“But the obvious things that makes deer hunting different than dog fighting is the deer aren’t being intentionally bred to be hunted,”

I commented on this item.

You made a statement that wasn’t true.

And I nailed you on it.

I have never said hunting should be illegal…….he11 its as american as stealing land. Why should it be illegal?

Until then, this whole “well if you eat steaks or kill deer but you think killing dogs is wrong then you’re wrong” argument is still weak, and in any of MY arguments I have never said Vick should go to jail for killing anything… I’ve simply said he should go to jail if he’s guilty of committing a crime. Fighting dogs is illegal… the gambling his buddies were involved in was illegal…

Because… after all… isn’t that what a jail is for? people found guilty in a court of law? Even if you did argue Vick wasn’t guilty in a court of law, the simple fact that he accepted a plea bargain on his one count of conspiracy makes him guilty. No matter how heavy or light one count of conspiracy or many counts sounds, if you say “yes sir, I’m guilty. I know what I did is wrong” then you’re guilty.

I watched Vick’s public apology with my little son who USED TO wear Michael Vick jerseys to school. It is disturbing to think a certain percentage of the population is honestly going to be swayed by Michael Vick’s “enlightenment” carefully crafted by his overpaid attorneys. Call me a cynic, but I don’t believe a man who has been allegedly torturing animals since childhood coincidentally has a religious epiphany as a result of getting caught and losing his job. I hope I am wrong.

I think it is a sad commentary that we, as a culture, are using the Vick story to compare “What’s worse?” “What’s worse”, we ask, “carelessly fathering illegitimate children, or dogfighting?”. “Dogfighting or gambling?” “Dogfighting or rape?” “Dogfighting or racism?” “Dogfighting or hateful nationalism?” “Dogfighting or (fill in the blank)….?” The comparisons to dogfighting have been endless.

Dogfighting is one more piece of evidence our country is in need of a spiritual transformation (please note I said spiritual and not necessarily religious). Animals are sentient beings – they feel pain, and they suffer, just like we do. They are not more important, or less important than human beings, but like human beings, they are important, too.

Dogfighting pits one dog against another until one of them dies. The survivor gets his flesh torn off, ears ripped off, eyes pulled out, etc., and the reward for being “a winner” is to writhe in pain until the next fight. Enough said. The pictures make my flesh crawl. The losers are tortured, beaten, starved, electrocuted or drowned. For what? Because these poor creatures were unlucky enough to be born a dog!

Every major faith teaches its followers to be responsible stewards of animals and the Earth. Please help us get the word out that caring for animals, just like caring for people, is an important part of just being a decent person and citizen. If we make this a priority, there will be no more dogfighting horror stories, and no more pointless comparisons of evils. Let us all rise, together, to be better people than we are today, shall we?

Chaplain Nancy Cronk
Founder, http://www.AnimalChaplains.com

F Peta……..http://www.petakillsanimals.com/vick_press_release.cfm

Oh really………boney you sound like the rest of these good ole boys. Do you know there are many white folks in the south that have tons of land. I even went to college with a lot of these folks. They actually breed dear and let them loose on their property so that the can go and hunt them.

I hate to break your heart but brett the great hope farve is known to do this. If you don’t believe me I can take you to his property (over 50 acres)in hattiesburg MS. I know for a fact thats what he does.

J, this passage sums it all up perfectly. And the cherry-picking between courts and “court of public opinion” is also nauseating. Also can’t “court of public opinion” be synonomous with “mob rule”?

You know what they say about assuming! If you don’t see the obvious similarities b/w Hannity and Limbaugh on one side and Olberman and Maher on the other, then you must be part of the crowd that voted in the new Congress who has record low approval ratings.

Each of these men throw bombs regularly to ignite their listeners. Limbaugh and Hannity are the Republican version of the Liberal Olberman and Maher.

That is all I’m saying.

Thanks for jumping on Chris Matthews – here’s a link to just a sample of his many fawning statements about President Bush over the years:

http://mediamatters.org/items/200512230005

With “liberals” like Matthews, one scarcely needs conservatives.

Yes. And the same goes for Keith Olberman, Chris Matthews and Bill Maher. Bastards! They are all crazy!

“deer hunting is legal, and dog-fighting is illegal”

Why is this?

Folks love dogs. I’ve maintained all along that folks were going to underestimate the power of the pet lobby.

From a sociological perspective, this is a nice case for the social construction of a problem. I’ve butchered pigs, sheep, and cows. And I did it in the boonies of SA where folks still “stuck” pigs until they bled out. There is nothing dignified about carving out organs and chopping off heads. But, hey, folks love bacon. What are you going to do?

One thing that I would like to add to the debate is something that sociologists call the “Thomas theorem”: “If [people] define situations as real, they are real in their consequences.”

Is it logical to condemn dog killing and not the killing of deer, duck, quail, gator, moose, etc.? Not really. But, that doesn’t mean you can change social norms over night.

I am ROTFLMBAO…#31 and I’m done.

Was it not a short time ago that “knee-grows” was forbidden to be “edumacated” by legal decree?

Was it not sometime ago that the highly melenated and those less so where forbidden to marry?

From my experience, he/she who has the gun makes the rules!

Spare me the talk about the legality of deer hunting versus the illegality of dog fighting.

Until America Inc. amends the mission statement (constitution) which states that a “knee-grow” is 3/5th a human being, then I will MAY consider thinking about considering to listen to you.

And between us, do zoophiles get charged with animal cruelty if caught in the act? You may ask wtf? .. but I figure I should throw out some more random shit, like some other posters seem to enjoy doing.

I do not support Vick or other dog fighters (nor am I a vegetarian). But hopefully this incident will enable us to examine our hypocrisy and look at other, tolerated, legal forms of animal exploitation that may be equally cruel.

I am sure that many of the pundits who are shocked by Vick’s behavior hold stock in industrial agriculture enterprises that routinely torture animals.

Josh, #23, I agree totally.

They’re probably the people with the purest motives in going after Vick in the sense that they would go after anybody doing anything to animals (and have). The difference is now all the mainstream media are giving them a much wider audience, normally they make fun of them.

I’m not saying I agree with them but I just don’t think their actions stem from the fact that Vick is black.

yeah Aone… we all do agree. Animals are animals, always have been and always will be.

I think the main problem is that Doug is spewing his ill-informed nonsense to a general public that does not possess the necessary filters to place it in the nonsense category.

These same people then repeat what Doug has said to other people, and it spreads like AIDS.

Which in turn creates the current racial climate we live in. For example, Bill.

Got to love him.