Azaroth

Yeah, I know. But at one point, I had to blog about this. It was coming. I’ve just been pondering the posting of more important things.

I realize this happened weeks ago, but I watch a lot of sports and sports news. And honestly, the coverage has been pretty constant. It’s the biggest sports story in the world right now. And here’s why it shouldn’t be:

Now, keep in mind that I love dogs. In fact, I love animals in general. Anyone who knows me knows that I probably put animals before people a lot of the time. I think it might have something to do with the fact that animals don’t mouth off. With that in mind, you’d think I should be one of the people frothing at the mouth, waving signs, wearing t-shirts, heavily denouncing Michael Vick and what he’s done. I’m not too far from that, mind you. I think Michael Vick is a dumbass, I think what he’s done is sick.

But I also think that a lot of people are being complete hypocrites here. For starters, you’ve got hundreds of thousands of white people screaming bloody murder. However, shotgun season is coming up. How many of those people, their husbands, their fathers - how many of them pick up a shotgun and go kill various types of animals in the fall? People have fucking magazines in their bathrooms devoted to crueler arrows and bigger guns for which to dispatch the animal they find most delicious from a fucking tree blind.

Aside from that, is this REALLY the worst thing any human being involved in sports has ever done? Steroids… cocaine… spousal abuse… rape… murder. Some of these things aren’t as bad as dogfighting, and some are worse. But they all have something in common. They’ve all been committed by sports figures with less public reaction than the Michael Vick case.

So in all honesty, I can’t understand this situation. I realize people love animals. I realize empathy for fellow human beings is on the decline. I realize there is a high level of desensitization to human violence in North America. But regardless, this thing has been blown entirely out of proportion, especially compared to what else goes on. On a fairly regular basis with sports figures, and with people in general.

On the other hand, there are cultural factors and a discussion of scale to be had if you want to get way too deep into the topic. For some reason, shooting people has become so normal to see in movies and music videos and whatever that there’s a level of acceptance attached to the act. Some people even think it’s cool. There’s also the general situation, wherein Vick did own what basically amounts to a dog fighting “compound” that included cages, fighting rings, and of course, a lot of buried dogs. Now, if you transfer the dogs out of that equation and put humans into it, obviously it becomes a bigger deal to everyone. I hope.

But the fact is that when you break it down to basics and ask people what offends them more - dog fighting or murder - for some reason, the answer has come back for the former. Very loudly. And that leaves me a little perplexed.