The Institute (協会)

Q: What should happen to Vick?

A: He should get a fair trial.

lose, not loose

thanks, anon

Christopher, I'm afraid that in order for him to get a fair trial the trial might have to be in another country. He's up a creek on this one.

Assuming he has had a fair trial, and is found guilty... duh. Fire him. Why should celebrities have a lower standard than everyone else?

Why does he have to get a fair trialbefore they fire him? If I get accused of something and it brings a ton of heat to my employer, I'm gone. (I know this from experience...was accused of being a racist by a customer and was gone by the end of the shift.)

The NFL is about making money. If someone starts causing the NFL to lose money, they should be fired (remember, the loss of money is what got Imus fired). I'm not saying he shouldn't get a fair trial at all, just that the trial doesn't have anything to do with the NFL's profits. Fair trial before locking someone up for a couple of years? Yes. Before being able to fire that person? No.

They should fire him if they want to. I don't see Vick as guilty of committing a crime, but I wouldn't employ him. There were no human victims to his actions, and the owners of the animals were willing participants with their property.

But it's an awful thing to do. And I'd think little of anyone who engages in it. Little enough of such a someone who was trying to vicariously affirm their manhood through an animal to disassociate with them, perhaps permanently.

Dogfighting is a brutal bloodsport. And it's illegal. If he is actually involved in this, he should go. It reflects atrociously on the NFL to have one of their well-known player involved in something as debauched as dogfighting. And as Paul mentioned, the NFL is a business, and a player who impacts that ought to go.

I echo dramaturge, but also consider your responses in light of the fact that NFL players are role models for kids and teenagers. To me, this increases their responsibility to set an example even more. What kind of example does this set? What kind of message would the NFL send in allowing him to remain a player?

The NFL is a business, and may keep him for that reason. But a business should also worry about the moral ramifications of their business dealings, just like anybody else. Who knows? It may be even "better business" to let him go and make a statement.

Because he plays in the ATL doesn't make him ATL (Above The Law). The NFL comissioner has been cracking down on a lot of these guys. Don't stop now. So what it's Roger Vick. Our nation is milking the innocent until proven guilt and running it into the ground.

Pit bulls need be shipped off into the wild somewhere. In my humble opinion it's the same as having a "dingo", coyote, hyena, or a wolf in residential areas. They might be a little tame until the opportune moment and then they strike.

This is what these dogs are actually kept for. Machismo, defining the malehood for the ignorant.

I hope the Falcons, the legal system, the nfl and everyone does the right thing. Prosecute this cat to the fullest.

I don´t want to rush to conclusions so quickly especially after writing off the Duke lacrosse players so early, but he seems pretty nailed to me.

You´re right, he is not a good QB, but he got a mega-deal because he turned the heads of Georgians away from the Dawgs towards the Falcons for the first time in years. Now that his name and star is forever tarnished, so is the reason the Falcons signed him for so much. I don´t think he ever sees the field in Atlanta again will only be signed after he does significant work to restore his name.

That is, if he escapes prison, which seems unlikely given the circumstances.

An employer (or fellow church member or relative or friend) has a responsibility to be morally certain that a person deserves dissociation in order to dissociate. However, a legal verdict is not necessary for a person to achieve moral certitude. He merely needs to have a good basis to be personally satisfied of the person's deserving such treatment. He shouldn't rush to judgment, but he also needn't act as though his conscience is bound by the slow grind of the wheels of the legal system and the deliberations of a jury.

So yeah, if there's enough evidence out there to satisfy a reasonable person that Vick is a liability, the Falcons management needn't wait for the jury to decide that the feds have proved a legal case. In the Duke case, a reasonable person definitely should have paused at the known evidence. I haven't followed this case very closely so I'm not sure, but I sure haven't heard anyone suggest that there's exculpatory or conflicting testimony/evidence on the level of what was present from early on in the Duke situation.

He's running this ring out of his house...enough said.

Let him go.

Yeah Julio, that's a great point actually.

I'm not trying to rush to a judgement. He looks very guilty. And I do wish for a fair trial, in reality how can it be one? I have no malice towards the guy. Thankfully, the Chargers were smart enough to pass on him. (No pun intended)

In my haste I meant to use Roger Goodell's name and jumbled it with Vick's. Sorry about that people.

It's wild, though, if Vick had invested in a ring of abortion clinics where humans are killed, no one would say a word. And yet cruelty to dogs ruins his career. I do think cruelty of this kind is wrong, but again our society has a very odd measuring stick for morality.

barlow, haha, good point!

Vick broke the law. So it's a fairly simply decision for me. He should be fired. On a different note, there seems to be a recurring theme here: high paid celebrities (sports or otherwise) doing stupid things. Is it greed? What is it?

I second Christopher's position; he should get a fair trial. And is it really that difficult for someone with access to A-1 lawyers, with celebrity to boot, to get the benefit of the doubt? Is OJ in jail? Or the linebacker from Baltimore?

I understand the one man's point about employers not always giving employees the benefit of the doubt. I've been there, too. However, we were asked what "should" happen, not what "will" happen.

Ray Lewis' case suggests that he's going to be on the field this fall, whatever the facts of the case.

It seems every week another pro athlete is arrested. Rarely are they anything but black. The Nigger Football League and the Nigger Basketball Associaton have got a big problem on their hands, and they had better start dealing with it, or they're going to lose their fan base.