How fvcking stupid do you have to be...
 

...to wear a "Free Michael Vick" shirt...

...On a national broadcast?

Story.

The dude plead guilty to his crimes. He's not some political prisoner, with trumped up charges. He's a freaking criminal.

Homer: I was a political prisoner!
Marge: How were you a political prisoner?
Homer: I kicked a giant mouse in the butt! Do I have to draw a diagram?

Perhaps the NFL should suspend the idiot for supporting an admitted felon.

Clearly, pretty stupid, I'd say.

Lame.

If it had just been the dude who painted Vick's # on his face fine. They were teammates, likely friends, and convicted felon or not, one can still support a friend. But "I support him and wish him the best" is different than "Free the criminal!"

Dumb jocks.

Recognizing that someone was guilty of a crime does not mean you can't feel that the crime shouldn't be illegal.

I'll happily wear a t-shirt that says "free all non-violent drug offenders." And I'll do it on national TV if given the chance.

Personally, I have a hard time fitting animal cruelty laws into my fundamental ideas of government and criminalization. For purely selfish emotional reasons I want the act criminalized but I admit to having to twist myself into a bit of a pretzel to justify it without simply saying "because I think so." A lot of people don't think dogfighting should be a crime and that even if he admitted to it Vick didn't really do anything wrong.

I'm with you on supporting convicted felons of crimes you don't think should be criminal (drug offenses a great example).

But can you really come up with no rational reason for crimilizing harm to animals? What is the difference between that and harm to humans that's not simply anthropocentric "I want it so" rationalization?

Probably the same anthropocentric "I want it so" reason that keeps farming humans for food illegal.

I can understand the arguments against animal cruelty laws to a point. But somehow I doubt Mr. White wore that t-shirt as a statement against affording protected status to animals and the moral ramifications of such laws.

Well, I'm personally against dog-fighting.

I do have to say that some cows are kept in pretty horrible conditions. Some people even consider it to be torture. And your hamburger isn't a crime.

Not that I'm saying "go ahead, torture the dogs." Of course not. I just think it's kind of a gray territory, particularly if you eat meat. (Which I do - fish at least. And yes, I wrestle with the ethical issue of it.)

Yes, I can come up with some. But it takes work and, in my opinion, fudging. For me the primary bases on which criminalization emerge have to do with social contracts (implicit and explicit) and violations thereof. Animals do not participate in this contract themselves and I primarily view domesticated animals as property.

But I've worked abound it to some degree to get the result I want rather than necessarily the result that is more appropriate to my starting axioms. But I'm uncomfortable with that.

Yes, you'll be able to say that my fundamental axioms aren't anything other than a form of "I want it so" rationalization and you'd be correct. That is always true; there is no objective morality. I just generally try to resist violating those axioms just because another set of "I want it sos" are more appealing in fringe situations.

Perhaps not, but it seems pretty clear that he doesn't think that what Vick did should put him in jail.

I'd see the stupidity of it if the shirt says "Vick's Innocent!" or "Vick Didn't Do It!" I'm not so much seeing the stupidity of saying "Vick shouldn't be in jail!"