Michael Vick And The American Double Standard

by Demetrius D. Walker

As the owner of two loyal mutts, I felt no sympathy for Michael Vick when the laws hauled this dimwit off to the penitentiary.  Vick got what he deserved.  Anyone that promotes the unnecessary destruction of living creatures is a heinous, vile individual.  Finding pleasure in the violent demise of animals trained to rip flesh from bones is despicable.  Despite the fact that I feel Michael Vick’s punishment was just, I would however like to point out an odd double standard in our current legal system.  There are several forms of hunting that cross the lines of morality and feed a culture of ignorance in this country.

No, I am not a vegan.  I gobble ground turkey and tear up tilapia on a regular basis.  Animals have to die in order for me to get my protein fix; I understand that.  Growing up on Hunter Avenue in the Bronx (how ironic), my homeboy Louie and his pops used to deer hunt upstate, bringing back tasty venison to roast in my oven.  Their love for shooting and trapping helped New York State control its deer population, but most importantly gave a middle class family 3 months worth of food to eat.  Although I could never muster the courage to join them in shooting Bambi’s mother, I respected their choice to contribute to the natural ebb and flow of the food chain.

After moving to Texas and seeing how much hunting is a part of the year round culture, I realized a few disturbing facts.  There are not enough deer in Texas for trigger happy, gun crazy, Texans to shoot.  So what does a capitalist do when there is a large market for shooting bushy tailed animals and a low supply of targets?  They figure out how to make more targets… of course… duh!  To my chagrin, there are actual breeding farms that exist for the sole purpose of manufacturing living things;  living things that can be transported to game reserves where Uncle Buck and Four Finger Jimmy can blow their heads off – for fun.  This is big business folks, check it out HERE.

WTF is wrong with Americans that we allow Billy Bob to mutilate animals with shotguns for sheer enjoyment, yet we just as easily sentence people to jail for dogfighting?  Why is it cool for Sarah Palin to fly around in a helicopter shooting arctic wolves?  She’s obviously not going to eat the wolf.  Wolves are no different from dogs.  They’re literally in the same family and able to mate.  Yet a presidential candidate can gun them down with a rifle and be labeled an outdoorsman, while a dog fighter gets locked up.  This is a travesty of the American criminal justice system.  Just one more discrepancy which forces me to have zero faith in the impartiality of United States law.

To make things clear, PEOPLE SHOULD NOT BE ALLOWED TO KILL ANIMALS THEY WILL NOT EAT.  Killing a wolf, bear, or anything for utter amusement needs to be a crime.  It violates the Mother Earth G-Code.  Breeding animals just so some white trash in the South can suit up in fatigues, drink a case of Natty Light, and enjoy the primitive boom of a firearm needs to be made illegal immediately.

Every time there’s a school shooting, people are quick to point the blame for why these tragedies occur.  Meaningless hunting devalues life on such a grand scale that killing is no longer taboo, its a national pastime.  Year after year, Americans use hunting as an excuse to fuel the expansion of an increasingly dangerous society.  Let’s put the weapons down and pick up some books for once.  The pen will always be mightier than the sword.