Last week the Pittsburgh Steelers signed Michael Vick and the world reacted with the outright hatred and vitriol that we seem to reserve for people who sit in our pews at church and people who mistreat animals. Thanks to Nicki Minaj and Miley Cyrus, this was barely news but my generation managed to tweet their outrage and octogenarians who have been Steelers fans for longer than the Notorious R.B.G. has been in office took to the phone lines to express their discontent. Many claimed that the addition of Michael Vick to the Steelers' roster was the "last straw" and after years of wearing black and gold, they were done.
This is fine, I've made dozens of moral stands in my 22 short years ranging from admirable to absurdly pretentious. My question is why is this the last straw and not the fact that the Steelers continue to extend the contract of one of the highest paid football players when his jersey number is only slightly higher than his number of abuse allegations? Now these allegations were never proven. I'm not saying he's guilty, just that men have been prematurely deemed guilty and felt the full force of public scrutiny under similar circumstances before.
And this isn't just the Steelers. Need I mention the Patriots player with the deflated...I mean inflated...ego? The entire NFL and professional sports organizations in general continue to sign and give raises and contract extensions to athletes accused and convicted of all sorts of things, misdemeanors to felonies. For all the athletes charged with abuse every year, the heinous crimes they are accused of don't seem much more nefarious than Bear Bryant on a good day. There's a man who knows abuse. I had to read The Junction Boys in college and it gave me nightmares for weeks, and not just because of how poorly I did on the accompanying test.
If several fields appropriate the "3 strikes" rule for conduct (see what I did with fields there?), then what is the sports analogy for human abuse? Do the abusers get 4 downs? 6 NBA fouls? Whereas animal abusers are considered to have illegally pocketed the 8 ball and it's game over.
We're all so hard on each other all the time but we for some reason collectively follow the rule that all sorts of mayhem is more forgivable than animal abuse. Why is our moral statute of limitations shorter for murder, misconduct and manslaughter of human beings than for animal mistreatment? The atonement period for the former being a mere season and for the latter a lifetime. Granted, animal mistreatment is absolutely a euphemism for Vick's actions and you should probably know that I did not cry during Marley & Me before you consider my opinion.
As a general rule we are awful big on forgiveness, provided we're on the receiving end. We forgive ourselves a multitude of inequities while allowing not even the slightest of flaws in others. I'm no exception. Something as simple as a stranger's poor parking job will have me contemplating a passive aggressive sticky note. And people who stand in doorways? I've considered starting a petition for a mandatory class on appropriate pedestrian behavior. Not sure yet if I want to be the pot or the kettle, but I'm a terrible driver! And I know that I get caught up having an entire conversation (introduction, 3 paragraphs, conclusion) in the middle of a sidewalk from time to time. I can't help it I'm just so excited that someone A) recognized me and B) wanted to talk to me. Of course I expect nothing less than unconditional understanding for any unseemly personality traits I may or may not possess but the second an imperfect human crosses my path I head straight for my blog so I can make money off of complaining about them. Not very much money, but still.
I don't dismiss Vick's actions. I'm not saying that animal abuse is okay just that our moral relativism calculations are a little off. And I for one, am barking mad.
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