Douchebag pleads guilty

So, Michael Vick decided to plead guilty to federal dogfighting conspiracy charges earlier today, and so the question now is what will become of his career? I was reading this article on Yahoo! News and saw this quote in it from Green Bay general manager Ron Wolf:

"If he [Vick] pays his debt to society, why shouldn't he get another chance?" asked Wolf. "Maybe I don't understand something in all of this, but you're supposed to get a second chance in this country."

In a perfect world with unicorns and candy rainbows and elves who make cookies in hollow trees, yeah, the dude should be given a second chance. But in reality? I don't see it happening. First, the 'second chance' this guy is talking about is the chance for ex-cons to come out of prison and go be productive members in society, not return to star positions on a professional football team and make millions of dollars.

But what about all the other guys in the NFL who are ex-cons? They all got a second chance! Wolf goes on to say:

We've had a lot of people in this league do a lot of bad things, and they still got a chance," Wolf said. "Leonard Little killed someone (while drunk driving). Jamal Lewis went to prison (in connection to) selling drugs. Are you telling me that killing eight dogs is worse than killing a human being? … Yes, this is bad, but are you really telling me that he doesn't deserve a chance to play again when other people have committed crimes and come back?"

Ah, but what did the two examples that he mentioned have in common? That's right, drugs and alcohol. We are a society that is willing to forgive anyone after they stand up and say "I have a problem with drugs" or I have a problem with alcohol" or "I have a problem with Internet porn" or whatever. We cut addicts a lot of slack because in our society we understand that to have an addiction is to have an incurable disease, and even if they fake like they have a problem we still tend to go along with it. You can be addicted to gambling, but I don't think anyone would buy that you were addicted to slaughtering dogs and being a total douchebag.

But I think the biggest reason that Vick will probably never make a comeback is that we are a society of dog lovers. Just turn on Animal Planet for a day and you can tell by the number of times they play shows about animal cops or vets. We have entire stores dedicated to the upkeep and pampering of dogs. We might be a society that forgives someone with a substance abuse problem, but I doubt anyone will forgive Vick for the wholesale torture and killing of dogs. And people who can't forgive are people who won't buy tickets. And if you can't get people to buy tickets to a football game, you can't expect that any team is going to want to hire you after you're done paying your debt to society.