Vick isn't the only one killing animals in America

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By Ina Hughs - 21/08/09


Have you been watching the news coverage of NFL quarterback Michael Vick and the debate over whether he should be allowed a second chance to play football after serving time in prison for cruelty to animals?

After being caught as a big mover and shaker in the dog-fighting business, Vick lost millions as a star player in a game that pays much bigger bucks than his pit bulls could bring in - and he faces public scorn for something most of us think unconscionable, a kind of cruelty that plays off the same primitive human inclinations as watching gladiators and bullfights.

There are a lot of angles to what is going on with Vick.

First of all, does he deserve a second chance? He's gone on record and in front of TV's mass audience with a full-fledged confession of his deliberate cruelty and made statement after statement assuring disappointed fans that he has learned a lesson and is very sorry.

It makes my skin crawl to think of the kind of "pleasure" one could get from watching animals tear each other up - even pit bulls, which we are told are bred for fighting. But I am for second chances. Not only is it the American way, but it is also the underlying principle in my religious faith. We all mess up. We all deserve forgiveness when we sincerely seek to make amends.

The second issue this debate raises is a more controversial question: What makes Vick so morally reprehensible?

As Shayne Lee puts it in an article in The Philadelphia Inquirer: It's true that Americans are fond of dogs, but dogs are animals, and exploiting and killing animals is "as American as Apple iPods."

In the name of science research, we expose and inject rats and chimps to all sorts of dread illnesses and lethal drugs. We dab mysterious chemicals in their eyes to test our cosmetics, with no clue as to its effect. We make sandwiches out of pigs and slaughter baby cows for scaloppini. We shoot deer for fun and mantel decor.

Fine restaurants drop live lobsters into boiling water.

And, of course, we make sport of human beings put into rings to slug it out. We roar with delight when an eyebrow splits open or a lip is ripped apart, blood spattering all over the front-row seats. When one of the fighters drops unconscious to the floor, we yelp with excitement and carry the victor off on our shoulders in glory.

We can wax eloquently on the nasty abuse of Vick's particular sin, and we can shudder at the thought of fighting dogs being used to entertain in such a way - but there's something a bit compromising about our high-mindedness.

We kill animals regularly, cruelly, without remorse, and systematically every day and all over the country. We don't actually see it done, we don't like to think about it, and we certainly don't want to talk about it. But we do it. And we do it without even blinking.

Research has supported the fact that cruelty to animals among children may be the first serious warning sign of mental and emotional disorders, and that anywhere from one-fourth to two-thirds of violent adult offenders report a history of animal abuse during childhood or adolescence.

Animal abuse, either in adults or children, is one of the indicators of a criminal mindset and a propensity for other kinds of physical or sexual abuse.

So I wonder what our cavalier attitude about killing animals for sport or poisoning them for lipstick research or shooting them dead so we can wear their coats has to say about us and our "inclinations."

The great philosopher Immanuel Kant once said that we can judge the heart of a man by his treatment of animals. But before we come down hard on Michael Vick, maybe we need to take a long look in the mirror.

Ina Hughs is a retired News Sentinel staff writer.


Vick isn't the only one killing animals in America - 21/08/09
http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2009/aug/21/vick-isnt-the-only-one-killing-animals-in/