“The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated” – Mahatma Gandhi 

In a recent on-camera interview, Michael Vick declared his desire to own a dog again.  Many people rightly question whether that should be allowed.  Vick pronounced his “love” and “passion” for animals in his interview with theGrio. 

"I would love to get another dog in the future," he told theGrio. "I think it would be a big step for me in the rehabilitation process. I think just to have a pet in my household and to show people that I genuinely care, and my love, and my passion for animals." 

Are you kidding me?  We’re supposed to believe that someone with “love” and “passion” for animals does what Vick did to dogs?  Of course, wife-beaters and child-molesters always proclaim their love and passion for their victims, too.  Are we to believe that a stint of less than two years in prison for his actions suddenly made him an animal lover, suddenly endowed with a capacity for empathy that he previously lacked?  People with this lack of empathy cannot be rehabilitated. 

There are, however, many people who miss the main point involved in the possibility of Vick owning a dog, and they jump to Vick’s defense based not on the major point or on evidence, but on a knee-jerk reaction to something other than the main point.  More often than not, these defenders use fallacious comparisons, comparing apples and oranges.  For instance, one defender has compared what Vick did to driving while drunk, indicating that Vick’s actions were just a mistake, or bad judgment.  What Vick did was not a mistake, it was not a one-time occurrence of bad judgment and it was not committed under the influence of alcohol; it was a long-term, fully conscious pattern of complete disregard for the lives he ended or was torturing, not only by forcing the dogs to fight each other, but also by hanging them, drowning them, beating them, electrocuting them, kicking and stomping on them when they lost a fight.  And it’s important to note he would still be doing so if he had not been caught. 

Just to be fair, it is only alleged that Vick engaged in hanging and drowning dogs, and was only present when some of the other torture methods were used.  Perhaps for some, this reduces Vick’s culpability; not for me.  By bankrolling these operations, providing the property where the fights occurred and providing a burial ground for the bodies, Vick is as complicit as if he carried out the torture and killing directly himself.  And it is my expressed opinion that only a fool believes Vick did not engage in any of the other torture methods, but that is just my opinion.  Regardless, making a mistake is one thing, being a serial killer and abuser of animals is something totally different, folks, which cannot be rehabilitated.

“According to the FBI, a history of cruelty to animals is one trait that appears over and over in serial killers and even rapists. The one group of animals that suffer the most by abuse is companion animals. Family pets, such as dogs and cats …”

http://worldvillage.com/the-link-between-sociopaths-and-cruelty-to-animals

psychopath – Also called: sociopath  a person afflicted with a personality disorder characterized by a tendency to commit antisocial and sometimes violent acts and a failure to feel guilt for such acts

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/psychopathic

“…clinicians generally believe that there is neither a cure nor any effective treatment for psychopathy; there are no medications that can instill empathy, while psychopaths who undergo traditional talk therapy only become more adept at manipulating others. […] 

“…the consensus among researchers in this area is that psychopathy stems from a specific neurological disorder which is biological in origin and present from birth, although a 2008 review indicated multiple causes and variation between individuals.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychopathy

“Federal investigators, on the eve of a court appearance by Michael Vick, revealed Vick took part in the killing of seven dogs. Some he hung. Others he drowned.”

http://www.wsbtv.com/news/18050210/detail.html

The issue, the main point here, is very specific; it is whether or not Vick should own a dog again.  The question of whether Vick should own a dog again encompasses another question.  Can people with the specific character traits that allow them to torture living creatures on a regular basis, that allow them to have a complete lack of regard for living creatures and their suffering, that allow them do so with no feelings of guilt or remorse, as Vick and friends did, be rehabilitated?  Just to underscore what the real issue is: 

“…there are no medications that can instill empathy, while psychopaths who undergo traditional talk therapy only become more adept at manipulating others.”

Only someone with such a lack of empathy could do what Vick and his compatriots did to dogs.  But Vick’s defenders think they address that issue by turning the discussion into a referendum on whether people, all people, should get second chances.  The issue here is not about Vick getting a second chance; it is about the fact that psychopaths can not be rehabilitated. 

An Observation

From a sociological perspective, one of the main things I have noticed is that, there is a familiar trend that develops among the perspective presented by Vick’s defenders.  That trend is demonstrative of how difficult it seems to be for many average Americans to focus on an issue, an inability to logically assimilate what is actually being presented; a mental process which might be indicative of the manner in which many people approach many important political and social issues.

Below are some of the convoluted perspectives offered in Vick’s defense.

One individual has commented, “I would think that if we were ever caught in a similar situation, we would want to eventually be given a second chance. […]  Ask yourself what if one day (for whatever reason(s)) I found myself in a similar situation… on the other side of the law, …” 

This is the perfect example of the convoluted thinking involved here.  One of the major points the above statement misses is that the vast majority of human beings are not capable of committing the attrocities that Vick and friends did.  It’s not about a second chance or being “on the other side of the law”, it’s about someone who is clearly afflicted with an “anti-social personality disorder”, otherwise known as a psychopath. 

Another individual raises the argument that what Vick did is somehow comparable to my eating a hamburger.  Say what?!  At this point it becomes clear that individual has absolutely no understanding of what the underlying issue really is.  Torturing animals is, in that individual’s mind, comparable to other forms of killing animals that are to be eaten.  I don’t know, maybe this man thinks Vick was eating the dogs after torturing them to death, but I doubt that.  More likely, he just didn’t think about what he wrote. 

Meanwhile, another commenter is outraged by his perception that nobody is as offended by what happens to the many women and children in American society who are abused as they are about what happened to Vick’s dogs..  For some reason, he dismisses Vick’s offenses on the basis that they don’t equate with what happens to these human beings.  Yet, those who are caught abusing humans in such manner as Vick abused dogs, or even to a lesser degree, are ruined for life once convicted.  Child molesters are not ever allowed to work around children specifically because they cannot be rehabilitated. 

I would think it overtly obvious that this particular argument has absolutely no bearing on Vick’s issue, but I guess this individual doesn’t recognize that presenting this argument is to dismiss Vick’s actions.  But an important point this particular argument misses is that Vick’s affliction is directly related to the very wife- and child-abuse he deplores in his comment, as is evidenced in the FBI quote above. 

This indvidual also raises the myth, the complete lie, that pitbulls are vicious by nature.  This is purely untrue.  They are physically well endowed for fighting, stout, muscular, with powerful jaws.  But they are not “vicious” by nature, they must be made vicious, which reflects on the nature of their owners, not on the dogs themselves.  I testify to this based on first hand experience because I owned a pitbull, and she was one of the sweetest, and smartest, dogs I’ve ever known. 

Oh, and of course, with Vick being African American, could his defense possibly be complete without the knee-jerk playing of the race-card?  Sadly, yes, someone actually played it in Vick’s defense.  That play is so tired that I won’t even address it here except to say, “Such a narrow mind would obviosly believe Vick.” 

Vick’s own defense that his actions were the result of being a victim of his “culture” was so absurd as to be almost laughable, except some people actually bought it.  How does Vick square this defense with his professed “love” and “passion” for animals?  Many individuals involved in Vick’s development from high school up through college and into his early years in the NFL came forward to refute his claim that nobody told him his actions were wrong.  Of course, if somebody had to tell him his actions were wrong, that indicates Vick to be a fairly feeble-minded person.  However feeble-minded Vick may or may not be, he clearly recognizes there are plenty of people who are feeble-minded enough to believe his lies.  

Vick has engaged in rewriting history in ways that are so obvious as to rival Bush, Cheney, and now Obama et al.  Obviously, an American public dumb enough to believe those guys will believe virtually anything, so what does Vick have to lose by going on camera and rewriting his history?  Vick’s got to be thinking, “Heh, these fools will believe anything,” and he’ll be laughing all the way to the bank alongside the banksters and politicians. 

Vick has, to my knowledge, never expressed remorse specifically about what he did to the dogs, about what the dogs suffered at his hands.  He may have, but in everything I’ve seen or heard, he has sidestepped expressing that precise remorse.  He’s expressed what he calls remorse about things like being involved in an illegality, about his daughters being unable to own a puppy based on his actions, about lying, about not being “a leader” in stopping the dog fighting.  I have never heard him talk specifically about the pain and suffering the dogs experienced at his own hands, or any other hands for that matter. 

People who would like to defend Vick’s desire to own a dog should find logical, valid reasons that deal directly with that issue and leave the knee-jerk reactions to other issues out of the discussion.  Let Vick have his come-back, let him have his second chance, someday he might even be worthy of owning a dog, but not today, not tomorrow, not next year, and at no time in the near future including decades from now.