is convicted I don't want to see him given a more severe punishment than any other person would receive for the same crime, but neither do I want him to be treated by the court as he has probably been treated since he first put on a Pop Warner league uniform.
Well said. Too bad Boortz isn't intellectually honest enough to apply this principle consistently.
For what it’s worth, I think dog-fighting is despicable, but as a libertarian I can’t think of any reason it ought to be illegal or regulated so long as it poses no significant danger to other people or their property.
You couldn't be more wrong. I don't understand how you guys can accuse Boortz of something that ridiculous when he is a lawyer himself and fully understands the LEGAL meaning of guilt. A person doesn't have to be convicted by a jury in order for the people to know, or at least be convinced, that he or she is guilty of a crime.
The court can't simply assume that the accused is guilty even if the evidence is overwhelming, and a jury may find the accused not guilty in spite of massive evidence to the contrary. But observors who are not involved in the legal proceedings can certainly come to their own conclusions. If the O.J. Simpson travesty of justice didn't convince you of that I don't know what would.
You don’t seem to be disagreeing with me at all according to your post. You’re just seeing it from a legalistic point of view and I agree with you. I just take exception with the poster who looks unapprovingly at “what most ‘law and order conservatives’ really think of the justice system.” That’s a pretty big assumption to make on his/her part, and it’s incorrect.
The huge and unprecedented uproar over dogfighting will have a chilling effect on even the most stupid player to not to be running their mouths in favor of animal brawling, lest they step in the dogpooo.
Vick was the most over rated and over hyped QB in recent memory. He couldnât run a 2 minute drill to save his sorry dogass. Most of the yards he put up were escaping the defense running out of busted passing plays. Yet the Blankin; idiot who bought the team made him the highest paid player in the league. Got so fans would watch the games just to see him get slamtackled into the turf, much the same as NASCAR fans want to see the wrecks.
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