Michael Vick's Return to NFL

I am diverting my posts from my normal subjects to a matter that is very important to me and perhaps more important than photography.

This is an issue that I am conflicted about. I am a passionate dog and animal lover and I despise animal cruelty. It makes my stomach turn. Michael Vick committed heinous crimes against helpless animals. However, he was tried, convicted, and sentenced for what he did. He served a sentence that was determined to be suitable to the crimes he committed as determined by our laws. If I do not feel that his punishment was severe enough then that is a mater that I need to take up with our judicial system and our lawmakers. I could never forgive a person for committing acts of animal cruelty to my dogs, nor do I think I could find it in my heart to forgive Michael Vick for his actions. Perhaps I am a lesser person for that.

I do believe that people deserve second chances and should be able to go on with their lives after they serve their sentence. However, it is difficult to come to grips with the idea of a person who committed Vicks crimes being able to make millions of dollars for a second time in his life. I sincerely hope that Michael Vick can turn things around and I want to say make things right, but I don’t think one can ever make things right for the crimes he committed. I just hope he is able to live a life from here on out that will be deserving of the second chance that is being afforded him.

As someone who has studied psychology I have an even graver concern with the crimes that Vick committed. Acts of torturing or killing animals are behaviors that sociopaths or those developing into sociopaths commit. Sociopaths are people who feel no remorse for their actions and will do whatever they need to do to get what they want. If it means playing along and saying all the right things to appear sorry in order to get back into the NFL then a sociopath would do that, but not be sincere in any way. I am not saying that Michael Vick is a sociopath, but he has displayed behaviors associated with that mental status. It would be a big concern for me and would be something that I would want to have looked into if I was an NFL team before taking him on.

I wish Michael Vick luck and I hope he is successful in redeeming himself, but not just in the eyes of NFL fans.