I’m going to take apart an article and some comments about the Trayvon Martin issue. Before we start, let me point out that this isn’t about really about the verdict itself as I don’t care about that. What I find interesting is the “journalism” and some interesting comments from the prosecutor.
The article in question was written by Liz Goodwin of Yahoo, whose qualifications for the job are no doubt unquestioned. Actually, I meant that differently... being Yahoo, I’m sure no one questioned her qualifications before they hired her. Anyway, Lizzy wrote the article that Yahoo linked to initially. It is a classic display of advocacy hiding as impartiality.
● Hey, That’s Racist! I had to laugh that Lizzy right away described Martin as “a 17 year old black boy.” For those who’ve dealt with race issues, you will quickly discover that there are two things that will always be called “racist” – conservatives calling blacks “black” rather than “African American” and calling any black male larger than about 10 “boy.” If Rush starts his monologue by calling Martin “a black boy,” you can be sure the squealing will begin.
In fact, think about it and ask yourself the last time the media called any older teen “boy,” just as they don’t call near-adult women “girls.” Those are considered offensive terms. Hence, the preferred term is “teen” (something Lizzy returns to after her opening). So why start with “black boy”? Well, Lizzy wants to give the image of this large, black male near-adult as a small child.
She also continues to call Zimmer “half-white and half-Hispanic,” in an attempt to paint this as white on black crime, even though Zimmerman would be considered Hispanic if he were the victim. Selective use of race is racism. Moreover, should race actually be relevant here? Race came up because NBC edited a video to create a racial controversy and because the usual black suspect wanted to paint this as a race crime: white man with Jim Crow evil in his heart hunting small black candy-carrying boy. But there’s no evidence of that. Basically, this case came down to a dipsh*t wannabe cop, who happened to be Hispanic and who got himself in over his head and ended up in the fight of his life. Where does “white” enter that picture unless you want to put it there?
● Facts Are What I Want Them To Be: Beyond that, Lizzy does a good job of advocating for the prosecution. She outlines the prosecution case in vivid detail, but gives the defense only a clinical nod. . . apparently the defense position was that Zimmerman “was within his rights” when he did whatever the prosecution alleged... forget that the defense denied everything. No mention is made of how the prosecution’s case imploded on witness after witness. There’s no mention of anything to support the claim of self-defense. Did you know Zimmerman was injured? You didn’t hear it from Lizzy. She makes it sound like Zimmerman shot Martin from a distance. Did you know that there were numerous witnesses (non-family members) who said that it was Zimmerman calling for help? You didn’t hear it from Lizzy, though you did hear about Martin’s noble parents saying the voice belonged to Martin. Did you know there were “witnesses” to the incident? What did they witness? Well, Lizzy never says, except she ties this in to Martin’s parents saying it was Martin calling for help. If you knew nothing, you would wonder why the jury ignored those witnesses.
She also tries to blow this into something more than it was. Did you know the case sparked a “national debate over self-defense laws and race, prompting marches and demonstrations around the country.” Yeah, only outside of the retards on Twitter the few attempts I recall to organize anything were all in Florida and they involved a couple hundred people. By that standard, there’s a national demonstration at my local Costco every time there’s a sale.
Oh, and there’s no mention to the prosecutor humiliatingly backing down to manslaughter. Instead, Lizzy just mentions that the jury also could have considered that, as if it was just always kind an option.
● The Persecutor: Anyway, then we come to the prosecutor. This turd takes the cake. He overcharged in the hopes of getting famous. He’s been stoking the racial angle from day one. And when he got to court, reality caught up with him and his witnesses refused to say what he promised and he ended up imploding on witness after witness. So either they all lied unexpectedly, or he lied to the jury about what they would tell him, which is both unethical and insanely stupid.
Ironically, at his post-loss press conference, he said, “We have from the beginning just prayed for the truth to come out.” Uh, f*ck you. First of all, truth requires you to find it, not obscure it, jerk. And what this guy tried to do repeatedly was to obscure the truth and to present a false truth. Secondly, the job of the prosecutor is to prosecute crimes, not make Hail Mary attempts to throw someone in jail to make a political statement... that’s called persecution. As an aside, he also appealed for calm even though there is no violence, which sounds a lot like incitement to me.
Anyway, what really caught my attention with this turd was this little statement from his closing argument: “Ask yourself, ‘Who lost the fight?’” That statement in a nutshell is the problem with liberals. The issue is NOT who lost. The issue was whether or not Zimmerman acted in accordance with the law or not. This idea of “let’s charge whoever lost the fight” is twisted. It is highly unjust as it makes the law arbitrary. In fact, even worse, it completely ignores morality and right and wrong for a fake-substitute version of “whoever I connect with emotionally was the victim.” This is the same BS thinking that underlies all liberal theories on criminal justice and history. . . if you lost, then you were the victim and the other guy was the bad guy.
This is why you can’t trust liberals. It makes them fools. This is why attorneys paint their little murdering sh*ts as angels and put them in suits, this is why liberals feel that mass murderers should be let out of jail once they look old and sad, and this is why liberals so often fall in love with murders and butchers, because everybody else treats them so poorly! Boo hoo.
Put simply, this is why you cannot rely on liberals to assess right and wrong, because their standard is not based on conduct, it’s based on who they see as the victim at that point in time they are asked to judge.
The article in question was written by Liz Goodwin of Yahoo, whose qualifications for the job are no doubt unquestioned. Actually, I meant that differently... being Yahoo, I’m sure no one questioned her qualifications before they hired her. Anyway, Lizzy wrote the article that Yahoo linked to initially. It is a classic display of advocacy hiding as impartiality.
● Hey, That’s Racist! I had to laugh that Lizzy right away described Martin as “a 17 year old black boy.” For those who’ve dealt with race issues, you will quickly discover that there are two things that will always be called “racist” – conservatives calling blacks “black” rather than “African American” and calling any black male larger than about 10 “boy.” If Rush starts his monologue by calling Martin “a black boy,” you can be sure the squealing will begin.
In fact, think about it and ask yourself the last time the media called any older teen “boy,” just as they don’t call near-adult women “girls.” Those are considered offensive terms. Hence, the preferred term is “teen” (something Lizzy returns to after her opening). So why start with “black boy”? Well, Lizzy wants to give the image of this large, black male near-adult as a small child.
She also continues to call Zimmer “half-white and half-Hispanic,” in an attempt to paint this as white on black crime, even though Zimmerman would be considered Hispanic if he were the victim. Selective use of race is racism. Moreover, should race actually be relevant here? Race came up because NBC edited a video to create a racial controversy and because the usual black suspect wanted to paint this as a race crime: white man with Jim Crow evil in his heart hunting small black candy-carrying boy. But there’s no evidence of that. Basically, this case came down to a dipsh*t wannabe cop, who happened to be Hispanic and who got himself in over his head and ended up in the fight of his life. Where does “white” enter that picture unless you want to put it there?
● Facts Are What I Want Them To Be: Beyond that, Lizzy does a good job of advocating for the prosecution. She outlines the prosecution case in vivid detail, but gives the defense only a clinical nod. . . apparently the defense position was that Zimmerman “was within his rights” when he did whatever the prosecution alleged... forget that the defense denied everything. No mention is made of how the prosecution’s case imploded on witness after witness. There’s no mention of anything to support the claim of self-defense. Did you know Zimmerman was injured? You didn’t hear it from Lizzy. She makes it sound like Zimmerman shot Martin from a distance. Did you know that there were numerous witnesses (non-family members) who said that it was Zimmerman calling for help? You didn’t hear it from Lizzy, though you did hear about Martin’s noble parents saying the voice belonged to Martin. Did you know there were “witnesses” to the incident? What did they witness? Well, Lizzy never says, except she ties this in to Martin’s parents saying it was Martin calling for help. If you knew nothing, you would wonder why the jury ignored those witnesses.
She also tries to blow this into something more than it was. Did you know the case sparked a “national debate over self-defense laws and race, prompting marches and demonstrations around the country.” Yeah, only outside of the retards on Twitter the few attempts I recall to organize anything were all in Florida and they involved a couple hundred people. By that standard, there’s a national demonstration at my local Costco every time there’s a sale.
Oh, and there’s no mention to the prosecutor humiliatingly backing down to manslaughter. Instead, Lizzy just mentions that the jury also could have considered that, as if it was just always kind an option.
● The Persecutor: Anyway, then we come to the prosecutor. This turd takes the cake. He overcharged in the hopes of getting famous. He’s been stoking the racial angle from day one. And when he got to court, reality caught up with him and his witnesses refused to say what he promised and he ended up imploding on witness after witness. So either they all lied unexpectedly, or he lied to the jury about what they would tell him, which is both unethical and insanely stupid.
Ironically, at his post-loss press conference, he said, “We have from the beginning just prayed for the truth to come out.” Uh, f*ck you. First of all, truth requires you to find it, not obscure it, jerk. And what this guy tried to do repeatedly was to obscure the truth and to present a false truth. Secondly, the job of the prosecutor is to prosecute crimes, not make Hail Mary attempts to throw someone in jail to make a political statement... that’s called persecution. As an aside, he also appealed for calm even though there is no violence, which sounds a lot like incitement to me.
Anyway, what really caught my attention with this turd was this little statement from his closing argument: “Ask yourself, ‘Who lost the fight?’” That statement in a nutshell is the problem with liberals. The issue is NOT who lost. The issue was whether or not Zimmerman acted in accordance with the law or not. This idea of “let’s charge whoever lost the fight” is twisted. It is highly unjust as it makes the law arbitrary. In fact, even worse, it completely ignores morality and right and wrong for a fake-substitute version of “whoever I connect with emotionally was the victim.” This is the same BS thinking that underlies all liberal theories on criminal justice and history. . . if you lost, then you were the victim and the other guy was the bad guy.
This is why you can’t trust liberals. It makes them fools. This is why attorneys paint their little murdering sh*ts as angels and put them in suits, this is why liberals feel that mass murderers should be let out of jail once they look old and sad, and this is why liberals so often fall in love with murders and butchers, because everybody else treats them so poorly! Boo hoo.
Put simply, this is why you cannot rely on liberals to assess right and wrong, because their standard is not based on conduct, it’s based on who they see as the victim at that point in time they are asked to judge.
66 comments:
I think that you summarized it neatly, counselor.
Thanks. I saw tonight that several other high profile attorneys are now saying something similar about the job of the prosecutor being to prosecute crimes, not make political statements. That's actually in the code of ethics. Their obligation is to the truth, not to getting a conviction, but few prosecutors like to remember that.
On the point about liberals, let me also point that because they see "the black boy" as the victim, they have abandoned their usual argument when they don't want to punish the killer: "What does it help to punish this person? It won't undo anything." Apparently, this time it will help... somehow. But again, that's because they aren't being genuine in their arguments, they are judging the victim on who they like better. Funny how inconsistency can be so consistent.
Here is another blog's take on the trial.
LINK
Your thoughts? (I love his knocks against Nancy Grace and Gloria Allred.)
I also find it humorous some people think that the Martin Family can appeal an acquittal.
Oh and Andrew, I sent you an email today.
very good. If one looks strictly at the legal issues, there was no chance of conviction, because of burden of proof is on the prosecution to show Zimmerman did not fear for his life. But this case has been about race baiting from the get go. I won't go so far as to say the Obama administration directly acted in accordance with their liberal friends in the media. But, Obama was in trouble in his re-election because of his lousy record, and an apparent fear that many who voted for him might sit home in 2012. So, gin up a case to make it look like another racially motivated killing. Reverend Al, NBC, CNN all jumped in to push a narrative based on a lot of assumptions. One that burned my butt today was a report from Reuters that mentioned Zimmerman was half white and half Hispanic; then referred to Obama as the first black president. This from a news wire service!
But, you are right. The modern liberal/progressive are about outcome, not process. Good post, especially for an ill blogger :)
Kit, I'm too sick to respond to e-mails at the moment, or to read other blogs.
As for appealing, people are ignorant.
Thanks Jed. Agreed about the "half-white" crap. So that's what it takes to create a race issue these days, huh? Relabeling people as white when you want and not when you don't? That tells us more about the mindset of those people than it tells us anything else.
In truth, I think Obama has been surprisingly restrained. This has been the Al Sharpton show from the get go and he and his ilk lack the kind of power they once had. Virtually no demonstrations before the verdict and only a handful now in the usual cities is pretty uninspired.
Don't be surprised though when DOJ charges him with something... if they can find something.
Anyway, must sleep! Talk to you all tomorrow.
Andrew,
Its ok.
re appealing. I actually broke into laughter upon reading those tweets.
I don't know what to say about Zimmerman, and how people feel about neighborhood cops, or how aggressive he might have been. I don't liv in a high crime area, but I can understand how people who do might form such groups. No they shouldn't play cop, but I can understand how a person doing so might feel the need to have some protection. The prosecution wanted to paint a picture that Zimmerman somehow provoked Martin. They had no evidence to prove it. The evidence showed that Martin decided to mix it up with Zimmerman and was, apparently, beating the crap out of him. Given the law, and the only actual evidence, acquittal is the only appropriate verdict. The crime here, is really those who have pushed this in a way to inflame emotions.
I also have to wonder if there are any crimes being committed by people like the rapper, Spike Lee, and the N.Y. Giant w.r. who are treading close to inciting violence?
Zimmerman is a play cop who deserves to die. The slower and more painful the better. Nothing that could possibly happen to him or his brother would distress me in the slightest. That being said, the prosecution's case was terrible and the jury's decision was fair.
Jed,
Let's consider for a moment. There were a lot of crazy allegations made about Zimmerman but common sense dictates no one who was planning a murder would call 911 first. The thing is his actions were not the mark of a sane person, but an impulsive play cop.
Zimmerman stalked Martin, then declined to identify himself to Martin when Martin walked up to him while he was in the car on the phone with 911. Despite the virtual presence of the police, the relatively safety from physical attack afford by his vehicle and the very real presence of his gun, Zimmerman was afraid.
Once a weirded out Martin sought to flee from the armed but terrified man who stalked him and refused to talk to him, the then excited Zimmerman said 'They always get away' and charged after him. Maybe he chambered around and took off the safety, maybe he always walks around like that.
Once he was off the phone with the police is where things get murky, but the theory I constructed as soon as I heard the case and advanced during the original (as far as I know) Zimmerman thread was that Zimmerman was a play cop who chased a guy into an alley (never bothering to identify himself, because well, all people should magically sense that in the inside of his head, Zimmerman is cop) and killed the guy for resisting.
By Zimmerman's testimony, the spirit of insanity that had motivated him to pursue a man he was terrified of and believed was a criminal into a dark alley rather than wait for police suddenly deserted him once he was off the phone. At that point the malicious spirit of insanity leaped into Martin, who then ambushed Zimmerman for no reason at all, despite the fact the now sane man was just trying to get back to his car.
You can believe the two men switched crazy hats, or your can believe that Zimmerman is lying about what happened when he was off the phone and that he continued his previous pattern of behavior and found and a hiding Martin who then resisted him and was killed.
When fighting an insane and possibly armed stalker the only thing an unarmed person can do is either bend over and grab his ankles and ask the man to be gentle or put the nutjob down and keep him there.
Zimmerman, whose lifetime of preparation for the moment didn't stop him from losing the fight was frustrated because his little fantasy was no longer going his way ('I was going to arrest him and be a hero!) and possibly in fear for his life (the stuff an unarmed man has to do to keep an armed guy from getting to his gun isn't pleasant for the armed guy) and killed Martin.
My story is more in keeping with the known (911 tape) behavior of the principles and the evidence than Zimmerman's but of course, Zimmerman is the only living person who was there, so he told his unconvincing story and got to walk away a free man.
Wow, Anthony. But just for the sake of argument, fortunately for us all, we all die. At least be honest. What you really meant is that someone should murder him because "he deserves to die", right? Oh, and his brother too, right? If that is NOT what you meant, the please enlighten me.
Anthony.....Fascinating psychological analysis of what went on in the minds of the two. I think we all have a "play" in our minds as to what went on during the altercation, based on our own background, experiences and outlook. "I woulda done this, so therefore, maybe Z or M was thinking the same thing."
Unfortunately, the law is supposed to deal with the known facts of a case, not our supposed idea of what we think might have happened. When the facts aren't there to support our take, I think we then tend to go "extra-legal" and begin to speculate. It SHOULD be difficult to convict when the facts aren't on your side. The law has been abused and mis-applied throughout Western jurisprudence I'm sure. Yes, I'm sure blacks have been 'railroaded' in the past and whites have gotten off when all the evidence proved otherwise. However, I don't think we should let past abuses change current application.
One of the other issues I have, is the question of what the hell does the US Fed Gov't doing with a "Community Relations" division? I guess this is what happens when a community activists is the head of the gov't?
Anyway, count me as one who could care less whichever way this verdict came out. As many commenters have stated, all this debacle has done is expose (further) the idiotic, ignorant and biased views of many in the public eye. "If I had a son......."
It also should be pointed out that what made the Zimmerman case famous was that the local police department. They had recently initially declined to prosecuted the white son of a cop for beating a black homeless guy for laughs but then changed their minds only after the video went viral so trust was in short supply when they decided to let Zimmerman walk after killing Martin.
If they had prosecuted Zimmerman from the start, the case wouldn't have become a big deal. The Tulsa shootings of last year didn't become a big deal because the system prosecuted the shooters.
For those unfamiliar with the Tulsa shootings, Good Friday of 2012 a guy and his buddy (both white) drove around randomly shooting black men (five shot, only three dead) because a black guy (who was tried, convicted and jailed and thus unreachable) had killed England's father two years prior.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2126532/Tulsa-shootings-Gunman-shot-5-black-victims-Good-Friday-rampage.html
Also, while its Zimmerman's delusions of cophood that were important that night, not his race, for the sake of accuracy, I'll point out that hispanics throughout Latin America refer to themselves and others as white, brown or black.
The difference with America is that they are more liberal about categories (in the US most go by the one drop rule) and tend to classify themselves as members of the lighter (higher caste) group. People with dark (moreno) skin such as Zimmerman often call themselves white, people with black (negro) skin sometimes call themselves brown.
Bev,
I said Zimmerman deserves to die. Zimmerman's brother is a racist idiot whose death wouldn't bother me (see article below), but he hasn't killed anyone, so while the world would be no poorer for his loss, he doesn't deserve death.
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http://www.mediaite.com/online/george-zimmermans-brother-pimping-comparison-of-trayvon-martin-and-alleged-georgia-baby-killer/
Robert Zimmerman, Jr., brother of Trayvon Martin shooter George Zimmerman, continued his everything-including-the-racist-kitchen-sink PR offensive on behalf of his brother by repeatedly tweeting a photo comparison of the teenager his brother shot, and De’Marquise Elkins, the 17 year-old who has been detained in the murder of a Georgia infant. Both pictures feature the young men flipping the middle finger at the camera, with the caption “A picture speaks a thousand words…Any questions?”
Zimmerman has, thus far, tweeted the comparison to the Anthony half of Opie and Anthony, Michael Moore, the NAACP, and a Breitbart News editor, as well as the NRA. If Zimmerman’s point is that anyone who uses that gesture is a murderer, then they’re going to have to arrest the entire Garden State Parkway. If you suspect that wasn’t his point, you might be right.
Patriot,
As I stated in my first post in this thread, the prosecution's case was weak, so it was reasonable for the jury to let Zimmerman walk.
However, Zimmerman's idiocy got Martin killed, so its just as reasonable for someone to do something about it. Its unlikely to happen, but it would be nice and whoever did it would no doubt be able to raise a substantial legal defense fund (kind of like Zimmerman did).
It's rare that a disaster or a tragedy comes out of nowhere...you can follow a line of decisions made by people, in this case two people, Martin and Zimmermann. Zimmermann should not have followed Martin and Martin should not have laid in wait and attacked Zimmermann. Anyone who carries a gun, civilian or police has a responsibility to exercise more common sense than normal in my opinion. I hate it that the young man was killed. The black community, and from what I'm seeing all communities, need to remind their young people that you cannot attack someone without consequences. This thug mentality is not cute, or sexy, or glamarous, it's dangerous. The media is very much to blame for much of the friction, they pick and choose their stories to sell air time, not to act like journalists.
I'm curious about one thing. Can someone tell me why there were only 6 jurors instead of 12? I've never heard anyone explain why this trial was set up that way.
I said Zimmerman deserves to die. Zimmerman's brother is a racist idiot whose death wouldn't bother me (see article below), but he hasn't killed anyone, so while the world would be no poorer for his loss, he doesn't deserve death.
Anthony - I will quote you again "Nothing that could possibly happen to him or his brother would distress me in the slightest."
Really? You could not have been clearer. And I am calling you out on it. Just so I am being clear, I think ALL violent rhetoric is reprehensible. All it leads to is more violence and more broken families and more acts of injustice from ALL sides. And it doesn't change a damn thing. But then frankly, I don't think anyone really wants it to change. Then what will the race-baiters on both sides do for a living?
I'm not backing away from my words. My point is that Zimmerman's killing of Martin means he has earned death. Zimmerman's brother is a piece of crap whose death wouldn't bother me in the slightest, but in fairness, he hasn't killed anyone so he's probably not high on anyone's to-do list.
Yes, violence does lead to broken families, but I confess I'm not a pacifist and believe that sometimes violence is needed to either avert wrongs or right them. Passively resisting evil sometimes leads to evil having a change of heart, sometimes it just leads to more death.
Critch,
Martin was certainly winning the fight, but what makes you think he was the aggressor besides Zimmerman's self serving claim that he was?
According to Zimmerman Martin ran away into an alley after Zimmerman (who had been stalking him) refused to identify himself. Zimmerman then ran after him. Florida has a stand your ground law, so presumably there is no legal obligation for people to run from psychos (or submit to them).
Martin's mistake was not in fighting Zimmerman but in failing take him out of action.
If you resist an armed criminal or nutjob, they will kill you if you give them the opportunity. That is known and has been known since forever, which is why some people (probably most) submit and hope for the best ('Please don't hurt me, just take my wallet and go and I swear I won't tell anyone!'). Others resist.
Martin (who had no way of knowing Zimmerman was a play cop and not a mugger or killer) was killed for resisting and the system let his killer walk, which makes sense given the law (doesn't matter that Zimmerman forced the confrontation, it matters that he was getting beaten badly), but isn't something that people should necessarily let go.
"Yes, violence does lead to broken families, but I confess I'm not a pacifist and believe that sometimes violence is needed to either avert wrongs or right them. Passively resisting evil sometimes leads to evil having a change of heart, sometimes it just leads to more death."
And it ALWAYS just leads to dead children and innocents caught in your crossfire literally. Do you also feel as passionately about the children, almost ALWAYS black who are killed daily by other black children/teens/young adults? Or the very real culture of violence perpetuated and coddled within black culture for what reason I cannot begin to understand.
Don't get me wrong, I think ALL racists should be shunned from society, and I have spent my life trying to do just that. But, you lose my sympathy when calling for more violence and more death.
Anthony,
ARe you advocating vigilantism? That people should take the law into their own hands and act as judge, jury, and executioner on their own, disregarding all due process?
Is that what you are saying?
Bev.....Not just the "black community" but OUR communities. We can't call these things by race or we perpetuate racial identity, instead of an inclusive national (American?) or just area. Why don't we hear about the "white community?" We have let ourselves be labeled again and again in order to divide us by race, sex, country of origin, etc.
I think that is the real issue here...the human propensity to identify by tribe, race, what have you, and something that this country has strived for since our founding....we are Americans. Not (insert favored label) Americans.
How to change this? All I can do is change my little corner of the world by example and speech. Like, I don't identify friends as "my black friend Randy" etc. He is "my friend."
Bev,
Yes, I am bothered when someone who didn't earn it gets killed no matter the killer. I believe I've posted here talking about kids getting killed in places like Detroit.
Drug dealers waging their little wars are to be discouraged not because their lives are of any value (if we could put them all in a cage they could eat each other for all I care) but because they are lousy shots who often wind up taking out random innocents and they make the places they live poorer and more dangerous (few businesses are willing to set up in warzones).
Last and most importantly, as I've pointed out what makes the Zimmerman case stand out is not the murder (as you point out, scores of people die at the hands of nutjobs, fools and criminals every day) but the way the system handled it. Of course, its a very unusual case.
I think a lot of conservatives paid attention to the wrong details. Some loved to point that Zimmerman being suspicious of Martin made sense given that young black guys had been burglarizing homes. I agree with that, so if Zimmerman had called the police and left it at that, I'd have no problem with the guy (of course, I never would have heard of him). My problem is the fact Zimmerman was overpowered by the need to play cop.
I do understand what you are saying, but still, using incendiary rhetoric undermines sanity. It was a bad situation all around. But then again, why did Mr. Zimmerman feel the need to play cop in the first place. Dozens of break-ins in his neighborhood. Which, btw, have stopped more than likely since the enlightening news that vigilantes will shoot first and ask questions later.
And from my perspective, and what others miss is that Mr. Martin, not really being provoked other than having Zimmerman trailing him, decided to play vigilante himself. Somewhere along the line, he didn't get the message to "not engage" and get to safety. Instead, he decided to beat the crap out of Mr. Zimmerman instead of staying out of harms way and finding the nearest place of safety. That actually might have been calling the cops and not his girlfriend...
Testosterone-fueled stupity of all parties.
Bev, Testosterone-fueled stupity of all parties.
I totally agree. This is a clash to two cultures. Zimmerman clearly saw himself as part of the the Hollywood "tough cop" culture, the one where all the heroes act as badge heavy loaners. Martin was part of the thug culture, which say always fight and don't let anyone intimidate you.
It was two fools playing chicken with both programmed not to blink. They both just picked the wrong fool to mess with.
Kit,
Zimmerman's a killer who the system let go because his rash actions conformed to the rules of the system. I think someone taking out Zimmerman (admittedly unlikely) would be fair.
They'd have to face the system, but perhaps they could make a case for self defense ('We argued, I thought he was going for his gun, so I shot first') since Zimmerman would presumably be too dead to talk.
Bev said:
why did Mr. Zimmerman feel the need to play cop in the first place. Dozens of break-ins in his neighborhood. Which, btw, have stopped more than likely since the enlightening news that vigilantes will shoot first and ask questions later.
--------
Yes, the fact that people can be killed out of hand by random nutjobs whose actions are sanctioned by the law probably makes for less outsiders of any sort visiting a community (Remember Yoshihiro Hattori the Japanese tourist who was killed by the homeowner when he knocked on his door?).
-----------
http://www.nytimes.com/1993/05/21/us/defense-depicts-japanese-boy-as-scary.html
"This is not an American or Oriental or any other known being casually walking up to the front door and saying, 'Hello, we're looking for the party,' " Mr. Unglesby said in his opening statement. "That's not what happened."
It was Yoshi Hattori's walk that made him, that dark night, frightening in the lawyer's telling. "Yoshi had an extremely unusual way of moving," Mr. Unglesby told the jury. "It's been described as aggressive. It's been described as kinetic. It's been described as antsy.
"It's been described as scary," Mr. Unglesby concluded. "He would come right up to you, as fast as he could."
Mr. Peairs, by contrast, was nothing but a regular guy, "one of your neighbors," Mr. Unglesby began by telling the jurors. He said he was a good mechanic, a steady employee of the Winn-Dixie supermarket, a man who liked sugar in his grits. 'Cried and Cried'
"No killer," he "cried and cried" when he discovered he had shot Yoshi Hattori, Mr. Unglesby said.
If the lawyer convinces the jury that Yoshi Hattori's walk was indeed "scary," his killing might be justifiable homicide under Louisiana's 1976 "shoot-the-burglar" law. That law lets a person kill an intruder if he "reasonably believes" the intruder is trying to rob the house and might use violence against the occupants.
---
Bare in mind, Anthony, Zimmerman didn't shoot until he was being pummeled. So what happened in reality is entirely different from the guy who shot because of a "threatening" walk. If Zimmerman had shot and killed Martin from a distance because he felt threatened by whatever, that is different and WOULD be going to jail and rightfully so.
Again all that being said, it still does not excuse fueling the fire with death threats.
Anthony,
Nobody here is arguing that this was a tragic and tragically stupid event. The discussion is regarding how it was prosecuted. Because the prosecuting attorney was more interested in improving his political aspirations and public image, he unethically tried to convict Zimmerman of murder. The problem was there wasn't enough evidence and he knew it. So instead of perhaps looking for a lesser crime he could convict, he went with the dog and pony show and lost. Kudos to the jury who saw through it.
The reality is we really don't know exactly what happened that night. Is Zimmerman lying? Probably but it is not relevant. It isn't his responsibility to prove his innocence. The jury didn't say he was not guilty of any crime just the crime they were asked to judge on. The prosecution probably could have gotten him on gross negligence and probably would have made a deal with Zimmerman possibly including some jail time but that wouldn't have been as sexy.
Personally, I think the prosecuting lawyer should be disbarred for unethical behavior. I always felt this case was completely over blown and didn't care much about it. Unfortunately, we won't here the last as some greasy lawyer (sorry Andrew) will surely convince the family to sue Zimmerman in civil court.
Anthony, That's not correct. The people who have tried to make this about race are claiming that the message is: "A white man can hunt a black child and then claim self defense to get away with murder."
That's a total distortion.
The fault on this lies entirely with the prosecutor who wanted to grandstand. If the prosecutor hadn't made this into a racial case and tried to swing for the bleachers to make a political statement when the evidence didn't support it, Zimmerman would have been convicted of negligent manslaughter and the message would have been: "If you go looking for a fight and the guy dies, even if you didn't intend it, you will go away for a long time."
The ONLY reason Zimmerman "got away with it" was the desire of the race baiters to way overcharge him so they could exploit this. They wanted to indict Zimmerman for being evil because it satisfies their mindset. They should have charged him with being an unlucky fool and been happy with that.
Sorry if it appears I am playing "pile on Anthony" today. Please take it in the spirit of a debate and nothing more.
"(Remember Yoshihiro Hattori the Japanese tourist who was killed by the homeowner when he knocked on his door?)."
And here is the ugly flipside...this is what happens over and over in my general region of the world.
LINK
This woman did not have any protection, just two small children and a nanny-cam.
Since the article is about media malpractice, I'll try to stay on-point. From the time I heard the description "white-Hispanic" and saw that the press was issuing severely outdated photos of the deceased, I knew there was no objective telling of this story coming from them. And that was before the selective-editing of the 911 call.
What all that makes clear to me is that, from the get-go, the media has sought an arbitrary application of the law, just as Andrew describes of the prosecutor. Personally, I think it is worse than mere "blame the victor" mentality (an excellent summation of liberalism, all the same) as I have little doubt that had the outcome of the altercation been reversed, we wouldn't have heard more than an incidental new blip.
As was pointed out in an article here last week, the race "debate" (whatever that means--race seems pretty immutable, much less debatable) is ending, not b/c of anything decisive, but from weariness and irrelevance. The more egg the media smears on its own collective faces, the more apparent it is that their coverage of the Martin/Zimmerman story was meant as a defibrillation to the race issue. Yet the patient continues to slip away.
And today, several outlets have so much as admitted that. I've heard a few commentators expressing how a trial such as Zimmerman's is poor proxy for the race debate. Sort of an ex post facto denial that what was done was intended. (I detect the faintest whiff of irony.) Strange how such a commentary never aired before or during the trial. They never even braced for this possible outcome.
NOTE: before anyone takes the time to elucidate me on the meaning of "race debate," know that I do understand what the term expresses. That's just my way of pointing out how the accepted shorthand for all the issues surrounding race in America so woefully misses the concept described.
Koshcat, Sometimes being a greasy lawyer helps. I all but had to threaten to sue a doctor last week if he didn't do a culture on the infection in my leg. After a ten minute argument he finally relented after the threat and he made a lengthy speech about what for a waste of money it would be blah blah. Today, I'm on new antibiotics because of that.
Andrew,
Amen. They might have even gotten a manslaughter conviction had they stuck with that but instead, like Icarus, they flew too high.
I followed your link Bev but I then got more interested in the body's found in Poland that were executed as vampires.
Damn doctors.
tryanmax, I think a key to remember is that the MSM (and the conservative MSM) are not like the rest of the country. They are very radicalized. To them, race is always an issue (so is gender and any other -ism). They blew this case up not because they needed to save the racism industry, but because that's how they see the world. And once they did, all the usual suspects jumped into it and did their usual routine.
Koshcat, Just some of them. My normal guy is great, but he was in Mexico last week, so I went to an Urgent Care to get the culture done and this guy refused to do it because he didn't think I had an infection. It took a lot to force the issue.
Kit, The problem is one of salesmanship. If you tell the jury you're going to prove evil intent, the jury will judge the case by that. Lessor included charges really only work as a compromise, where the jury is split on the charge you pushed.
Question: If you were a prosecutor and it was likely that there would be riots and revenge murders if you didn't bring a charge against someone, would you do it, if only to stall for time and let tensions calm down? Add that officials you knew, like the Chief of Police, had been fired for not going with the mob? Finally, the national media was in your pants and whipping up hatred while other people were giving out addresses of the principle's families?
A while back I read "Hooded Americanism: The History of the Ku Klux Klan", it struck me how similar the present period is with the 20s and 30s when both progressivism and the Klan version of mob rule were in full bloom.
Andrew, true and thanks for correcting me. Still, I get the sense that they've noticed it's not so easy to rile people up on race anymore. Another repeated theme I've heard today is how inherently racist it was (for that other news organization) to suggest there would be riots following a not-guilty verdict. (But we never said anything like that, did we? No, never.)
Andrew,
I agree w/ you. They overcharged.
Andrew,
My big takeaway was 'We're going to continue to let the village idiot roam around starting fights with people who don't look like they belong and finishing them with his gun'.
I think those who saw it as an example of a racially motivated shooting are wrong (Zimmerman is a play cop, not a racist killer) and your statement that a different lesser charges could have resulted in a conviction sounds reasonable, but in fairness the system was going to let Zimmerman skate without filing any type of charges, so even without Sharpton's involvement Zimmerman would have been a free man.
Bev,
In my defense, they are death wishes, not death threats. If I ever decide to end someone's life I am certainly not going to go around talking about it.
And that video you linked to is brutal. They need to make sure that guy doesn't see daylight again.
...but in fairness the system was going to let Zimmerman skate without filing any type of charges, so even without Sharpton's involvement Zimmerman would have been a free man.
You don't know that and due to the idiocy of the prosecuting attorney we may never know. Also it is not up to the police to arrest and charge Zimmerman. It is up to the DA to issue an arrest warrant and charges.
Anthony, You are right about that message and that's the problem with what the prosecutor did. By trying to prove EVIL!! he all but guaranteed an acquittal and thereby sanctioned the next cop wannabe. If he had aimed for something more reasonable sounding to a jury -- "no idea what his intent was, but he stupidly got someone killed," I'm sure he would have gotten a conviction and sent the right message all around.
Anthony,
I've been googling Florida's manslaughter statute. There was a case there to prove Zimmerman guilty.
Here is Murder in the 2nd Degree, which the Prosecution spent most of their time arguing for:
"The unlawful killing of a human being, when perpetrated by any act imminently dangerous to another and evincing a depraved mind regardless of human life, although without any premeditated design to effect the death of any particular individual"
Manslaughter, which the prosecution turned to at the last minute in their closing arguments:
"Killing of a human being by the act, procurement, or culpable negligence of another, without lawful justification according to the provisions of chapter 776 and in cases in which such killing shall not be excusable homicide or murder"
Andrew - What?? The doctor refused to culture your infection? That's crazy!! If anything, you should have been over-treated.
Kit,
So it looks like all the prosecution had to prove was that Trayvon was a goofy teenager doing goofy teenager things, like walking to 7-11 at night in the rain to get candy and not a danger to anyone to get manslaughter.
Koshcat,
Before outsiders such as Sharpton got involved and a special prosecutor had been appointed it had been announced that no charges would be filed. Cops didn't bother to drug test Zimmerman and they dragged their feet about interviewing witnesses.
The prosecutor seems to be an incompetent idiot, but the local cops didn't cover themselves in glory either.
---------
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/11/george-zimmerman-trayvon-martin-charged-second-degree-murder_n_1417198.html
Law enforcement experts said that Sanford police made key errors early in the investigation and made crucial decisions before important evidence was gathered.
Martin's cell phone records were not immediately checked. Investigators did not talk with key witnesses for more than a week. While police conducted a criminal background check on Martin, as well as post-mortem drug and alcohol tests, Zimmerman was not subjected to similar tests. It was learned later that Zimmerman was arrested in 2005 for assaulting a police officer.
Bev, I was stunned. I've never had to argue with a doctor before, but this guy insisted there was no infection.
He said, "It just looks like swelling." Uh... it's seeping golden, which means staph infection. Plus pain, fever, etc. "No, it's just swelling. And you don't have a fever either, because you're only at 99.9 and that's not a technical fever."
He then refused again and said a culture would be a waste of money. I told him, "It's my money to waste, so run it." He refused.
After a few more minutes like this, I told him that I would be very upset if I had an infection and didn't know it because he didn't culture it and then I ended up in the hospital on a vancomycin drip for a month for an untreated infection and "had to sue you for malpractice because you refused to run a culture for an obvious infection."
That's when he did it. And they didn't even call me with the results so I had to go down there and get the results today and take them to my regular guy -- Staph and Strep.
That is a little odd, Andrew. Usually it is the other way around. That is we get a culture and grow a bug that we can't tell if it is real or just a plain skin contaminant.
Koshcat, It was really unusual. I've never had to push to get a culture before.
This is a pretty fair assessment of Al Sharpton et al. in all of this from a comment on HuffPo:
“Last year, Al Sharpton, the Martin family and thousands of protesters were arguing to simply arrest Zimmerman and put him on trial. He was.
Last week, Al Sharpton, the Martin family and thousands of protesters were arguing that Zimmerman should simply have his day in court, that he have a FAIR TRIAL. He did.
This week, after the trial is over, Al Sharpton and the Martin family lawyer are ignoring the trial to argue that the federal Justice Department should prosecute Zimmerman...”
And now Al Sharpton is staging 100 marches all over the country to protest that even though they got all of the above (the requested arrest, charges, AND trial) they didn't get the outcome they wanted. Right up to the jury decision, ALL of the demands had been met. That comes back to haunt us...equality in outcome.
C'mon, Bev, with all credit to South Park for the inspiration, give a nagger a mile ...
Let's leave South Park out of it.
// pink eye....
OT: Have to say this, I find myself in agreement with Michelle Obama. She's pushing kids to walk to school instead of riding a bus. I am shocked how few kids walk these days. This is a good thing.
In high school I watched an idiot call a football player "black boy". The football player was big black and was a nice guy, until some white idiot insulted him. It's ok for libs to make such statements and nobody cares. They need to meet such a high school football player, and say those words to his face. That would be fun to watch.
Andrew what was up with the judge making statements to the defense attorneys(if I have that right). The attorneys looking confused and trying to challenge the judge?
Max, I didn't see anything unusual in how the judge acted. I know some people made a big deal about the judge being nasty or demanding to know if Zimmerman would testify, but that's not at all unusual.
Countdown to Catastrophe
JULY 15, 1914 (99 years ago today…)
High-ranking Austrian officials attempt to maintain calm in the empire and abroad by remaining silent on their plans for Serbia. All Austrian diplomats are to avoid discussion of Sarajevo when talking with foreign representatives (both enemies and allies).
In Budapest, Hungarian Prime Minister Tisza works hard to deflect questions about Serbia. He tells the Hungarian Diet that “the government is fully conscious of all the weighty interests in favor of the maintenance of peace…[and] is not of the opinion that the clearing up of the [Serbian] question will necessarily involve warlike complications.” However, he cautions that “every state…must be in a position to carry on war as an 'ultima ratio,'” buts adds that he won’t “indulge in any prophesies.”
In Vienna, Austrian Prime Minister Count Karl Sturgkh has it a little easier: the Austrian Reichsrat is not currently in session.
While the Austrian Foreign Office’s clandestine activities continue, Count Heinrich von Lutzow has lunch at his country estate with an old friend, Sir Maurice de Bunsen, British Ambassador to Austria. Worried about what Berchtold had told him two days earlier, Lutzow decides to get some anxiety off his chest and tells de Bunsen about the grave situation developing in Vienna. In a report he later files with the British Foreign Office in London, de Bunsen described Lutzow saying that the Austrian government “was not going to stand Serbian insolence any longer…A note was being drawn up and would be completed when the Sarajevo inquiry was finished…No futile discussions would be tolerated. If Serbia did not at once cave in, force would be used to compel her.”
Note: This is one of several leaks that occur between the July 7th meeting and the delivery of the ultimatum to Serbia. (This one, however, has greater effects along the international grapdevine.)
I decided to post the WWI update a little earlier tonight, since I'll be busy.
That's what I figured, I mostly ignored the trial except for what was on talk radio. After all if a kid is beating the guys skull on the ground. Anything that happens to that kid afterward, is only brought on by the kid. I once heard a joke from Cris Rock, if you don't want to get into trouble. Don't break the law.
What's really pathetic is how much they wanted to turn it into a show trial. Glad the libs got egg on their face. I hope Obama was involved.
Max, the left is as dishonest here as ever. It is good they didn´t get their way.
On the other hand, people on the right shouldn´t feel too smug about the whole affair. There are no winners here. In the end, the whole thing is a tragedy because it was unnecessary.
When it started, Zimmerman was looking for burglars and Martin was just walking there. For all I know Martin acted stupidly and aggressively, as teenagers often do, but Zimmerman could and should have defused the situation earlier on. I have no doubt he acted in self-defense at the time when he used his gun, but being legally within your rights isn´t everything. With hindsight, Zimmerman made a serious mistake, even if it doesn´t make him a murderer.
It seems that State Attorney Angela Corey has an interesting past when it comes to her work as a prosecutor.
LINK
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