Most people didn’t even know the consequences or the severity of dog fighting or abuse before Michael Vick’s crime was brought nationwide. Please state evidence that many people believe dog fighting is acceptable due to Michael Vick. I fail to see the logic in your assumption.

Thank you for your comment. First, we are not associated with PETA, and our mission is not one to protect animals. PETA has that job pretty well covered. Personally, I do not always agree with PETA, but in this case their efforts to protect animals in regards to Michael Vick do correspond with our own intentions.

The reason why our rhetoric is strong against Michael Vick (and keep in mind, we DO NOT advocate any violence what so ever towards Michael Vick), is because not only did he engage in violence against dogs, but he allowed and contracted himself to be held up as a role model for children and teenagers, including my own child.

While in that position of responsibility as a role model for kids, he engaged in multiple types of illegal activity including dog fighting, torturing dogs, killing dogs, running a gambling ring and more.

All those additional gambling related activities were extremely detrimental to actual people. One of the men involved in Vick’s gambling ring was murdered a few days after authorities raided Michael Vick’s home in Virginia. That type of behavior has serious consequences and harms people.

That is just some of the damage that Michael Vick caused, but not all.

The reason why this site is protesting for Michael Vick to be permanently banned from the NFL (note in the early days we had additional goals to have his sponsors stop paying him millions of dollars which he used to kill dogs and engage in all of this bad behavior) is because he should not again be allowed into the same position that enabled him to buy and kill and torture the dogs, to set up shop running an illegal gambling ring, to go into business with drug dealers (the same man that was murdered was a cocaine dealer, when he was murdered, his murderers did not take any of his drugs nor money from his home), and all of the other things.

Michael Vicks job in the NFL enabled him to do all of these terrible things, and his position in the NFL gave him the ability to influence our youth and children. Many children and teenagers today do believe that dog fighting is ok, that killing and torturing dogs is acceptable behavior, and this is in large part due to Michael Vick.

He was a sports hero, an icon. He embraced his status as a sports hero and icon. He embraced it so much that he signed contractual agreements worth close to $250 million that required that he continue to maintain this image. Instead he used the money to perpetrate crimes against people and animals, and now his icon status has translated over to children and teenagers in a way that tells them that Vick is a rebel, that it was cool to do what he did, that it was part of the cool, hero lifestyle.

I do not seek to destroy Michael Vick’s life nor his career. Michael Vick and God have done a very good job of destroying Michael Vick’s life and career together.

We seek only to prevent Michael Vick from access to the vehicle by which he gained all that influence and all that blood money that led to the death of dogs, the torture of dogs and ultimately the murder of one man (even though it is yet to be seen whether the man was murdered by Vick or by one of Vick’s accomplices or someone in the dog fighting community-Note the feds that cooked up the plea deal with Vick’s lawyers are NOT cooperating with the Sheriff in NC investigating that murder).

I do not want Michael Vick in the NFL next year or in any year to come. Allowing Michael Vick back in the NFL would minimize what he did and show people that ultimately the penalty for these crimes is minimal.

Do a few months in jail and get your millionaire contracts back afterwards?

That doesn’t show kids that its wrong, that shows them that money trumps crime.

Now specifically on the topic of killing dogs, this is the behavior of a sociopath. People that go out and torture and kill dogs or any other animal are much more likely to be the same people that do violence against people. Now maybe Michael Vick has enough money and marijuana to keep his sociopathic behavior in check (and maybe gets some release from playing football), but the kids and teenagers that emulate his lifestyle, going to dog fights, raising dogs and training them to fight, putting down the loosing dogs, killing the dogs that do not grow up exhibiting enough strength, torturing dogs to make them meaner all of that is dangerous for kids.

It teaches them that cruelty to living creatures eventually brings about a behavior result that they think they want to see. That is a dangerous cocktail of experience for kids and can very well push many of them into more violent forms of criminal behavior.

Plus, the dogs, which have a natural level of aggressiveness towards other dogs, are turned into killing machines. When they get loose, as any dog does from time to time, these killing machines will attack other dogs, and sometimes confuse small children or adults for other dogs and maul or kill those children or adults.

Michael Vick engaged in this behavior, he promoted it with his vast financial resources, he built up his icon and hero status and now that icon and hero status is associated with dog fighting and will be forever. Michael Vick should not be rewarded with reinstatement in the NFL.

Its wrong for children, its wrong for teenagers. Its an insult to the current players of the NFL. Many of those guys do not make half what Michael Vick makes. They work hard all their lives for just a year or two in the NFL. They leave the NFL with half broken bodies and broken finances.

As an example, William ‘the refrigerator’ Perry, left the NFL after going to the Super Bowl with not a lot of money and works as a brick layer in Chicago last I heard.

Michael Vick can find other work, he can redeem himself by remaking a new career, but he does not need to be rewarded with a free ticket out of jail to easy street.

So that is the rhetoric that I would offer. Again I do not wish Vick any personal ill will, I do not want to see violence come to him at all. (and I work very hard to censor that type of rhetoric from this site) I would definitely like to see him redeem himself.

But just like I would not send a teacher turned child molester back to school to teach after they went to prison, I would not send Michael Vick back to the NFL to live a superstar lifestyle. It was too much for him to handle once, and the consequences were very serious. A man died. I do not think Michael Vick should be sent straight back to the lifestyle that tempted him the first time.