I don’t agree with your sentiment Gary, but understand your pain.

In a world where dogs could take an eye for an eye, such a thing might happen, but in this case, I’d put this in the category of 2 wrongs don’t make a right.

The most extreme way to punish Vick is to take away his financial power to harm any more dogs or to escalate his behavior to the point where he harms people or something. He obviously needs some psychological help.

Why are the feds allowing Michael Vick to dictate the terms? I’m upset about the plea deal.
Why aren’t feds throwing the book at him with everything they’ve got and then allow him to plea for mercy and reduced terms?

Michael Vick is only the tip of the iceburg of dogfighting and gambling by people who live in a world of drugs and violence.

Its almost as if the feds have been swayed by Michael Vick’s talent and money. He should be treated the same as any common criminal.

John,
I’d say that its not ok to go over to Iraq and kill people either. I served in the Army during the first Persian gulf war and the way this war has been handled from the top down upsets me as much as this case does. I see a lot of similarities in the Vick case and the Abu Grahib scandal actually. The latter is just on a bigger larger scale and the President and Donald Rumsfeld got off scott free so far.

One could look at it from the perspective that Michael Vick could have done a lot of good things with his wealth, fame, money and even invested that in his friends to go out and do good things as opposed to dogfighting, dog torture and illegal gambling in multiple states.

His is a travesty of both what he did and what he could have done. Even the NAACP stood up for him, when he had never supported them even. He has had a lot of choices to do good, do bad, or just do nothing and he seems to have continually chosen to do bad over doing good and doing nothing.

I have just added a Page at the top, called “Contact for Action”.
(http://www.sackvick.net/contact-for-action/ )

It includes mailing addresses for the Judges at the Federal and State level. The Virginia, Surry County Prosecutor that did nothing, then changed his mind and is rapidly preparing to do . . . (maybe something maybe nothing).

Plus the Address for the NFL.

If anyone has better or more direct contact information, please let me know.

Many of the petitions in the Petition button are still live as well.

So Michael Vick will just be allowed to dictate the terms he is willing to plead to. I wonder what would have happened had this gone to open court trial? The people would be outraged that this man got away with his abuse of defenseless animals this long. So, he wants to cut a deal – because he got in with the “wrong” kind of people. Oh, come now…maybe if he were 10 years old he could claim that, but a grown man? He chose his “friends” as a grown man. He made his choices and decided to run with the crowd he did as a grown man. Nobody strong armed him into it. It was a consious decision to open that kennel and proceed in the manner he did. This is just another excuse and a way to push the blame onto someone else. Those “bad” friends of his. Wonder if they will be in the same jail. He cut a deal to save his own butt. He certainly did not want the entire plate of evidence out in open court. So he took the easy way out. Can’t play football so let’s make a deal.

He should never be allowed back into the NFL or football. He will just be another ex-con. Let him try to find his way the same way the rest of the ex-cons have to do. They don’t come out of prison and get million dollar jobs. Are they worse people than Vick? I don’t think so. The NFL needs to blackball him forever. Put your money where your mouth is Commissioner and ban Vick forever. If you are really getting tough on crime – does it get much worse than a FEDERAL conviction?????

It’s a dog. Same planet different world. Set Vick free. Maybe you should get prison time for eating chicken.

RE Voice of Reason

jail time for KFC -> I eat meat. Have no problem with it. I’m not for treating chickens, pigs, cows, or deer poorly before they are killed and slaughtered.

Vick was not eating food to survive, he was burning tens of thousands of dollars to force dogs to kill each other, and when they wouldn’t do that, he tortured and killed some of them with his own hands or paid his buddies to do it.

That’s sick. That’s the type of thing that typically grows into a psychosis that leads to killing people unless its dealt with. That’s the type of sick behavior that if left unchecked sometimes manifests, when a sick person enters the militarty, goes to a foreign country and commits an atrocity making the entire US military (I’m a veteran myself) look bad, and making the US look bad.

We need to stop this type of behavior and not condone it, so that it does not escalate elsewhere.

RE KJ2545

Yes, there are more important things going on in the world. This is a smaller symptom of a bigger problem.

At a personal level I started this site to help stop this problem specifically and learn how to deal more effectively with bigger problems, such as a government that sends hundreds of troops to fight without officially declaring war (That’s cowardice on the part of the President.)

Problems like tapping the phones of everyday Americans.(As a former intelligence analyst, I find that to be extremely wrong, regardless of the fear of Al Qaeda or any other trumped up excuses. )

Problems like a President that sends our troops into Iraq, ignoring the war plans prepared for over a decade such that we go in with 1/3 the troops that every body and there brother knew that we needed, but thought they could do things on the cheap. Well, it was cheap for a few months, and then it became very very expensive in the toll on human life and in actual cost, which financially is finally starting to come home and impact everyday Americans that don’t pay attention to the war at all.

The 2008 election is coming and this site has taught me a number of lessons that I will be using to fight for improvements in many areas. You can move a mountain one rock at a time.

This is just my first pile of rocks. Its not the most important, but everyone has to start somewhere.

Thanks for the comments, I do appreciate them.

Best Regards,
Brett

In response to Gary comments: “I’m not a racist, but…where’s the KKK when you need ‘em??” I must correct you Sir. You are racist, and the scary part you don’t know it. If this was Brett Farve when you still be looking for the KKK? Race is always an issue when dealing with people. It’s a human factor, we’re flawed by design and upbringing. Only when we address the issue truthfully, then bigotry will be an afterthought in our lives.

yall are sick mofokers that compare human life and error to that of a dog. I do not support cruelty to animals but to end a person’s career for a mistake: Kobe Bryant still playing ball, and a lot of other stars who are drug addicts, murderers, and worse are still doing thier thing.And lets not forget that PETA just got out of court in NC for killing dogs(over 100)that were to be put in kennels and adopted. Get the fuk over it. Dogs aren’t humans. They hate Mike Vick because he is black with money. And to the KKK guy u r a fukn racist, and so are the rest of you. sick mofukers!!!!!!!!!!!1

Angela,
Michael Vick didn’t just make a mistake. He purposefully went out in engaged in a business that brought about the death and torture of a living creature, not a human, but a creature that can feel pain just like a person.

He did that for 5 years.

Raising a pit bull, and forgetting to secure it, allowing for the dog to get out, run down the street and get in a fight, kill another dog or maul a kid. That’s a mistake. Its often a tragedy too.

Raising dozens of dogs to train them to incite in them a blood lust to fight other dogs to the point that they are dangerous to themselves, to other dogs and in some cases kids they might run into in the future, and to repeat that for five years spending tens of thousands of dollars (over 20k on a single bet alone) not to mention the house, grounds, payroll for dog fighting trainers and more.

Michael Vick could have invested that money in charities, in working with hurricane Katrina victims (Atlanta has a very large population of Katrina refugees.) But no, he didn’t do anything like that.

he saved a nice place in his heart for killing animals.

That is sick. His race has nothing to do with it. Its just sick. Show me any person of any race that does this, and I’ll tell you that they are sick.

I was a Vick fan, a Falcons fan, I taught my son to watch football, watching Vick play. My son was taught to look up to a guy that for those same five years was running an illegal gambling operation based on fighting dogs to death.

I thought the guy had hero potential. I thought the guy could have been one of the greats. He had a lot of potential and a long way to go, but he didn’t just make a mistake. He made a choice every month, sometimes every week, to do what he did for five years.

A person might cheat on their spouse once and say its a mistake. A person goes out and cheats on their spouse every month for five years, that’s not a mistake. That’s a decision to be nasty to your spouse.

Michael Vick trying to sneak pot around through an airport, that’s a mistake. Flipping fans the finger during the stress of a game gone wrong. That’s a mistake.

This is beyond a mistake.

Donald Rumsfeld or George Bush gets up in front of a podium and says that mistakes were made in New Orleans and in Iraq, that’s just a line meant to fool people. They screwed up and people died for it. They did it on purpose or avoided taking the actions to save people or prevent torture. Not a mistake, a calculated decision to do what they did and screw the consequences.

Michael Vick is not the worst person in the world. But he did a lot more than make a mistake, he made a calculated decision to do something that he probably knew was wrong. He lied to the fans, he lied to the world, he lied to the NFL, and as bad he’s probably either been lying to himself. (If he wasn’t deceiving himself, then he’s psychotic and that’s a whole other can of worms.)

Sam, Vick has not gone to jail yet. He is still trying to avoid jail and keep his fat NFL contract.

That said, I’m saddened that Vick blew it so bad. I’m saddened that he didn’t lift a finger to help find the killers of any of the thousands of black men and women that were lynched. I’m saddened that he didn’t support the NAACP when times were good and he had not been found out as a criminal. I’m saddened by the fact that this country turned its back on thousands of black men and women in New Orleans before, during and after hurricane Katrina.

While Vick was training dogs to fight each other to the death, people were suffering from the devastation of hurricane Katrina, our troops were being killed in Iraq, and our government is tapping our phones without warrants. Those things sadden me a great deal.

Vick has not been part of the solution, he has been part of the problem. He is not part of the problem because he is black. He is part of the problem because he is rich and famous and has done nothing to help anyone in these situations.

You lament the fact that black men and women have been lynched and their killers remained free. I lament that as well. I lament too the fact that Michael Vick had just a touch of the brutal sickness of those same killers of black men and women and chose to take it out on dogs.

Anyone that hangs a living creature deserves scorn. Vick has not committed atrocities as bad as those that lynched black men and women in the United States or for that matter enslaved black men and women or killed off 90% of the Native Americans on 2 continents, but he was traveling down a path of sickness that was not too far removed.

People commenting here on this blog are almost universally saddened by this entire scandal for one reason or another. We are all taking action to do something about it or say something about it.

Michael Vick has done nothing but lie and work to save his job and fortune. I am impressed with the NAACP’s attempt to defend Michael Vick. I do not agree that Vick should be allowed back in the NFL, but the NAACP has some real heroes fighting for important issues, fighting for the elusive justice that you lament.

Michael Vick doesn’t deserve their support and that makes their support all the more heroic. I do hope that some day, Michael Vick will be able to achieve something in his life that will make him worthy of their support.

America does love a come back. The thing is that if Michael Vick comes back just as a football player, it is not a victory but a defeat. A hollow triumph to show young children like my son, that you can do evil things like hang living creatures and keep your fame and fortune and not sweat it.

The buck should have stopped a long time ago before those lynchings occurred. It did not and that is a historical travesty. But we each have to stand up at every small medium and large travesty and stop them one at a time ourselves otherwise they snow ball out of control and before you know it, some corporation like the East India company is enslaving a continent and shipping the slaves to another continent, some corporation like Wal-Mart is hooking people on the crack of cheap goods, produced by a new type of slave in China.

When the wheels of impersonal processes, corporations, tyranies, governments etc. get rolling, if individuals do not fight tooth and nail to stop them, the machine will roll right over the defenseless masses.

Vick not only participated from the machine, he profited from it and emulated it by creating a smaller gambling and racketeering machine of his own.

Now’s the time to stop being sad, stop lamenting about the past and start doing something about the present, start doing something to call bullshit when someone lies to you, when politicians deceive you, when corporations hook you on crack and your kids and your parents and your grandparents and your entire community, a crack called “the rollback”, now is the time to stop allowing more victims to suffer and stand up for what is right.

Vick was too much of a wimp too much of a coward to stand up and protect victims, protect the weak, instead he chose to create more victims gambling on dogs and taking money when a dog lived or died after being forced to chew each other to death.

Maybe,just maybe Vick will stop being a coward and hiding behind his lawyers and he will emerge from this a man. Maybe he will emerge to do some good and stand up against injustice. Maybe he will even help to track down some of those murderers or do some good to prevent murder and violence. That would be a positive thing and that is definitely something that could set him on a path to make up for what he has done, but more importantly set an example publicly for others to follow suit and inspire many many more people to take positive action instead of sitting around accepting a victimized fate at the hands of some faceless corporation or corrupt government.

I first want to say that it breaks my heart that Mike Vick was a part of this, I am not saying that what he did was right.

Chickens and cows farmed for food are treated far worse than these dogs were treated. One may say that It is different because we eat the meat to survive. The food and energy invested in growing these animals could produce 10 times the food for humans that the animals themselves produce. Not only do we not need meat to survive, it is wasteful!

Fighting dogs is as much a luxury for Mike Vick as Eating a hamburger is to you, and he is not hurting animals any worse than you are. He does not deserve to be punished like this just because America has a soft spot for dogs.