By Doug Newman

July 16, 2009

Letters to the Editor

USA Today

Editor:

I write in response to your July 16 cover story about former Atlanta Falcon quarterback Michael Vick. His wasn’t simply “one of the most dramatic falls from grace ever by an NFL player”. It was the fastest such fall ever by a major American athlete, and rightfully so. What he did to those poor dogs was indescribably sick.

I am not the first person to ask this question: Was Vick in the wrong business? Had he inflicted such suffering on innocent humans, plenty of people would be in his corner.

Had Vick been an abortionist snuffing out the lives of innocent unborn babies, lots of people would have defended his actions.

Had Vick been a president who ordered the invasion of a country that had done nothing to America, thereby killing thousands of innocent people, plenty of people would praise him as a great hero. Had Vick tortured human beings at Guantanamo Bay or Abu Ghraib, many of these same people would have gone to great lengths to justify the need for such behavior.

There is a huge connection between cruelty to animals and cruelty to humans. Why are so many people who are so outraged by the former so totally indifferent toward the latter?

Douglas F. Newman

Aurora, CO

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Freely Speaking: Essays by Doug Newman

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