Confessions of a Litigious Mind: what, me apologize?

Monday, August 27, 2007

what, me apologize?

michael vick's press conference was the biggest joke ever. any public figure who does anything wrong is expected to give one, so he doesn't get credit just for being there. he apologized, but not really for anything. it was more of a "kids, i'm sorry you chose to idolize me rather than someone else" type of "apology".

but oh, oh he found jesus. so i guess he should be ok then. and now everyone who goes to church must automatically love him. and i guess if he's working with jesus now everyone else should forgive him too. if only jesus blew your circuits or drained your pool/lake/water holder you wouldn't be in this problem to begin with. i guess jesus is just the king of the fashionably late entrance. who better?

11 Comments:

At 8/27/2007 2:14 PM, Holmes said...: What can he do to redeem himself in your eyes? Or is he irredeemable? Actually, in a world of no absolutes, he wasn't really wrong to dog fight anyway. He was just on the wrong side of our arbitrarily chosen laws.
At 8/27/2007 2:51 PM, josh said...: that's a great question. i of course joke about the jesus thing because i find it somewhat humorous how many people find jesus once they're in a real pinch. now in all fairness, i do know that vick helped build or establish a church in atlanta, so it's not like his religious side is necessarily out of left field. still, to me it's more of a personal thing. if he's religious, that's great, but i don't want to hear about it. what's the purpose of telling everyone about it except to make people feel better about you? otherwise, it's irrelevant.

vick has pled guilty to a horrible thing. dogfighting, killing dogs (assuming this is separate from dogfighting), and gambling, which in and of itself i don't find problematic, i just know he's in trouble for it with the nfl. i dont know all the details about the gambling and why/how the nfl feels it compromised the integrity of the league (seems different to me than if he were betting on games), or maybe it's just illegal to bet on what he did.

a simple statement or two will not be close to enough to redeem his character in my mind (not that my opinion is weightier than anyone else's). to me, it's all about action. sadly, i'm not sure he can be redeemed in my eyes during his lifetime. minor violations (e.g. traffic violations (less dui/dwi)) aside, he might be redeemed if he lived the rest of his life well. normally, i wouldn't have a problem with a pro athlete just getting thru life without incident, but given the dogfighting i think vick would have to do things for his community (or others) to make up for lots of the crap he's done.

but there's 1 more problem: this isn't his first questionable behavior. he flipped off his own crowd after a game (which i can almost forgive anyway as being caught up in the emotion of a game...though it was probably a misdirected action. now if the crowd deserved it somehow (a whole new topic) i have no problem with it). then of course there was the whole marijuana in the water bottle incident (real smart to bring one substance not allowed on planes inside another object not allowed on planes). i've pretty much seen him as a worthless guy for a while due to a few things, so i guess to be redeemed at this point he'd have to live a damn clean life, in the very least.

how many chances can we give?
At 8/27/2007 5:00 PM, Damon said...: Holmes you think a law protecting dogs from death for human amusement is arbitrarily chosen? That law doesn't come from a general consensus of "wrong?"
At 8/27/2007 5:38 PM, Holmes said...: Damon, I was just making a point since Dicta brought in the religious issue. Absent an Absolute God-being, everything is a random event. Your consensus today is tomorrow's minority. And we talk at length in constitutional law about the problem with "wrong" majority laws, which do come from consensus. Consensus or majority rule is not the same as right.

For the record, I think protecting dogs from these acts is a great thing. I have a dog- a pug puppy in fact. Though I feel like killing him some days, if I did , I would do it humanely. That's a joke.

I do like how they keep trying to make this a racial issue. Please. If Tom Brady did this, he would be castrated. "Blacks feel a long tradition of pent up frustration..." blah blah blah. No they don't. You didn't live other people's lives in the past. You only know your life and your own frustrations, which are probably of your own doing. Stupid tv people.
At 8/29/2007 11:18 AM, Damon said...: I had responded yesterday, but I guess it vaporised, so this won't be as good because it's annoying to do it twice. Anyway, yes the opinion of the majority changes, can produce bad laws, and is not what I referred to. I seriously doubt that only 51% of people are against dog fighting. "n. 1. An opinion or position reached by a group as a whole" yes this can mean majority, but in this case, an overwhelming majority that has and will stand over time.

I haven't read specific race comments on the Vick case (haven't read much of anything on it) but the average African American, low income American, or anything but middle class, white, straight American male does live with more stress and frustration and less opportunity and support than that white male. It is not about the past; racism is alive and well. Heck, I a New England socialist and supporter of increased diversity and relaxed immigration, but I'm racist.
At 8/29/2007 1:14 PM, Holmes said...: No idea what you are referring to by defining what majority means. Clearly a majority can mean a simple majority or anything up to 100%. Thanks for the recap.

You have a delusional worldview that I can't even begin to understand.
At 8/29/2007 7:37 PM, Damon said...: Yeah let's focus on exact words and not meanings; do you not think there are any opinions that belong to almost everyone over time and place? I didn't initially use "majority" nor did I define it.

And you really think that low income people who are forced to attend awful schools and cannot afford college or a home have the same life experience as those born into middle class wealth in sheltered communities with excellent schools? Not to mention regular prejudice! Do you pat yourself on the back for all you've "accomplished" or find blame for your position without seeing the system of advantages that make it so?
At 8/30/2007 12:45 AM, Holmes said...: I certainly don't have the self-loathing necessary for your worldview. I did have advantages in the sense that my parents were not divorced, I had a stable home life, and my parents were educated and valued my education. But I don't come from privilege if that is what you mean.

"System of advantages." That is interesting. So it doesn't matter to you that there are far more poor whites, and thus poor white males, than any other group? That some groups have a higher rate of poverty is what you seem to be focused on. But if there is some WASP conspiracy or network or system advantageous to only WASPs then it does not make sense that both Asian-Americans and Jewish-Americans have a higher median income level, does it? I mean, how did they slip through the cracks of our system? It couldn't be that their values and stable families helped them towards success? Perish the thought.

And if state run education systems are failing people, I find it amazing that you want state run everything else as a socialist. It's mindboggling even. In Ohio, my home state, they were going to go to a state-wide pooling of educational funds. Guess who opposed the system? The WASP elites? Nope. The inner city schools. If funds were distributed, they realized they would lose out on a lot of funding as they were some of the highest per capita expenditures. So there's something else going on. I agree education is the way out of poverty, but the education is there. That people have broken communities which teach and pass on self-destructive behaviors is not the fault of the schools but of that very same community. But it is folks like you, Damon, that continue to allow people to be self-destructive by blaming "the system", by which you mean "white males."

Structural racism/sexism is dead. That is no longer a roadblock for groups. I think my 55% female graduating law class can attest to that.

And let me say the 'cannot afford college" argument is absurd. Everyone has access to student loans to pay for school. Poor people have even greater access to these funds with Pell grants and the like. (I would even argue that these funds really make college way more expensive than it needs to be, but such economics are wasted on a socialist.) Might a few have to work during school instead of partying with the WASPs? Sure. But tough shit. Their kids can party a generation from now.

I'm proud of what I have accomplished and don't regret my success one bit. It amazes me that our system which produces such wealth and such success and opportunity, over any other system I might add, is so loathed by people like you.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GkMcObVTNzU Here's a trailer for a documentary coming out by black men explaining their current state and how they think their problems should be fixed.
At 8/30/2007 10:16 AM, Holmes said...: http://www.yahoo.com/s/663944

Here's a good example of one of those impoverished families who are victims of the system and the Man. Living a normal life with 7 kids on $35k a year. Of course, they are white, or white hispanic I think, so maybe other white people just give them things.
At 8/30/2007 11:47 AM, Damon said...: Ok let's see: I'm self loathing and delusional, you attribute views to me that I did not state, write opinions as fact, think that I cannot understand your arguments, and made incorrect assumptions about me, you have improperly applied small sample statistics to a far larger population. I do not believe that this could continue as a reasonable discussion.
At 8/30/2007 12:50 PM, Holmes said...: Whatever.

Email me

dicta
Previous Posts

Confessions of a Litigious Mind

Monday, August 27, 2007

what, me apologize?

11 Comments:

About Me

Email me

Previous Posts