Reply #125: My defense of the sport has everything to do with being an American. [View All]

[MADem]

Please read this message slowly and carefully. One word at a time, because it is important that I be both clear and precise. I'm going to give you a bit of "observation and comment" on your assumptions (which are entirely false--you've managed to misread me entirely, which makes me wonder if you also have misread Mister Vick).

--I am an American citizen. In America, if it's not against the law, people have the right to do it. If it is against the law, if things go well, the criminal goes to jail and pays their debt to society. After the debt is paid, the criminal is allowed to rejoin society. They are not continually excoriated and cast into the wilderness, and they only remain on probation for as long as it takes for the system to ascertain that they are no longer a threat to society. Some people, like child molesters, never escape scrutiny, but they are the exception that proves the general rule.

--People in America have the right to "enjoy" football. As for me, I fucking HATE football. Read that again, since you've "imagined" that I'm a cheerleader for football "gladiators," and you have imagined this based on my entirely factual description of the game. One more time--I fucking HATE football. I think it is a stupid sport. I can be relied upon to watch one football game a year--The Superbowl--and I talk through play and shut up during the commercials. However, football is not against the law. It is a legal sport, and people who like it are allowed, in America, to engage in it, watch it, love it, or hate it. I rather doubt you'd like it if society at large picked over your habits and hobbies and outlawed the ones that didn't appeal sufficiently. If you don't like football, do what I do--don't watch it.

--The only way Vick can act on his apology is if he can support his family. He has a skill. It's a fairly specific skill, one in which black football players are underemployed based on their total participation in the game, too. He is a football quarterback. If he can find work using that skill, more power to him. I won't watch him play (unless he's at the Superbowl), not because I think people do not deserve a second chance, but because I don't watch much, if any, football.