It’s much easier to forgive someone who can’t forgive himself.Īnd lol at the PETA tag I have to use. He would acknowledge that he found within himself something horrific and frightening - something that he can’t explain, excuse or defend, something that no amount of jail time or loss of public stature can offset. He could begin with an apology to the animals. If he does indeed live every day with the horror of what he did, then I believe he can and should speak to us. The problem for most of us is that Michael Vick has never really connected with us, never spoken to us on the core of the matter. If he had confronted that darkness, I believe his words would be different and so would the response from the animal-loving public. If he had, I don’t think his public apologies would be about all the people he let down, about failing as a role model or even, for that matter, about running a dogfighting operation. Those of us who have a problem with the Vick celebration don’t believe he has done that. Not his criminality, or his self-destructiveness or his stupidity, but the unimaginable darkness and cruelty that enabled him to personally kill at least eight very strong animals by incredibly violent methods. I would like to be able to believe that Michael Vick has confronted that place in himself. Not because we were caught or because the things that we did ruined our lives or a relationship, but because when we go there and reflect on those actions, we see something ugly and unacceptable, something that never goes away and can never be undone. Most people live with regret over things that we have done or failed to do. Killing animals the way he did was deviant and reflects a sickness that can’t be offset by a prison sentence. Getting involved in a dogfighting operation with his cousin and friends from his former life was stupid and criminal. Does he really have one and is there something there that we can connect with? With or without God, I believe that most people would really like to feel OK about Michael Vick and that the vast majority of the public who don’t are not mean-spirited, unyielding animal nuts, which is how we are often portrayed by those who say he has suffered enough, paid enough and should be allowed to get on with his life without reservation.įor me, this is not about Michael Vick’s suffering or punishment: It’s about his conscience. Please God, forgive me for being so unforgiving!” – unable to forgive I need to do some praying to help me find a way but I can’t even get it in myself to pray for something like that! I’m not ready to forgive him apparently and not sure if I ever will. “I know God wants us to find it in our hearts to forgive but I just don’t know how to forgive Vick for what he has done. I felt that one comment was particularly poignant and captured the moral dilemma that many people confront when the subject of Michael Vick comes up: There were over 1,200 reader comments to that posting and forgiveness was a primary theme. It played off President Obama’s call to Philadelphia Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie to, in part, commend him for giving Michael Vick a second chance. My blog last week seems to have struck a chord. The country seems to be passionately divided over the issue. I thought I was done with writing about Michael Vick a long time ago, but the national conversation about the man transcends Vick himself and gets to some bigger issues: the intrinsic value of the lives of animals, for starters, and whether or not deliberate and repeated animal cruelty is a crime, like stealing a car, that can be squared with restitution and jail time or something much, much worse. One of them even has a kitty snuggle buddy :3īelow the cut is some pictures of the "Vicktory dogs" and some commentary on Michael Vick from the co-founder of the Best Friends Animal Society, the rescue organization featured in the above video. I'm glad some of the rescues have found forever homes. Remember, there are no bad dogs, no bad breeds - only bad people. This is a video that chronicles the progress of a few of the dogs rescued from Michael Vick's dungeon:
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