Ethics Debate

A Facebook friend from Connecticut posted this link on her profile today, a blog post by Chris Durant about football player Michael Vick.

First, a who's-who: Michael Vick is a star quarterback who spent 21 months in jail and 2 months of house arrest after being involved in a dog fighting scandal, for which he was found guilty of financing the gambling aspect of the operation, participating in dog fights, and participating into ''6 to 8'' dog executions.

Chris Durant is a diva actor who has walked out halfway through a season of a TV show and hasn't really done anything since a few cameos in 2009. Less cameos than extra work, really. Oh, and he models on the side because he's pretty. He now has more blog posts about Michael Vick than he does about his acting in a TV series.

And in yesterday's interminable post, he pretty much recaps his hatred of Vick by calling him:

a diseased human, a sadist, a user, and a fraud.

''User'', of course, because Vick tested positive for marijuana, which was a violation of his conditions. Pot. Maybe it's because I live in a real city, but weed, man, really?

As for ''diseased'', you can take it as ''in the head'', but I think Durant refers to Vick's genital herpes condition, which is something he got from someone else at some point - because that's how these things spread. Some may see he was a victim in this case, but since he did transmit it to at least one other person, I wouldn't go that far myself.

''Sadist'' because the man killed dogs. And not quickly, some by hanging. He went to jail for it.

And ''fraud'' possibly because he doesn't buy Vick's remorse.

Then he goes on and on about Vick's treatment of dogs, in graphic detail sure to turn your stomach over before going on a rampage, attacking everyone remotely connected with paying Vick (his team, the Philadelphia Eagles, his sponsor Nike, ESPN) or anyone who has accepted his apologies (Congressman Jim Moran, Humane Society CEO Wayne Pacelle) all in a holier-than-thou tone that implies ''if you disagree with me, you hate puppies and you should die a horrible death''.

I was raised to think for myself in a system that believes a crime deserves a punishment, but once it's done, the individual can be given a second chance. Harder times for harder crimes, sure, but even murderers, rapists, pedophiles and terrible actors are allowed to try to turn their lives around.

What do you think?