Warwick High School in Virginia took alumnus Michael Vick’s jersey off of display in 2007 when he went to prison for dogfighting. There was a push recently to get it restored, in the wake of Vick’s prison release and his relatively incident-free travel so far on what has been called a road to redemption, but the effort ultimately failed. On a similar note, Dallas Mayor Pro Tem Dwaine Caraway decided to award Vick a key to that city a few months back; a furor ensued, but the original gesture had a lot of supporters. What’s noteworthy here is that, for a lot of people, it’s apparently not enough that Vick is allowed to resume his life now that he has completed his sentence – he must be lauded as an outstanding citizen.
What’s particularly curious is the reasoning cited by so many as to why Vick should not only be welcomed back into society, but receive accolades normally reserved for those among us who exhibit the best examples of good citizenship: that he served his time. In the opinion of these folks, because he served his time, the slate has been wiped clean.
Sorry, no sale. So what if he served his time? Since when did it become standard that someone who goes to jail for a crime he presumably committed is regarded, once that sentence is completed, in precisely the same way as someone who committed no such transgressions?
Forgiving is not the same as forgetting, and it is in our best interests that it be no such thing. Remembering is partly an act of self-preservation and we do it to protect ourselves as well as society, at large. Pragmatically speaking, forgiving means that one is allowed to resume a normal life, more or less, but we still reserve the right to keep an eye on that person and on the things he's doing, and yes, even make judgments about those things, at least to ourselves.
Do we generally regard ex-cons as people that never committed their crimes in the first place? Of course not. If you are a Vick sycophant, that’s fine, but don’t pretend that if some no-name ex-con…especially if he’s one who committed a violent crime to earn his incarceration…moved in next door to you, that you would adopt a similar position to that with which you want the rest of us to adopt with respect to Vick, let alone nominate him for Citizen of the Year.
In the end, paying your debt to society is not the same thing as never having had a debt to society. Most of us seem to grasp that OK; for those that don’t…how ‘bout getting with the program?
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Bob Yetman, Editor-at-Large at Christian Money.com (www.christianmoney.com), is an author of a variety of materials on personal finance and investing, as well as on topics of fitness and self defense, to include the book Investor's Passport to Hedge Fund Profits (John Wiley & Sons, Inc.) and the unarmed combat training DVD Thunderstrikes - How to Develop One Shot, One Kill Striking Power (Paladin Press).
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