In which I say NO to Michael Vick as a Madden 12 cover candidate:
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MOVIEBOB CENTRAL 
So, has anyone considered for a second this is Madden NFL? National Football League? Not Madden National Charity League or National Human Rights League or National Good Persons League?
Personally, I think Vic is perfect for the Madden cover. Why? Because it should demonstrate an important fact: Professional athletes are not social paragons or role models or even decent people, they are guys who play football well. They are jocks.
Yet still, America heaps nothing but endless praise on them from High School to College to the Pros and frankly I think its important to at some point say “The NFL is about playing football, and nothing else. If you support it, you're going to be supporting Vic and guys like him.” Find your heroes elsewhere. Not giving Vic an honor because of things unrelated to football is only encouraging our illusion that football is about anything but who can play the game the best.
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I agree that Vick is a douche but it's almost pointless to waste our breath complaining that he's still playing or that he'll get on the cover of the anal ripoff 12 (although I wouldn't write off every EA sports game since their Fifa and NHL games are top notch with huge upgrades almost every year. I just ignore him and hope that he'll get a career ending injury soon. Let the people who want to support him support him and just shake your head (although I did take minor offense to calling everyone who supported the Eagles a douchebag in your District 9 post) and move on.
By the way, since you're a Patriots and Red Sox fan you can go suck the biggest, blackest, vainiest cock you can find 😉
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Here is a wacky conspiracy for you. Consider “Marble cake, also the Game”.
Could this be a psudeo-false flag campaign by Anon to get much of the public to denounce Madden?
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wholeheartedly agree, Bob.
BTW, are you going to comment at all on Peter Jackson's decision to shoot “The Hobbit” in 48 fps?
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When you argue this passionately about something Bob, it’s hard not to feel for you. I don’t think there’s anything in this video I disagreed with. Vick definitely deserved a harsher sentence. I don’t know how much harsher I would have liked but MANY more years in jail would have been fine by me.
But I wanted to ask is forgiveness completely out of the question for Vick? America is the land of second chances and I can even honestly think that he is remorseful and seriously trying to set his life straight. He has a long way to go before I believe that he’s really turned around but that’s just me. But can we never lay it to rest? Forgiveness is really more of personal thing than anything else. True forgiveness means letting go of the past. We don’t have to lift Vick up as something great ever again (though others may) as forgiveness does not mean freedom from consequences but at some point if he proves he’s earned it isn’t it best for everyone to put it behind us and let everyone, including him, move on? I’m not saying it’s that time yet but someday?
P.S. I got more than twenty hours of play time out of Mario Galaxy 2 without ever having to repeat a mission. If that is the true standard for an expansion pack I have been really missing out this gen.
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A couple things. As a prologue: I agree that vick should not be on the cover.
First of all, you are a bostonian. A patriot fan, i would assume. Brady wins mvp, and he's not even still in the running for the cover… Pissed are you? I would be.
Second thing, you never mentioned the whole “cultural difference” thing. I know this doesn't act as a justification, not does it provide anybody an exemption from US laws, but I'm not sure its accurate to portray him as “evil.” To him, it may very well have been simply “ok” to do such things, based on the way he was raised and the culture in which he grew up. Does that make it right? Of course not. Not any more right than the tribes in africa who perform female circumcision. But evil implies he knew what he was up to, and had similar moral knowledge of it. He may not have.
Thirdly, the main problem as I see it, with the whole vick comeback is not so much that he is allowed to play the game – he is, after all, extremely talented, and as Taylor above pointed out, these people really should only be looked upon as talented people, not role-models. What irritates me is that people call this a “redemption story.” That playing well, and staying out of trouble, somehow redeems you, and potentially elevates you to greatness beyond where you started. What about the rest of us? I've never tortured a dog. If I did, and then later felt sorry, would I somehow be a better human than when I started. B.S. Similar to the Tiger Woods stuff – when he wins some Majors next year, they'll all cry how he's redeemed himself. To me, serving your time and being sorry is great, and what I would hope for, but it is no reason to APPLAUD somebody. It should be EXPECTED
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Bob, God bless you! I'm not even a football fan and even if I was, I wouldn't even give my local pro team (which shall remain nameless) any support, as they're God-awful. I'm also glad you're calling out the Madden game series out for it's monopolizing bullshit, because I've been saying that for YEARS to people I know who play those games, and I only got through to maybe 2 of them. The rest? Well, I just hope they'll enjoy living from meager paycheck to meager paycheck for awhile, given how expensive those Madden games have gotten in recent years… 😛
Anyway, back to my point. I'm not a football fan, but when I saw the news reports about Michael Vick getting convicted with those charges, I was sick to my stomach. Anyone who is capable of doing that to animals is one step away from doing the same to a fellow human being, in my opinion. That's also regardless of how people start crying out “He's turning his life around!” It also finally made me wonder why are we even seeing sports figures as role models instead of just talented people who don't really do much of anything else with their lives. I guess the very definition of “role model” has become a little too broad in recent years, and it's kinda pathetic.
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Good show, Bob. My wife is the avid animal lover between us and I've seen my share of abused animals taken into my home/ Your points at the tail end of the video are absolutely spot on. Bravo.
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Not american, never played Madden or heard of these people, but I still went and voted against Vick.
you ispironed me
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Eh.. I already voted for Vick before this episode came out.
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Here's the thing that pisses me off. Vick absolutely deserves the scorn that has been heaped upon him.
But where was all this righteous indignation when the same company put mike tyson on the cover of Fight Night 4?
Tyson is a convicted rapist. In my book, that makes him a hell of a lot worse than Vick. In the way that pol pot was worse than franco.
And yet there's been about 100 times more complaints about Vick than there were about Tyson.
It's similar to the situation with the hangover 2 cameo. I get that they don't want Mel Gibson in there because he likely bet his wife….yet the original had Tyson and he did much worse.
What does it say about us if we value Dogs more than women?
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I would like to point out that no player should be allowed on the cover more than once. That is my opinion anyway.
Vick got the cover in '04.
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So when EA releases a new game with minor but significant changes from the previous game, it's the worst thing ever and makes the world worse by it's mere existence. But when Nintendo releases a new Mario game with minor but significant changes from the previous game, it's the best thing ever and promotes peace, love and free bacon all over the world…
I like you Bob, but whenever you mention EA or Nintendo games I pretty much stop paying attention since you praise one and whine about the other for doing what is pretty much the same thing…
I can however agree with you on this Vick person, forgivness should not been given lightly. But it does seem that we are eager to forgive those who entertain us… Chris Brown
Roman Polanski
Mike Tyson
Ben Roethlisberger
Tiger Woods
etc. etc. to name a few
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@peter above me: DAMN YOU! STOP STEALING MY NAME!!!!!
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@ Peter
That's an entirely different situation. Nintendo takes YEARS to make their functionally identical games. The years make it better for some reason.
oh and can we not lump Tiger in with the rest of those guys? He cheated on his wife. His crimes are limited to having the emotional maturity of a highschool student with the libido to match. That does not equate to rape.
What people arguing against the Madden yearly releases fail to take into account is that if they didn't release yearly, people would be pissed. And if they did adopt the new rosters as DLC strategy, most people wouldn't buy it. Many gamers have an irrational hatred of DLC and refuse to buy it.
I've had arguments with people in the very blog about how other M and nintendo's other sidescrollers should have been 10 dollar downloadable titles. You have no idea the fury of a nintendo fan when I suggest that nintendo should give them stuff for less money.
The environment isn't ready for a downloadable solution and people really do want their Madden every year. Look at the stink over guitar hero. It is quite possibly the most whored franchise not to contain the word party in its title.
In 2010 there were 2 direct sequels. Band Hero and Guitar hero 5. In addition to about 4 spinoffs and trackpacks. And when the series was killed by activision, people complained. Despite the fact that the vastly superior rockband series still exists and is available on the same platforms and is compatible with rockband instruments.eke
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Well, Bob, I disagree with you about almost everything except for movies and video games. And now, in this case, Michael Vick's qualifications to grace the cover of a game. Sure, he's good at what he does. Sure, that's the point of the game and the video game by extension. However, I can still remember a time when atheletes were supposed to be ROLE MODELS OUTSIDE OF THEIR SPORT! I live just a few miles from Virginia Tech where the Vick boys got their start. Hell, I don't even LIKE animals, for the most part! The point is, this jackass did something that was not only wrong by most folks' moral standards, but also something that was wrong in a legal sense, for no reason other than profit, which he was at the time sure to NOT NEED, as his financial future was secured at that point! If nothing else, the bastard should get an extra 6 months in the slammer for wrecking my commute to work during his VT heyday, but that's beside the point. I may never agree with you again in a political or religious debate, but in this case I think we see eye-to-eye…there are so many athletes more deserving of face-time than Vick.
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Well yeah, ofc Tiger isn't on the same level as the rest of the scum. Was mostly mentioned to get a broad selection. While cheating on your wife and breaking up your family isn't a crime it still a awful thing to do. But point taken.
Personally I don't care about neither Mario or Madden. I do enjoy the FIFA series however (actual football :)) My point is that prasing one for doing something that you disapprove another for doing, is hypocritical, no matter how much time the people behind it use on it.
For a outside viewer Mario Galaxy 1 is the same as Mario Galaxy 2, and Madden 10 is the same as 11. But I know that FIFA 10 is not the same as 11, so I think it's wrong to judge games I don't play, because I don't notice the details. And when Bob does this it just ruins my respect for his otherwise good product.
Then again I guess everybody is allowed to hate on one thing without real reason. For me it's techno “music”. 🙂
Hopefully I am making sense here, getting kinda late and I'm not a native english speaker.
The REAL Peter.
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@bob
I'm a Giants fan so I will unconditionally hate Michael Vick (along with the entire Eagles roster) but there are so many worse people in the NFL. I agree that dog fighting is wrong, but Ben Roethlisberger fucking raped someone and I don't know about you but the rape of another human being is a much greater offence then animal fighting will ever be, that isn't an opinion it is a fact.
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@Bob
Totally agree 100%.
Unfortunately I have witnessed a dogfight first hand because of where I used to live.
It's disgusting and horrifying to see what these innocent animals are put through for entertainment.
Makes me cringe just thinking about it.
Thank you for acknowledging and taking the time to discuss this.
The fact of the matter is that animals are completely innocent and trust us, and it's completely heartbreaking when people betray this trust for of all things financial benefit.
Fuck Michael Vick.
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Ass Kicker: Well, no is an opinion. An opinion I agree with but by it's very definition its an opinion.
At 2nd Peter: Bullshit. I commented first. Therefore, I am the REAL Peter, whereas you will be known as Peter #2. Deal with it.
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Wait a minute. Given the Madden Curse, shouldn't Bob WANT Michael Vick on the cover so that something bad will happen to him?
On a more serious note, I agree with the first commenter.
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Bob, I'm going to blow your mind (or, at least, it blew my mind and drove me into a murder-filled rampage of curse words for several days).
There are thousands, possibly tens of thousands of people or possibly even more, in this world who buy an Xbox or PS3 just for sports game and the occasional shooter.
No, this is not something I've heard from on guy or a few. I was on your at a college once and found at that in nearly every frat house, there was a gaming console with at least the last four madden and FIFA games. There was usually a copt of Halo 3 or a random Call of Duty game as well.
There are so many people go out to buy a game console just to play the sport games. Why? Well, $60 for an update doesn't seem like a big deal when you only do it once a year because ITS THE ONLY GAME YOU PLAY.
This is a serious and large group of “””gamers”””. That is how they get away with.
Their free time is spent watching sports and playign sports. They don't give a damn about the politics or anything ethical about these transactions.
For the college kids, its just an easy way to have some entertainment at a party or late nights of boredom according to what I've been told.
Overtime, it becomes more and more clear that a majority of people who buy games now of days, the majority of the money in the industry, is coming from people who simply play sports or shooters with friends.
I'm at high school right now and in every classroom there is at least fifteen people who are “””gamers”””. Either they only play the newest AAA shooter multplayer (singe player? Thats for losers) or only buy the newest EA sports games.
Perhaps this is just high school and its turned me bitter but people who actually play and buy other genres, actual gamers, are far and few between.
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You're a hypocrite, and so are most of the people who are calling for Vick's head.
It is generally accepted that murder is the worst possible thing one can do to someone, and yet we conveniently forget this in the case of animals. Because you lack the courage of your convictions to apply your oh-so-righteous indignation to your own actions, you can't see the crime in front of your face. If dog fighting is wrong, industrial farming must be far worse. I for one am sick of those moral crusaders who pretend that Vick is the scum of the earth while supporting and benefiting from a system that inflicts more suffering on animals in a day than all the dog fighting rings put together have ever done. I'm sure you somehow believe that your version of animal cruelty, housing livestock in inhumane conditions so your burger can be cheaper, slaughtering them, and consuming their remains is ever so much more holy than Vick's, which only goes to show the extent of self-deception.
And yeah, I eat meat. I'm of the opinion that the suffering of an animal has no moral worth. But I'm at least able to avoid hypocrisy and not worry about the mote in Vick's eye when there's a huge fucking two-by-four in mine.
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I think Michael Vick should be locked away for a few years for what he did, and he was. Perhaps should have been longer then he did, but still, 21 months in prison is nothing to scoff at. And obviously, I think any pet retailer should think seriously about selling him anything larger than a goldfish.
But, it's not like getting on the cover is of Madden some sort of humanitarian award or something. It doesn't require that he be a good or decent person… just that he be good at playing football, which I'll assume he is since I don't really follow football at all.
I don't feel that what someone does in their personal life should effect how they're treated in their professional life.
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@BobbzMan:
… here's my thing. The Curse is a crock of shit. It's been quantifiably discounted by anyone who gave it a cursory glance. So, once you take that away, all you're left with is taking a convicted animal murderer and making him the face of your game franchise.
So yeah, no. That's my message to all of the people who I'm sure are doing the hipster thing and voting for Vick ironically…
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This is anecdotal, but I'm pretty sure the Madden fans don't mind spending $60/year for the same game with stat updates because they probably don't buy more than 4 or 5 games a year anyway. $60/year for hours of simulated sports fun is nothing to the people who spend that much monthly on cable, or half as much on game tickets, or put down similar amounts on fantasy football leagues.
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A good episode. Even though I have issue with some of the points, there is a solid case to be made. The only thing is I felt Bob missed an opportunity by dismissing three blindingly valid arguments.
1. Vick did his time
2. Vick is trying to redeem himself
3. And yes, even “its only a dog.”
Why simply brush those aside? Vick went to prison, did his time, and hasn't lapsed back into the crime again. In the eyes of the law that makes him clean. He hasn't lapsed back into dog fighting (Not that we know of), so to many people he comes off as a repentant and rehabilitated man who did his penance.
And finally, to most people an animal occupies a lower rung on the moral hierarchy (a wild animal being lower than a pet, of course). After all shooting a puppy, as horrible as that is, is no where near as horrible as shooting a 6 year old child. I think the reason so many people brush off Vick's crime is because, while acknowledging that its bad to kill defenseless dogs for senseless purposes, its certainly not as bad as rape or murder.
Personally, I found it a little obnoxious that people I knew would have a stronger emotional response to animal abuse than to human abuse. I understand Bob's point about it, but its not enough to convince me.
In addition, and this is probably just semantic, I can't apply the verb murder to a dog. (and I love dogs) You can't murder an animal. You can only murder a human.
That doesn't make what Vick did right, of course. The behavior he demonstrated is indicative of a man with a very sick mind and heart. That said, I'm more than willing to let the guy prove that he's changed. Still the man did what he did, and I think its too soon to bestow him with any kind of honor.
And I end this rant here.
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*nudge nudge wink wink*
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Man, and I thought that Computer Gaming is Dead video was dumb.
This takes the cake. I really can't fathom how somebody could publicly make such terrible arguments and bandy them about as if they are in fact, good, strong, defensible positions, nay, absolutely correct positions. I would hope anybody with even the most cursory amount of experience in argument could realise Bob's entire video here is absolutely ridiculous.
The most egregious example is that Bob outright states that animals lack necessary features to function as moral beings. This is arguable in itself, but because Bob himself takes it as a truth, I shall too. The problem arises in that this most easily leads to the exact opposite position Bob thinks it does. If animals can not reason morally, they can not interact morally. That goes both ways. They can't be moral or immoral to us, we can't be moral or immoral to them. Same with say, a rock. Or for a more obvious example, bacteria. Frankly, if we take the “animals are morality-blind” position, it's difficult to argue our way out of the “we don't need to treat them with moral consideration” position.
To reiterate, because I can't stress this enough, most animal rights positions start off by trying to show there is nothing humans have, that animals don't, that makes us moral beings and them not. Since Bob outright states animals are not agents capable of morality, he throws away his strongest defence.
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(my original comment was too long, it's been broken into two)
Another point was brought up with the factory farming issue. Bob doesn't care about it certainly, but he doesn't offer any good reason why there's a moral difference between the two. Either way, animals suffer and die for human benefit, and arguably, animals suffer more under factory farming conditions than dog fighting ones. If they both don't have the same moral considerations, it should be pointed out why.
And boy does it grill my bacon when I hear people spout emotionally charged words that already assume their position is correct. It mildly bugs me when I hear Communists talk about “exploitation” without defining the term properly, but talking about dog fighting as literal “torture” and then “murder” is just…fucking retarded. Unless you got some serious arguments to support the assertion, which of course, Bob doesn't. The word “Torture” implies an active agent at work to outright cause pain, and “Murder”, ignoring the standard that it's just a legal definition meaning “illegal killing” usually, in vernacular, means an agent actively killing something of equal moral consideration as a human. NEITHER fits the bill as far as “dog fighting” goes, as both are completely incidental to what the actual object of dog fighting is. Not to see animals suffer and die, but to see them *fight,* to see one dog win, the other lose. One might ask, if not for the violence and death, why go for dog fighting and not, say, baseball, or heck, boxing? Well, why go for boxing and not, say, wrestling? People have their preferred “games” but to these people, a “game” is all it is, and so it doesn't qualify as “torture” and without already assuming animals have equal moral agency to humans (which again, Bob somehow doesn't), it is also not “murder.”
Of course I'm going to get a lot of flack for this. My complete emotional detachment to this issue is not “normal” because, you know, the average person is not used to trying to separate their gut emotional reactions to things from actual arguments for any given position. And anything against the cultural norm is just oh so evil. In point of fact, I don't care one way or another about dog fighting because I agree with Bob that animals are not moral agents, and I'm somebody who works hard to go by what seems *rational* and not what my own emotional prejudices are. Bob clearly is not well exercised in this idea. He's made it very, very clear he likes animals, dogs and monkeys in particular. It is no wonder then he feels the way he does, but he shouldn't bandy about his feelings as if they were reasonable, well thought out and valid arguments for an objective moral position. They're not.
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@CrunchyEmpanada tl;dr
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Actually…. Vick didn't do his time, and that's part of the problem. Yes, he served jail time, and that's part of it – he shouldn't have to do a minute more of jail time. However, the NFL has a required code of conduct, that dog fighting flat out goes against. Vick got his job back despite actively and maliciously violating this. That's part of the problem – he got a dream job, he abused it, and now he gets it back. Humility doesn't seem much a part of him, does it?
Arman, keep in mind he agreed to do service to stop unethical treatment of animals if and only if animal rights groups would agree to petition for him to rejoin the NFL. Does that sound like somebody who's simply trying to make things right?
Alci – it's really not that hypocritical. I understand where you're coming from, but there is a world of difference between killing something for a purpose (to eat it) and for the enjoyment of its death (blood sport).
Finally, Bob. You got one thing wrong – the stories are that Vick killed these dogs several different ways. He did not do this for gambling and profit. He killed the ones that wouldn't perform in various, brutal methods.
That part? He did that for fun.
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Also, Crunchy?
There's a reason people don't gamble over games of Madden 2011 🙂
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And so munchie64 posted the inevitable tl;dr comment… proving once again the many dimwitted trolls that watch Bob's videos.
Well done CrunchyEmpanada
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@ dkh
That's certainly a good point, and as I said “most people” tend to see past that. The penitent criminal is an attractive narrative to a lot of folks, which is why I think Vick is getting a pass from a lot of people.
That said, I'm generally of the belief that intentions matter a lot less than action. If Vick's contributions actually help to stop animal abuse, then I honestly don't care what his motivations are. God judges intentions. Men can only judge action.
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Alci – it's really not that hypocritical. I understand where you're coming from, but there is a world of difference between killing something for a purpose (to eat it) and for the enjoyment of its death (blood sport).
There really isn't. In fact, “the enjoyment of its death,” is a purpose. We can have an aesthetic revulsion to one who would glorify in cruelty, but I don't think that revulsion has any moral bearing. If the appreciation of cruelty in itself, absent the effects of its cruelty, was morally reprehensible, then playing a dog fighting simulation- say, a video game- would be as morally reprehensible as the real thing. And I think no reader of MovieBob's will make that claim.
Cruelty is not morally reprehensible because the people practicing it give us the heebie jeebies. It's morally reprehensible because people suffer because of it. It's the consequences of the action that determine the morality of it, and MovieBob's actions are just as complicit in just as much suffering of animals as Vick's were.
This is obvious in any other circumstance, but people are so blinded by the need to justify their own meat-eating and their need to find a scapegoat in people like Vick that their rational faculties shut down.
As to use: It's difficult to say whether a cannibal is more immoral than a murderer. I think we can agree that both are pretty bad. In any case, if animals are to have moral standing, I think it makes little sense to protect them from cruelty but not from murder (and, inasmuch as animals and people generally prefer to keep living, murder is, of course, a form of cruelty, no matter how little pain they may experience in the process). If murder is the worst thing you can do to a human being, why does our morality so suddenly shift when speaking of animals? You can try any sophistry you like, but we both know the ultimate answer is because meat is tasty and we try to justify it to ourselves.
If by use, you meant that eating meat is necessary to continued human health or whatever, there is no necessary instrumental use that is served by eating meat. Vegetarians get along just fine, and in fact, growing plants is a more efficient use of resources and land than housing livestock. A vegetarian humanity would be healthier, its environment would be cleaner, and the number of people starving would be less.
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We're not talking about Michael Vick the role model for thousands of predominately male black Americans with poor upbringings who may have made some mistakes in their lives and who have paid in full for these mistakes and yet still find society wont allow them to move on no matter how they try to redeem themselves.
We're not talking about Michael Vick who could stand as the one super high profile black athlete who admits his crimes, pays his due without complaints and genuinely sets out to rebuild his life (after losing everything) as a better person (Unlike Kobe, Tyson, OJ et al.)
Oh wait …
Michael Vick is my hero. Everyday he inspires me to be a better person. And guess what? I'm not the only person who feels this way.
Most people will never understand a fraction of the pain of losing everything you have, being locked away from everyone you love for years, enduring it all and still being condemned and reviled.
I don't blame you for your tremendous ignorance Bob, but sometimes you have to know when to shut your judgmental mouth and admit you have no fucking clue what you're talking about. This isn't a movie or a comic book, this is a young man's life.
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Brad,
1) He lied about it. He only admitted his guilt after several people testified against him.
2) He did complain. He felt that the possibility of him getting back into the NFL should have bearing on his fines and financial requirements and bitched when the judge wouldn't take a “possibility” as a promise.
3) He didn't spend years in jail. Not to say he wasn't in prison for a good long while, but “less than two years” is, more or less by definition, not multiple years.
4) Reviled? Is this the same Michael Vick who got a standing ovation when he went out onto the Philly field for the first time? Is this the same Michael Vick who's doing very, very well in this ESPN contest?
5) Yeah, it's a young man's life. It's also on the subject of that young man's choices.
Alci,
it seems to me you're suggesting a sort of oversimplified utilitarianism and are trying to play both sides of the field. We're human beings, not all powerful, all knowing gods. Nearly all plants and animals register injury (if not pain), so the argument could be made that we cannot injure anything. It could be argued that eating fruits and so forth interferes with the cycle of life, where does that leave us? A need for survival, food, clothing, etc. etc. does not inherently make us barbarians. It's what we do with these things. The thing is that your argument can be taken to absolutely any length, and it serves no purpose.
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@Brad,
We're talking about a young man's life, yes. We're ALSO talking about the lives of other living things he mutilated and tortured for profit and a sick sense of “fun.”
Let's be very clear here: Michael Vick was GIVEN an INCREDIBLE opportunity in life. He won the damn lottery in terms of being capable of throwing a ball skillfully and being born in a country that perversely values that fairly trivial skill highly enough to pay him more money than an entire STAFF of teachers, doctors, firefighters, etc to do it professionally… And he CHOSE TO PISS IT ALL AWAY.
I have ZERO sympathy for a spoiled brat making millions tossing a ball around whose STILL apparently so bored with his wealth and fame that he needs to torture a helpless creature to death to get his jollies.
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@MovieBob
Sing it Sister!
Couldn't have said it better myself.
I love how because you have an opinion YOUR not allowed to express it and your ignorant, judgmental and apparently have no clue what your talking about.
Some people think WAY to highly of men that play with balls.
And before anyone says “Get off his dick you fanboy” or anything resembling that kind of statement… I just found THAT statement to be incredibly ignorant. It's called an OPINION for a reason and this is HIS blog for a reason.
Grow up or move on.
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lol at all the commenters attempting to rationalize dogfighting.
Also professional athletes are worthless.
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I don't know if this's been said before but Bob, did you forget about the Madden curse???? Just sayin.
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I have to agree with Alcibiades and CrunchyEmpanada.
Every last one of us who eats burgers has no right to judge Vick because we're indirectly cruel to animals every time we buy a double cheese.
Yes, the factory farming angle has merit. Please educate yourselves before dismissing this; Fast Food Nation (book) and Food Inc (film) are good places to start.
Meat production, you'll find, is just as cruel (if not much more so) than training animals for fighting.
Personally, I love me some double cheeses and don't give a damn how they get to my table. I also don't give a damn about dogs.
They are NOT people. They are ONLY animals. Cows and dogs are not the moral equivalent of humans and they never will be.
I'm voting for Vick just to spite you hypocrites.
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he served his time, hes a football player, its a football Game, not a morality game.
Get over it.
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Well, I voted. By the time I voted, Michael Vick was losing to Adrian Peterson 3-9. Hopefully it'll stay that way.
I had an interesting conversation with my mom about this, who thinks it so confusing that professional athletes and entertainers get paid more than people with buckets of degrees and education, like doctors. It's like America prefers people who can distract us the most as opposed to the people actually working to make a better tomorrow.
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@Joshua
I say this with respect for you and your opinion.
Have no intention on starting a argument, only an educated discussion.
That being said…
I totally understand and to some extent agree with where your coming from and what you have to say,
But people HAVE to eat.
If humans didn't eat meat we probably wouldn't kill cows/chickens/pigs etc for food.
It's just part of the food chain.
Dog fighting is used for nothing but sport and “fun”.
Farm animals aren't slaughtered for sport or fun, it's a necessity to survive.
It's just not right to torture and eventually kill a animal financial gain and “fun”.
It's abuse and nothing more.
Your right “Cows and Dogs are not equivalent to people and never will be”… does that mean we have the right to take a living creatures life that feels pain just for entertainment?
For me that's a no.
It's abuse any way you spin it.
Animals are innocent creatures that live along side of us in this world… just because we are higher up on the food chain does not give us any kind of right to kill them for anything more than food. They keep us alive and well, we should be thankful and respectful they are here.
Just my opinion though.
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@akkuma This is more than just killing, which is what disgusts me the most about these PeTArds and apologetics on both the Escapist and this blog.
Dogs are not designed to kill one another, so to do dogfighting, you have to literally beat and torture them for years on end until they are mentally unstable.
Anyone who tries to equate this to eating meat or even intentional animal slaughter is either horribly ignorant, and therefore should follow Penn Jillette's advice, or a psychopath who should therefore remove himself from society as soon as humanly possible.
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