What’s up…
…with the Zimmerman trial?
The State seems to have suffered the most destructive of its own witnesses to date in calling John Good to the stand.Good was composed, coherent, and direct through his extensive testimony, the entirety of which was entirely consistent with the defense’s theory of lawful self-defense.
Indeed, as has become the pattern in this trial, the longer the State’s witness was in the stand, the more damage he did to the State’s theory of the case.
It seems as though with most of the witnesses the prosecution has been calling, they’d do better to have called none at all, so damaging has their testimony been to the prosecution’s own case.
The only conclusion to come to is that they have no case. They have no better witnesses and no better evidence. And yet they feel they must go ahead with the trial because of political reasons.
An even more chilling thought is that they will succeed, and that perhaps they even already know they will succeed. Maybe they think the jury will feel the risk of not finding Zimmerman guilty would simply be too high because there will be riots in the streets. Maybe the prosecution knows it therefore can just phone it in. Or maybe those who stand to gain from this case feel it’s a win-win situation for them either way: either Zimmerman is convicted, or he is acquitted and race riots will ensue, and it’s all good.
It is difficult to get cynical enough these days, because events keep racing ahead.
If you recall early in this case some supporting Martin’s family were publishing a Zimmerman’s address suggestion possible revenge. Unfortunately it was the wrong Zimmerman and the wrong address.
I certainly wouldn’t want to be a juror on this trial.
Agreed – it’s hard to be cynical or to be humorous in these times, because reality keeps leapfrogging ahead of you.
The only hope for the prosecuters may be that all six jurors are scared out of their ever-loving-minds of the prospect of race riots if they acquit. OTO – I wonder if the average person of pallor (such as myself) isn’t getting just sick and tired of being whipsawed by potential threats of race riots. No matter how you slice it, the prize witness is an entitled, illiterate, dumb-as-a-stump racist. The second prize witness confirms Zimmerman’s version of events. So, there you are.
If this were happening in Texas, I would be better able to guess at the mindset of the jurors -but Florida to me is anyone’s supposition. I can only hope they would be insulted and revolted as being asked to be part of a legal lynch mob. If, after all that we are seeing on display, Zimmerman is found guilty, I guess we will find out how whites (and white Hispanics) riot.
My somewhat charitable take is that they are prosecuting Zimmerman because it would be too politically difficult not to. They know he is innocent and hope he is acquitted but they have to put on a credible enough effort so it doesn’t look like they are sandbagging.
Their behavior is nonetheless horrible: They should not put an innocent man in jeopardy and they should not be putting him through the hardship of defending himself. Again.
My heart goes out to Zimmerman and his family.
Here was a guy who stepped up, thought he was doing good for his community, ended up having to kill to defend his own life.
And then he is put through this?!
Shame on all those who aren’t helping him who could.
Back to blood.
In her post yesterday at 1:38PM, Neo cited Instapundit’s take on this in her earlier post, and I think he’s right. Here’s what he said:
Has any country in the world ever been held hostage by the wilder, less informed elements of 12% of its population? A percent of the 12%? But then again, they are aided by perhaps 30% of the white population who see people in terms of race/victim groups, etc, and not individuals.
Go ahead and riot. There’s a lot of people around who aren’t as restrained as Zimmerman here.
This has all the elements of a Stalinist political show trial. It is an atrocity.
I agree with Instapundit’s take.
I’m very disturbed by a female judge and an all-female jury. I’ve never heard of such a thing. Whatever happened to “a jury of your peers”?
And the media has been lying and twisting this into a “racial incident” from day one. These people are living in a time warp. They act like it’s still Mississippi in 1955 with the Klan running amok, and Trayvon Martin being a modern-day Emmett Till.
More than anyone else, it is the media who are ginning up racial hatred, and they are probably going to get their wish.
If anything happens after this trial, the media will have blood on their hands. But hey, riots are good for ratings, right?
Should have linked Emmett Till.
Riots are also good for effecting real policy changes.
Eric Says:
June 28th, 2013 at 8:39 pm
Like making self-defense illegal? They’re already done that in England.
Who needs gun control? You can have all the guns you want. But it’s a crime to use them.
Who benefits if Zimmerman is acquitted?
A Race War is desired….or rather the threat of one is desired.
When the Left goes to war, the left goes to war. Several divisions of soldiers are being called up for action when and where they are required.
If I recall correctly, Trayvon’s autopsy revealed no defensive bruising and no bruising or abrasions anywhere but his knuckles. His only wound was the gunshot wound. On the other hand, Zimmerman had a broken and bloody nose and bleeding lacerations on the back of his head. All the physical evidence says that Zimmerman never struck Trayvon and took a major beating while on his back trapped under Trayvon. That is why the police did nothing at first. This case should never have come to trial.
Off topic, but I note from my earlier link that the IRS’ Lois Lerner has the Mussolini chin tilt down cold.
Our permanent governing class has nothing but contempt for us peasants. They mean to break us.
Most of the people on the net, the ones that proclaim themselves self defense experts, believe the Left’s propaganda. They are experts at self defense so they think they are experts at reading tea leaves and psychological warfare…. not quite.
Some people think war is a last resort.
But what that really means is that by the time people want to start up the war, they have almost lost it. What did peace first get the Europeans in WWII anyways? They should have been thinking of peace and forgiveness before WWI but they didn’t. So they over compensated in WWII.
Americans think they have so much blood on their hands that it is worth it to keep their own personal hands clean by avoiding war. Thinking that, eventually, they’ll have the luxury to pick up arms when it’s “time”.
Unlike Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan, the next US civil war isn’t an “elective” people can choose to drop or take…
Rickl: “Our permanent governing class has nothing but contempt for us peasants. They mean to break us.”
I say, we are already broken. We’ve been broken. They are arrogant and audacious now because they know that hard work has been done. They broke us. That deed is done.
The only question remaining is if the deed is final; if we can somehow remember ourselves and fight back.
There was a time once in Jewish history when a thing called “the abomination of desolation” ( a statue of Zeus) was installed in the Temple. The cause, at that point, was lost. Judaism, at that time, was simply defeated and everyone knew it.
Except for the ones who would not accept that defeat.
America, today – call it Obama, Leftism, The Ruling Elite, the Fascist Bureaucracy and bureaucrats (from the Lerner’s down to postmen) we live under – is at the equivalent stage of having the abomination of desolation installed in the temple. The Constitution is dead. Period.
But as the future Senator Blutarsky once said – “It’s not over until we say it’s over”.
Long live the Tea Party!
The black community is putting the justice system on trial in this case just as they did in the OJ trial. Blacks were convinced that OJ could not get a fair trial. Now they are convinced Trayvon Martin will not get justice. When the public’s sense of justice must be satisfied, someone gets sacrificed. In the OJ trial, it was Nicole Brown and Ronald Goldman. Here it may be Zimmerman. If Zimmerman is seen to be wrongly convicted, who will be to blame? The women-only judge and jury? If the jury acquits Zimmerman or the judge overturns the verdict, who will be to blame if riots ensue? Blacks? Somehow I doubt the media will accept responsibility for their lies and distortions. Here we see the fruits of tribalism. In the middle east there are ancient feuds between different religious groups. Liberals here have created new tribes based on race (blacks, latinos) and sex (women, gays).
Ymarsakar:
Those are some of the most profound words ever written.
They mean that people generally don’t choose violent revolution or civil war at the drop of a hat. Which is a good thing.
But at some point, when tyranny becomes too strong to bear, they must. I’m not sure where exactly along that spectrum we are. I frankly thought it would start in 2009.
Every passing day it doesn’t start worries me a little more.
Because in my opinion, we are already well past the point where violence against tyrants is justified.
“An even more chilling thought is that they [i.e., the government] will succeed,”
Needed to be repeated.
Not sure why walking outside is anyone’s damn business. What the fuck is wrong with you?
We are heading toward a civil war or an era of vigilante justice. The perversion of the United States by the Cloward-Pivens filth is no longer hidden. It’s clear that they want to destroy family life and make all beholden to the almighty State.
The Supreme Court’s ruling on DOMA is a disgusting piece of work. Ditto Obamacare. As Mike above called it, the “Abomination of Desolation.”
No moral people can put up with laws that REQUIRE them to accept sexual perversion as the law of the land. What kind of country requires people to support abortion pills for little girls, fudge-packing, incest, and murder of viable infants?
If I were a judge or supreme court justice who DEMANDED that people accept homosexual marriage, I would start to also wonder if some zealot might attack me and my family. Do all these over-reaching judges accept the risks that they are taking? Ditto these traitorous senators like rubio who so casually throw away our country to outsiders?
The Tea Party supporters have been outstandingly peaceful. Will all the dissenters be so benign? I doubt it.
We are in desperate times. I never would have believed things could spiral down as they have.
The encounter between Martin and Zimmerman is a tragedy all around. Trayvon Martin may not have been a model child, but he was loved by his family. Unfortunately, his death has put them right in the middle of this kangaroo court. If Zimmerman is convicted it will not bring them any relief. There is nothing that can heal the hearts of bereaved parents except time and prayer. They may feel a sense of justice for a day or two, but the absence of Trayvon will still be there – like a great black cloud dogging their days.
For Zimmerman and his family it is also devastating. He may lose his freedom because he believed Martin had the intent to seriously harm, perhaps kill, him. In such circumstances a reasonable man would reach for his gun. But these are not reasonable times and there is a thirst for racial “justice.”
In the mean time, Obama and his handlers will use the outcome to their advantage no matter what the outcome. It is to weep!
Blackdude . . .
What if Zimmerman was black? Shouldn’t he be allowed to defend his community? The rich white dudes who live in gated communities pay for security services. Shouldn’t lesser folks be able to defend their homes too?
I think it is well to review the sequence of events. The local police and Prosecutor did not think they had a case. The Governor caved in to race based pressure and appointed a special prosecutor. (My brother-in-law,a retired Florida Judge from the same county, knows that woman and is less than complimentary of her professional ethics) So, she gets an indictment, but she does not prosecute the case. Instead she brings in Joe Sacrificial Sixpack to prosecute. He is stuck with a loser. His own witnesses sound like they are testifying for the defense. One would naturally ask “why did he put them on the stand?”. In response he can only imply that his own witnesses may have lied to him in pretrial depositions.. Otherwise he is proven to be an idiot, when in fact he was probably dealt a losing hand and had no escape. How else can he explain what is playing out?
If the Judge does not hand down a directed verdict of “not guilty” at the conclusion of the prosecution case, we will know that there is no justice in the U.S. when race is a factor.
The sooner they can get past this trial the sooner Zimmerman can start litagation against the state of Florida. I only wish he could get the media and political asses; e.g., Obama, Scott, et al, who pushed this travesty.
I simply hope the prosecutor and those that pushed this thing this far are disbarred. As was done with that lacrosse “rape” case. People need to lose careers over this. Let them go into politics, Dems will vote for them. They don’t belong in law.
Then there is this:
http://twitchy.com/2013/06/27/ima-kill-me-a-cracka-death-threats-against-george-zimmerman-random-white-people-explode-during-trial/
All good, J.J. Let them riot. As usual, they lose. Until they realize they can’t get it their way they will continue to lose, and should. O.J. walked for the same reason, I hope an innocent man isn’t found guilty but I can’t put it past them, they are trying.
I don’t know U.S. criminal procedure, or Florida’s in particular. Can the accused get a legal ruling on whether there is a case to answer (whether a properly instructed jury could return a conviction) before commencing his case?
I bet this what a lot of them are hoping for: conviction then over turn on appeal. Everybody gets what they want except Zimmerman.
As a prosecutor, I can tell you that the government had no choice but to put these witnesses on the stand. The jury is going to hear from them one way or the other; if the prosecution did not put them on then the defense would. Then the prosecutor would still have to deal with the unfavorable testimony AND the defense would have a field day telling the jury that the prosecution was trying to hide this evidence.
This trial is for no other reason than to keep the poor and pitiful black culture meme in the spotlight. They revel in presenting a grown black woman who can’t read cursive writing in 2013 on the stand.
They do it because if you aren’t a member of the afore mentioned sub set of American culture, it somehow means you’re responsible for its existence and caused it. And that unbelievably goes for the white child born just today.
“”Not sure why walking outside is anyone’s damn business. What the fuck is wrong with you?””
blackdude
Its anyones damn business because life is about playing odds. What the fuck is wrong with you that you’re much more likely to pet a stray Golden Retriever than a stray Pit Bulldog? So basically you play the odds and have a discriminating life just like George Zimmerman does. It just pisses you off that you belong to a group dominated by snarlers and relatively few tail waggers.
“rickl”
I Think the author of that passage was actually talking about the Revolution’s own personal experience. They tried their utmost to convince people. In fact, many of their fellows who fought were not convinced at times that war was the right answer.
If people won’t fight until pushed to the war, one either waits until they are pushed to the wall, use propaganda to show them that they are to stoke rage, or provoke the ruling caste to crush more dissidents.
Inner city blacks, and to a lesser extent the entire African American community, obey their white plantation masters on the Left: specifically the Democrat founding members.
They think they are getting justice or some kind of redemption/exclamation/respect if the system turns a verdict of guilty for Z and not guilty for OJ. And they’ll think it was all because of the strength of faith and belief of the black community, that they threatened and the whities backed down.
Let me tell you something sons of Democrat slaves. You don’t get to decide anything. They tell blacks to do something, and blacks obey.
That is it. That is all the slave cannonfodder are allowed to do. Their delusions of grandeur and “respect” are pathetic.
Various Railroad conductors before the Civil War started, carried a gun or some other weapon. Specifically one person, a freed slave turned conductor did. Why? It wasn’t to shoot slave owners and bounty hunters chasing them, it was to shoot the slaves that got second thoughts and wanted to “Return to Master”. Thus betraying the identity of the white owned safe houses along the railroad.
Eventually the black community will split, between those who want to be free, and those blacks who will have to crush the skulls of slaves who want to go back. The rest of us, of course, will be using various bombs, nukes, sniper rifles, and .50 caliber man portable killers to be doing other things. Shrugs.
“Blackdude”
In an area which has had several break-ins. It IS someone’s damn business when someone who doesn’t live there is walking through the community. It is called being concerned about your neighbors. (try it sometime, you might find your community a better place to live)
Especially, when that someone is a pot-smoking, punk.
Go ahead and believe the nonsense from the media that the dead-punk was just an “innocent boy” walking to the store to buy some candy. Sort of ignore that fact that his father wasn’t involved in his life, ignore the fact that he was suspended from school several times. Which leads to the question – what the fuck is wrong with YOU!?
And it leads to an even bigger question – what the fuck is wrong with the “black” community that “they” rally around losers like Treyvon, OJ, Twana Brawley, Sharpton, the Duke LaCrosse accusers, etc.
(Quote marks because I know MOST black folks do NOT support these idiots)
Based on the testimony and performance of their “star witnesses” to date, it would appear that the only ways the prosecution can secure a conviction would be
– To overawe the jury. So far the prosecution appears to be doing a poor job of that.
– To convince the jury that a vote to convict is pro-forma and without risk to Zimmerman, since it is almost certain to be reversed on appeal.
– To intimidate the jury on a personal level, perhaps by intimating that they cannot hope to remain anonymous in the wake of a “not guilty” verdict. Unless that were done, somehow, as actual jury tampering, it would have to be done during the summation, and would be grounds for reversal on appeal.
– To frighten the jury during summation with the specter of nationwide violence in the event of acquittal, which would almost certainly itself be cause for reversal on appeal.
I would tend to agree with those who say that the prosecution knows they have a losing hand and also that they are politically obligated to play it out, most likely to an acquittal.
I am perplexed as to why the prosecutor did not simply indict Zimmerman on manslaughter versus the actual charge which requires proof of ill-will or enmity beyond a reasonable doubt as well as negating the defense of self-defense beyond a reasonable doubt. If the jury is going to follow the instructions of the Court it would be a total shock if they return a verdict of guilty.
As a general rule of legal ethics, prosecutors are NOT supposed to press charges against parties that they don’t believe committed a crime; for whatever reason, period.
As a general rule of legal ethics, defense attorneys ARE expected to fight charges — regardless of their personal hunches/ opinions/ inside knowledge — in the cause of the defendant.
The reason for the split: the power of the State.
The ONLY morally correct stance for the special prosecutor is to throw the case: onto the facts and onto the eye witness testimony.
This is NOT a game of sport.
BTW, reduced charges can be set at almost any point along the way. When you tear into the paperwork, expect to find fall back positions/ charges in the boiler plate. They just are not publicized by the MSM — which will go with the most severe charges every time.
Stu.
You’re perplexed because you’re figuring this as a matter of criminal law.
Figure it as a political act and it makes sense.
Blackdude. If Z’s first name were “Jorge”, this would never have seen the light of day. You know it. I know it. I know you know it. Everybody knows it.
The meme of blacks attacked by whites is so desperately in need of an actual fact that a hispanic is an honorary white for the cause.
Visualize transparency.
“I am perplexed as to why the prosecutor did not simply indict Zimmerman on manslaughter”
One possible explanation is that the prosecutor KNOWS Zimmerman’s innocent and is secretly sympathetic, so by going for the much more difficult to prove charge, they’re actually helping Zimmerman.
Another explanation is that political correctness DEMANDS the charge of murder because to go with anything lesser implies that Zimmerman wasn’t entirely in the wrong.
Of the two possibilities, I choose the latter as more likely. But the explanation may be a combination of both.
[i]Richard Aubrey Says:
June 29th, 2013 at 11:54 am
Exactly. When Zimmerman’s name first became public, the race hustlers thought, “Aha! It was a dirty white Jew who killed poor Trayvon.”
Then, after they found out he was actually Hispanic, they backpedaled and invented the phrase “white hispanic” which I’m pretty sure never existed before.
If his name had been Jorge Rodriguez, this would have never gotten beyond a local news story.
As I understand Florida law, the jury will not have the option of returning a verdict finding Zimmerman guilty of voluntary manslaughter, but must either convict or acquit of the offense charged.
Although it certainly appears plausible that the only reason these charges were brought was to demonstrate the lack of a real case against Zimmerman (i.e., so blacks don’t riot), I don’t know if that strategy is really going to pay off in the end. Those who went into this convinced that Zimmerman was a racist who targeted an innocent black youth are unlikely to be persuaded otherwise. Whether the jury acquits or (as seems increasingly likely) the court dismisses the charges, those who see Zimm as an evil racial profiler are still going to see this as a miscarriage of racial justice.
Those that will riot will not have watched one minute of the trial.
Those that will riot will not have watched one minute of the medias biased coverage.
But they’ll be the first one to walk out with their new bigcreen TV.
I believe the Judge should dismiss the charges, but it would be an act of exceptional courage on her part. She is not anonymous, as the jury theoretically is. She is very visible and would be the logical target of all of the rage.
I have thought from the beginning that Zimmerman was toast because of the race-baiting aspects of the coverage and the political climate. Although the prosecution’s flimsy case has been exposed, I believe that conviction is still possible.
Zimmerman’s life has been ruined; I fear that it will be short regardless of the outcome. As an aside, I wonder why the Hispanic community has not rallied to him. I guess the name Zimmerman simply does not resonate with them.
The echo chamber subtle racism in here is kinda crazy.
The prosecution got what is classically called a ground and pound.
That would be my impression, too. But I’m pretty sure they also put a manslaughter charge on the docket, so the jury will have that as an option.
At the rate this prosecution is taking on water, I think if I’m the defense, I ask for a dismissal of the charges as the prosecution has not shown that a crime had occurred.
John Dunne:
The racism shoe is on the other foot, and it ain’t that subtle.
Plus, that dog of yours won’t hunt any more. The racism charge has been way overplayed since Obama ran for office in 2008.
I have no doubt that some people on both sides, however, bring a racist POV to the Zimmerman trial.
Neo,
I think you’re channeling the Rodney King case. I can see where the government team would fear the analogous consequences, but I’m not sure the jury, unless very aware, would know about or care about what happened in LA all those years ago.
Having served on a jury many years back, I seem to recall being pretty intensely focused on the issue at hand.
We’ll see, but Zimmermann may be shown ultimately to have made the right choice: preferring to be judged by 12 than carried by 6.
John Dunne.
EKBA. AKA, “Everybody Knows Better, Already”.
But, just for grins, how about an example?
Perhaps, though, since the racism is “subtle”, you can’t get an actual example.
As James Taranto said, “If you can hear the whistle, you’re the dog.” Something like that.
Identity politics reaps what it sows. Why does anyone expect any one identity group to not protect itself and allow every other identity group to attack and harm it?
Of course the real evil here isn’t a color, it’s not a group, and it’s not an identity. It’s unrestrained human nature and emotions manipulated by a colder and more dense evil. That evil is delighted and rubs its hands in glee. Waiting.
A problem that I fear, if found not guilty, Zimmerman will be tried for “Civil Rights Violations” by our In-Justice Department. The politically correct will not let aquital end it.
Neo,
I was talking more about the comments to this post, a good number of which have insinuated some pretty nasty things, whose nastiness I can try and explain if you want. But if you will admit that the comments are racist, I imagine you understand the people who wrote them to be the “some people…[who] bring a racist POV.”
When you say “[t]he racism shoe is on the other foot,” I assume, rather than the comments you allow on your own blog, you’re talking more about this trial and the controversy surrounding it. The most recent example you might point to would probably be the “cracker” comment and supposed liberal/progressive apologias for it. I’m not sure, though, how the indelicate/racist testimony of one witness reveals the prosecution itself to be the result of race-based grievance-mongering. I’d appreciate a fuller explanation.
What confuses me most about those who are sympathetic to Zimmerman in this case is that you presume the truth of his self-defense story. It’s always seemed to me that if the situation were reversed, with Martin coming out alive and Zimmerman dead, the case for “self-defense” would equally strong or weak as it is now. That is, if you assume that it’s even remotely plausible that “self-defense” justifies shooting/killing someone after getting into a fight with that someone after stalking that someone with a loaded gun, then it should be equally plausible that “self-defense” justifies physically attacking someone who appears to be stalking you with a loaded gun, which is what you seem to assume Martin did. In the end, in a situation like this, the “self-defense” excuse is only available to the person who came out alive, which in this case was Zimmerman. The defense that Martin might make of himself (and it’s interesting that we seem to be trying Martin as much as Zimmerman, when only Zimmerman can ever come to trial) has to be reconstructed from biased, unreliable eyewitnesses. What I don’t understand is how, this being the case, it makes sense to presume Zimmerman’s honesty about his actions and motivations.
Being accused of racism is kind of like being told you are mentally ill. If you agree, you are mentally ill. If you don’t agree you are in denial.
Well, either way the train is long past the point of no return.
This just in:
“If Rachel Jeantel is typical of black teens in that neighborhood, no wonder George Zimmerman was doing his Neighborhood Watch with a Glock.” The Phantom Soapbox: Court of the media: Rachel Jeantel is innocent! Kill Zimmerman!
Mr Aubrey,
I’m not sure what you mean by “everybody knows better, already.”
And here are examples, just from the responses to this post, categorized for your convenience:
Comments that suggest, baselessly, that the jurors might be subject to violence out of racial animus if they find in Zimmerman’s favor, or that widespread violence/rioting will inevitably result for which blame could be placed at the feet of black Americans generally:
“I certainly wouldn’t want to be a juror on this trial.”
“The only hope for the prosecuters may be that all six jurors are scared out of their ever-loving-minds of the prospect of race riots if they acquit. …I wonder if the average person of pallor (such as myself) isn’t getting just sick and tired of being whipsawed by potential threats of race riots.”
This one is particularly galling, and deserves to be quoted in full. “Has any country in the world ever been held hostage by the wilder, less informed elements of 12% of its population? A percent of the 12%? But then again, they are aided by perhaps 30% of the white population who see people in terms of race/victim groups, etc, and not individuals.” Wilder and less informed blacks! Naé¯ve whites, taken in by myths of victimization! You might object, noting that the commenter seems to suggest only “a percent” of the black population is wild and uninformed, but that does not make the commenter’s indulgence of old racist tropes any less racist.
“If anything happens after this trial, the media will have blood on their hands.”
“A Race War is desired…. or rather the threat of one is desired.”
Commenters that suggest they might themselves respond violently either to uproar over a verdict favorable to Zimmerman or even just to a verdict unfavorable to Zimmerman:
“Go ahead and riot. There’s a lot of people around who are aren’t as restrained as Zimmerman here.” “Restraint” is a remarkably charitable characterization of Zimmerman’s actions.
“They mean that people generally don’t choose violent revolution or civil war at the drop of a hat. Which is a good thing. [paragraph break] But at some point, when tyranny becomes too strong to bear, they must. I’m not sure where exactly along that spectrum we are. I frankly thought it would start in 2009. [paragraph break] Every passing day it doesn’t start worries me a little more. [paragraph break]. Because in my opinion, we are already well past the point where violence against tyrants is justified.”
“We are heading toward a civil war or an era of vigilante justice.”
Comments that suggest, without explanation, that far and away the most plausible explanation for the state taking up the case is fear of (again, implicitly race-based) political backlash:
“[T]hey are prosecuting Zimmerman because it would be too politically difficult not to.”
“This has all the elements of a Stalinist political show trial. It is an atrocity.”
“Another explanation is that political correctness DEMANDS the charge of murder because to go with anything lesser implies that Zimmerman wasn’t entirely in the wrong.” The commenter seems to think of political correctness as some kind of disembodied force, powerful enough to impel the state of Florida to [gasp] consider prosecuting a man who shot another man. At least in my day-to-day observations of its operation, “political correctness” at its strictest basically encompasses not using racial slurs/casting race-based aspersions.
“[I]t certainly appears plausible that the only reason these charges were brought was to demonstrate the lack of a real case against Zimmerman (i.e., so blacks don’t riot).”
These comments connect to the point I made in my response to Neo, that somehow it doesn’t make sense for the state to try to prosecute for murder someone who shot and killed someone else. Apparently the only reason for such a thing to happen is fear of large-scale racially-motivated violence on the part of blacks, or of being browbeaten by a vaguely defined, but somehow very powerful, anti-racist establishment.
The comments I refer you to seem less whistles and more blowhorns. So you’re right, “subtle” was probably the wrong word for me to use.
The witnesses I’ve heard wasn’t Zimmer, but the people who called 9/11 and saw Zimmerman being pounded on by the kiddie.
In that situation, Tray was utilizing lethal force and it became legitimate to respond with lethal force. Tray also didn’t know Zimmer was packing, otherwise Tray would have been running like a hound to the next gate. If Tray attacked Zimmer on the fear that Zimmer had a gun, self defense might be arguable. When Zimmer shot Tray because Tray was trying to kill Zimmer, it’s another thing.
When it comes to walking up to people and talking to them, it’s not a fight. It’s only a fight when one person escalates things verbally or physically. A case may be made that Zimmerman escalated things by using insults or verbal abuse, but that would only make him guilty of assault or battery. Not murder or manslaughter. Pulling a gun on someone and executing them in a bar fight would be manslaughter or murder. Pulling a gun and executing someone when you can’t run away and are in fear of your life, is called self defense: justified homicide.
People may remember Michael Yon, who infamously was quoted as saying that he got rid of an alligator, or threat to the community, in a bar one time. Did a palm strike or something and made someone fall down, break his head/neck, and die. Yon wasn’t prosecuted for that, since it was ruled as self defense. It was ruled that Yon did “everything he could” to leave and de-escalate the situation. Yon wasn’t on the ground with his head being caved in yet. So self defense is an affirmative defense, not of innocence, but of the statement that “I did something illegal, but my reasons were justified and protected by law”.
Those who have no concept of what hand to hand lethal force is, how to use it, or how to recognize it, are too incompetent to judge self defense laws or the guilt or innocence of people caught up in violence. Unfortunately with public education and colleges, that percentage of ignorance is larger than many might imagine.
John Dunne: I don’t have time to reply at length (I’ll leave that to some commenters), but I’ll just refer you to the excellent posts on the blog Legal Insurrection for more information about the actual trial (including the fact that there is no credible evidence that Zimmerman was doing anything other than getting Martin’s location to report to the police, and that there was no reason to believe that Martin knew he had a gun—and by the way, if you really did think someone with a gun was stalking you, the last thing you’d do is jump him and attack him, if he wasn’t really near you yet and you had a chance to get away easily, which Martin had). It is so long and involved to go into the real evidence versus the lies that have been told by the media just about the facts of the case that it’s something I simply cannot do for you. I can only suggest you read.
As far as the racist motives of the “Trayvon was an innocent saint murdered by Zimmerman because Zimmerman is a racist” shills, I think they are transparent attempts to stir up racial turmoil. Ever since the case began I have watched and listened to people making such statements, exaggerating and distorting the facts to that purpose. As far as this perception of mine (or anyone else) being baseless, it is very much based on what I’ve actually seen and heard. Plus, it has been done many times before, sometimes even in more blatant ways (for example, the Tawana Brawley case and the Duke rape case). It is nobody’s imagination; it is a very real and very common occurrence.
Mr Aubrey,
Another one for you, posted just now!
A commenter who implies that one black witness being uncooperative, apparently not very well-spoken, and potentially mendacious says something about black people generally, which says something about Trayvon Martin as a person, which says something about why he was walking home from the store that night, which says something about the reasonableness of Zimmerman’s actions. White people, apparently, should guard their neighborhoods from the threat posed by poorly-coached witnesses.
Dunne, I presume that I am one of your racist miscreants.
Well, if you have followed this episode, you are aware that real threats have been made. You are also familiar with the sequence of events that I laid out in my original post. The sequence that evolved from “no case” on the part of the local authorities to a murder charge following demonstrations, protests, and political interference.
But, never mind. This will all play out in due time, and we will know. No need to speculate further.
I don’t think John has enough multi tasking skills trained to be able to process all the replies he would need to process to make sense of what he has quoted.
John Donne is a liberal asshole. He demonstrates the evil of slander. His facts are not facts; he won’t give equal time to learning the facts or investigating both sides. His slander results from “critical thinking” which justifies envy, revenge, hate and all the emotionalisms it purports to avoid. It is not and never has been a method to reach the truth. It has always been a method to undermine authority and encourage anarchy. And here we have an excellent example of an asshole, a real evil asshole, and it’s becoming much easier to spot these assholes.
This asshole has been taught in the schools of accusation. His slander is the same ilk which Neo describes in her latest posted thoughts on what the John Donnes did to Russia.
Hopefully most good and well-meaning people are beginning to understand that our society has a right to protect itself from destruction. And we have a right to marginalize the John Donne assholes.
Neo,
Thank you for the courteous reply.
My issue is not so much with the facts of the case. You and other commenters here seem to be following the case more closely than me; I’m honestly not following it very closely at all. You might take this, combined with the apparently flawed understanding I have of the events, to be evidence of the strength of the media’s distorted narrative, that it can find and convince even those people (like me) who are hardly following the case. I obviously would disagree, but given my lack of command of the facts I could not offer much of a counterargument.
What I take more issue with is the grounds on which you (and commenters) claim there is widespread media bias as regards this case, and that this bias is just the latest example in a long line of such cases (though you only give the two most notorious examples). It’s probably pretty obvious that I just don’t share your understanding of how race works in America today and has worked in history The thing is, in this specific case what I just can’t wrap my head around is your understanding that the outcry in response to the initial failure to charge Zimmerman constituted “transparent attempts to stir up racial turmoil.” Inasmuch as people’s responses to this case can be divided into “anti-Zimmerman” and “pro-Zimmerman” camps, as I remember it most informed members of the “anti-Zimmerman” camp were most concerned at the lack of any suggestion of a trial before the outcry happened. Obviously, for them (or us, seeing as you’d probably call me a member of the camp trying to tar and feather an innocent man), such a failure recalls the American justice system’s history of not treating black people very well, generally. So I think this is probably where we fundamentally disagree, and I’m not sure that a couple comments either way is going convince either of us or any of your commenters.
So, you may well be right that the weight of evidence suggests that Zimmerman did act in self-defense in shooting and killing Martin. The reason this trial strikes a chord with me (and maybe others), though, is the way it became a trial. Absent the outcry, it seemed like the relevant authorities would have been content to accept at face value Zimmerman’s profession to have acted to self-defense. Even if you don’t agree that the American justice system has a long and continuing history of discrimination against non-white people, can you at least see why that would be troubling for some people?
Also, the transparent racism of some of your commenters is frustrating, and does not reflect well on you or the more reasonable commenters.
Oldflyer,
I obviously don’t know you, and so have no way of knowing whether or not you are a “racist miscreant.” I’m rarely of a mind to call people racist in any context, much less on the internet where I have no idea who or how anonymous commenters are as people. I have, though, described in brief why I think certain commenters’ comments are racist. Most egregious are the comments that seem to presume black people, as a group, will respond violently to a verdict in this trial that they don’t like. Akin to these are the comments that presume the trial’s verdict will necessarily result in uninformed, race-based political backlash. I don’t know much about the circuit courts of Florida, but I submit that the presiding judge will probably continue to serve as a judge regardless of the jury’s verdict.
Also, I am more-or-less familiar with the sequence of events you describe. You seem to think that somehow the prosecution of a man who shot/killed someone else is illegitimate or somehow necessarily flawed because it resulted from public pressure. Why do you think that?
sharpie,
I feel like I’ve been nothing but courteous in my exchanges. I don’t mean to “slander” anyone by calling the comments they make on the internet racist. I feel no “envy,” no desire for “revenge,” and no “hatred,” though you would probably respond that I delude myself, because I’ve wrongly convinced myself that I am a “critical thinker” who doesn’t engage in “emotionalisms.”
Most importantly, I have absolutely no intention to “undermine authority”; this is your most significant misrepresentation of my motivations, and it suggests what I think is a broader misunderstanding you might have of the people who might want Zimmerman convicted in this case. My outrage (there, an “emotionalism” that I admit using!) over this case stems from the fact that law-enforcement “authority” did not initially seem to extend to Zimmerman after he shot and killed Martin. Though it somehow illegitimates the case in the eyes of many commenters here, a trial (of a man who shot and killed another man!) only resulted from loud public outcry. Certainly all I wanted, and I suspect all that most people who generally agree with me wanted, was for the authority of Florida’s law-enforcement officials/bodies to extend to Zimmerman.
Though this oversimplifies how I see things, I’d like to use your words: not putting Zimmerman on trial would have been “to undermined authority and encourage anarchy.”
Readers,
Do you remember when Cruz faced down Feinstein? Here it is:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bzb9Hs2SmfQ
“I’m not a sixth grader.” That was Feinstein’s reaction to an obviously easy question by Cruz.
What was your reaction?
Mine was “Oh yes you are!”
John Dunne:
Law enforcement initially failed to indict Zimmerman because the evidence suggested it was a clear-cut case of justified self-defense. He was ultimately arrested and charged for other, political, reasons. So you have it backwards.
I refer you to the writing of a noted liberal and criminal law expert, Alan Dershowitz, on the subject.
See this, for example, as well as this:
Objectively speaking, there is no case. That’s why the evidence being presented by the prosecution is so abysmally weak. The entire prosecution was politically motivated.
sharpie,
And Feinstein’s answer, consistent with how the Constitution has been interpreted in courts for as long as it has been around to be interpreted, was that there different tests for different amendments.
But I don’t see how that’s relevant here??
This is a great example of a pretend response of even handedness and rationality. It reminds me of Monty Python’s slander of the perfectly British upper class:
My dear boy, you have quite misunderstood my import.
But fear not dear Reader, you have seen such facade evaporate. You saw it in Occupy Wall Street and when Obama flipped off Hillary and his fans went crazy. You’ve seen it with the “we’re here, we’re queer. And we’re in your face.”
We agreed and we agree to get you out of face.
Asshole.
John Dunne:
See my comment above for a further explanation of why many people (including myself) see the prosecution of Zimmerman as a political move rather than one that is either about the evidence or justice.
One of the many problems is that it is impossible—literally impossible—to understand what’s going on in this case if you don’t read deeply about it, and merely follow what the mainstream media is saying. Again, I suggest you take a look at the posts by Andrew Branca, a legal expert at the blog Legal Insurrection (the blog of law prof William A. Jacobson) if you want to come to a more informed decision about it. Even though it is clear you are an intelligent person, you need more information before you know what’s going on here.
If you want to learn who’s drumming up race hatred about the trial, and why people think riots are the goal and are likely to be a result if there’s an acquittal, just think of the Rodney King trial, for example, as well as those other examples I gave, and put it together with the fact that from the evidence there is really no case here. Zimmerman should never have been charged. Also look at Twitter and the remarks there. People are purposely being stirred up to think it’s obvious Martin was an innocent and Zimmerman a racist murderer, and if they don’t get their guilty verdict it will be a terrible miscarriage of justice that demands violent revenge.
Whether or not this will actually happen I do not know. But it is hardly racist of anyone to suggest that it might happen, and that this may have been part of the plan of the race-mongers who engineered and orchestrated the escalation of this case (and the many other cases I listed) and the charging of Zimmerman with murder when there is simply no evidence of murder.
sharpie,
I don’t know how you want me to sound. Obviously this case makes me angry. I tried to explain why it makes me (and others) angry, and you called me an asshole. What do you want?
Neo,
I have to be away from the computer. I might be back, but if not, thank you for the conversation.
Feinstein was going around ready to cap people with her gun a few years ago. Now a days she believes in gun control and not giving people guns who don’t need one.
That’s what I think of whenever her name comes up.
The way media psychological warfare works is not always directly. It can work indirectly as well by targeting the members of a social circle. Get a social group’s leaders, authority figures, and others all “talking the same talk” about a subject, one way, and the rest of the group, even the ones who don’t watch or read the news about the trial, will start parroting the same beliefs.
John claims he doesn’t know if anyone is racist here. He just somehow knows that the comments, and what they mean, are racist. He’s not out to attack anyone or be unreasonable, but those comments are just racist. The idea that responding with violence is a bad thing or that people who expect blacks to feel emotions are racist… is a bit too distorted for the glass here.
Back briefly.
“The idea that responding with violence is a bad thing or that people who expect blacks to feel emotions are racist… is a bit too distorted for the glass here.”
My problem with the comments isn’t that they oppose violence or expect black people to be angry if Zimmerman is found to have acted in self defense. It’s (1) that they imply black people’s reactions to the verdict will, in the aggregate, be more violent than the reactions of other (racial) groups of people and (2) that they imply black people’s emotional reactions to a verdict/the trial are illegitimate and encourage something like censorship. I think point 2 is more arguable, but if point 1 isn’t racist nothing is.
Alright, I’m done. Thanks y’all.
I note with sadness that someone who signs himself “Black Dude” believes that poor little Travvon Martin was shot for walking outside. The facts are in dispute, but the evidence presented so far suggests that Trayvon was shot because he was on top of a man and beating him severely. That “Black Dude” believes otherwise, in the nearly complete absence of evidence, is a distressingly clear measure of the extent of the media distortion.
As for young Mr. Dunne, his statements as to what he remembers and what he does not, suggest very strongly to me that he was born after many people who comment here had striven for decades to end the horrors of genuine racism.
The last comment I see from Dunne asks why Old Flyer believes the prosecution of someone who “shot and killed a man is necessarily flawed…” I do not presume to speak for Old Flyer, but I personally think there is something wrong because, normally, the police, prosecutors and courts do not do much in a clear, to them, case of self-defense. At most, there would be a charge presented to a grand jury, and, in such a case, the man would be no-billed.
Being intellectuals, we do have cable television. We buy books, and do not pay to watch the idiot box. However, I am a home care nurse, and my patient’s family have cable, so I get a good sampling of various cable “news” networks. I was astonished at the degree that some racial angle, any racial angle, was presented. When one meme failed, the “white Hispanic” one, they quickly sought another. As I have already noted, Mr. “Dude” has been deeply influenced by these assertions. This can not be good for him, personally. It is surely not conducive to good mental health to be told, constantly, that you and every one like you, are hated. The possible riots that would be fomented are not good for the health of our body politic. When the police who were beating Rodney King, in the parts of a video made public, were acquitted, Hispanics in Los Angeles rioted and looted Koren stores. What might happen if Zimmerman is acquitted? Since the purpose of courts and trials is to resolve disputes in an orderly and dispassionate manner, how does the threat of riots serve us? Since African Americans are outnumbered seven to one, what will these riots gain them? What effect would such outbursts have on perceptions of Africans Americans by Caucasians?
This sort of break down of the normal functioning of society can only benefit the hard Left, up to and including the Comrade in the White House.
John admits not following the trial closely but is sure Zimmerman “stalked” Martin. Why is John so dead set to accept “stalk” rather than “follow”? The narrative is too strong for him to resist. Zimmerman MUST be guilty of SOMETHING and the rest of us are racists for observing the obvious.
John Dunne says:
” . . . Comments that suggest, baselessly, that the jurors might be subject to violence out of racial animus if they find in Zimmerman’s favor, or that widespread violence/rioting will inevitably result . . .”
Clearly John you have NOT been following the news, have you? Otherwise, you would not have included the word “baselessly.”
Even the MSM reported that some folks by the name of Zimmerman moved because some celeb felt he was justified in tweeting their address and then, snicker, says he hopes nothing happens to them. As a result they received death threats.
Did you not see that as a “threat of violence”?
Are you not old enough to remember the Rodney King riots? What about the trial of the thugs who nearly beat a white truck driver to death during those riots – some members of that jury admitted afterwards that they voted to let that thugs off because they felt that there would be further riots.
So, what about justice for that trucker and other victims of black racist violence? Or is it a case of they weren’t black so it doesn’t matter if they don’t get justice (not unlike Zimmerman doesn’t matter because he has a “German” name)
So, you can see, such claims aren’t “baseless,” in fact, they are based on previous history/experience.
You claim to know history – well, why don’t you learn ALL the facts of history before calling some of us racist (even if you did so in a “subtle” way). If you know US history, then you should know that calling white folks racist is the same as placing the entire burden of history of poor race relations in the US (and the world for that matter) on their shoulders – some do not like that and will call you asshole for doing so.
I, for one, won’t disagree with them.
The Left always comes up with ways to make their defense of their evil into an attack on Republican corruption. We should adopt some of those techniques and tactics.
If Zimmerman stalked some boy and capped him in the head execution style, then how come the Left supports Hollywood directors that stalk and rape little girls in jacuzzis?
Or how about this,
“How come the black members of the ghetto plantation think they can tell the democratic justice system what to do, when the institution of slavery allowed whites like Kennedy to get away with murder when a black guy would get executed?”
John Dunne is the product of our new know-nothing culture. He loves to hear himself talk about the bad old days, of which he knows nothing, and writes pages and pages to commenters who have clearly studied the Zimmerman situation far more than he has.
John, you have inadvertently stumbled onto a website whose commenters do not fall for mass media “soundbites.” Before you comment again, you should try to take the time to inform yourself about various subjects. Try reading Ace of Spades, Instapundit, JustOneMinute, or Legal Insurrection.
If you comment again without more background knowledge, you’ll become our resident jackass.
And John Dunne degenerates into stupidity.
And un-intelligibility.
Asshole.
I’m not particularly biased or prejudiced against cannonfodder tools. In this war, I’ll use any tool that I can use.
Doesn’t matter what it is…. or even who they are.
John Dunne.
The summers of 67 and 68 I spent at Rust College (HBCU) in Holly Springs, MS. Doing the civil rights/educational thing.
While people like you were chording “We Shall Overcome” on a cheap fourstring and cutting class on Fridays to stick it to The Man. Meanwhile pissing your pants at the thought of going south of Cincinnati.
You have an old schtick, man.
It’s easy not to be racist. It’s so easy that practically everybody does it. But if everybody does it, how do you get to feeling distinguished doing something easy-peasy, lemon-squeezy? Simple. Accuse as many of your fellow citizens as possible of racism. That makes you an enlightened minority without doing any of the work usually associated with virtue.
You know better. You know there was no “stalked” involved. You know about Z’s injuries. You’re not stupid. Unfortunately for your effort, neither are we.
You know there have been threats of violence from, among others, the NBPP, and more generally on the web. There’s no “baseless”, either, which you didn’t know we know.
You know that if Z’s first name had been “Jorge” this wouldn’t have been more than local news.
You really need to pick a much dumber audience for this performance.
Mr Aubrey,
Your personal history is interesting, but your labored psychoanalysis is less so.
I don’t know any of the things you say I know. My last several responses have been relatively brief, because only the writer of this blog seems willing to consider that I might be trying to engage in good faith. Maybe you would say she’s just more willing to humor a fool, but I’d bet it’s because she’s a better writer and thinker than either you or the charmer who earlier invited me to be this blog’s resident jackass.
I’ll respond in more detail later.
Well, I’m not one to call people names who I merely disagree with. I can understand how people get fed up with the Left and start treating them as annoyances to be gotten rid of. There, names are produced for digestion.
They shouldn’t do so, at least not until further data is obtained, but their wills are their own, not mine to command.
John Dunne,
If you don’t know, where do you get off pronouncing as if you do?
Has the concept of “homework” ever occurred to you? Particularly when you are going to be accusing people you never met of a vile moral crime.
In fact, not only do you not know, as in the sense of no knowledge, but what you claim to know is wrong as in contradicted by evidence, including, of all things, the PROSECUTION witnesses.
This prosecution is so bad that some are seriously considering the possibility that the prosecution is deliberately trying to lose it. Reasons are speculated about, but the point is…this case is so bad….
And you think noticing that this case is so bad is evidence of racism.
Just to be particular: Where did “stalked” come from? Who gave you that idea?
Re: the questions by John Dunne as to why there is a trust, so to speak, in Zimmerman’s version of events. The answer is that what counts is evidence, not conjecture, and there simply is no evidence that Zimmerman attacked Martin with no provocation.
The prosecution has the burden of proof, beyond a reasonable doubt. The prosecution has the duty to pursue justice, not convictions. The prosecution has the duty to not bring charges that do not have probable cause. If you have an incident where the only evidence that exists, after investigation, does not show the probability of a crime, then ethically you do NOT bring charges. Yes, we don’t “know” who initiated the confrontation and exactly what happened between Zimmerman and Martin. When you don’t know, you don’t charge. The evidence that does exist in this case supports self-defense, even if it is only by a preponderance. There is zero evidence, no matter if you stand on a stack of crimes codes and squint sideways, that shows premeditated deliberate murder, so Murder 2 should never have been charged.
IMO it was reasonable to only charge Zimmerman with whatever the Florida law is that covers voluntary manslaughter; that is, an unreasonable belief that deadly force was necessary to protect himself from serious bodily injury or death. THAT is an evidence question which exists even under Zimmerman’s version of events. IMO it’s a close call, and it’s what juries are for. If the major facts of the incident are still unclear after all the evidence is in, then that’s reasonable doubt and they should acquit.
John Dunne sounds like a classic “timewaster” troll. We used to have another one around here. I forget his name.
That type is obviously intelligent and erudite. They force you to spend hours refuting their arguments over and over again. That is a portion of your life that you’ll never get back. So I will not spend any time answering his points.
All I will say is this:
1. A person who kills in self-defense should not be charged with a crime and put on trial.
2. The police let George Zimmerman go on the night of the shooting. Clearly they didn’t believe that he committed a crime, or else they would have arrested and held him.
So why is he on trial now? The only rationale I can think of is that the state of Florida believes that the local police are racists who don’t care that a black teenager was killed. If so, why aren’t they saying it publicly? Why haven’t those police officers been charged with civil rights violations?
rickl
Those timewaster trols–good name–presume on the unspoken assumption in conversation that, with new facts, they might change their view.
So you labor on.
But they know the facts already. They aren’t interested. They won’t change their views since their views are not based on the facts.
But, as you point out, the Alinsky tactic is to make you waste your time.
The presumption of good faith is on your part, a weapon for them.
Hence my acronym: EKBA. “Everybody Knows Better Already”. You can extend it by adding “IY”, “Including You”.
EKBAIY.
I think the previous one was Tequila Mockingbird.
I also present a couple of facts and tnen say I’m not trying to tell you that. I’m trying to tell you I know it and you should take your business elsewhere.
rickl and Richard Aubrey:
I think the guy whose name you’re trying to think of was “Mitsu.”
As far as John Dunne goes, I actually tend to think he’s sincere and just hasn’t done his research. Whether or not his mind could ever be changed, or whether he really is a troll, I would say it’s too soon to tell. But I tend to err on the side of considering someone a good faith commenter until proven otherwise, and I also tend to answer their questions at least for a while because of other people who might be reading and would be interested in the counterarguments.
Hi, I’m relatively new new here but think its so sad you all are such racists. Just sayin.
sharpie,
Which do you think is more likely (you may wave this question away, but I think the point it makes still stands): that I would get it in my head one day, for shits and giggles, to spend hours arguing with people whose beliefs differ significantly from mine just to annoy them, or that I’ve been meaning to engage sincerely in this kind of debate somewhere for a while and decided that today was as good a day as any?
By this I mean, just because I show up out of nowhere on a blog that obviously doesn’t cater to me and argue with that blog’s regulars doesn’t have to mean I’m here just to raise hackles. I made the original comment so short and to the point because I was unsure whether it would be ignored or engaged with.
John Dunne.
Why, yes, I think there’s a good possibility. See Alinsky.
But if you were sincerely going to discuss this, why didn’t you do your homework?
And why did you lead with the lame accusation of racism?
And why do you resist being told the reality of the investigation?
As I keep saying, EKBAIY.
John Dunne:
You write:
Unfortunately, if we were to just play the percentages here and around the blogosphere, the former is far more likely than the latter. That’s the main reason you’ll find people very quick to cry “troll.” And again, unfortunately, just in terms of previous experience here and elsewhere online, I have to say that they are more likely than not to be correct. They get tired of wasting their time, which has happened more times than I can count.
My own attitude, however, can be found here.
John Dunne.
If you are, as you imply, sincere but misinformed, who misinformed you about “stalked”?
RigelDog,
Thank you. I agree, in part, and would note that no investigation or prosecution of any kind would have taken place without the public outcry.
Murder may well be prosecutory overreach, but the focus and purpose of much of the public protest was simply to get some law enforcement investigation of the case. This investigation did not happen until that hue and cry of sorts, even though, as witness testimony and 911 call records bear out, both who initiated the violent encounter and whether Zimmerman had reason to fear for his life/use lethal force during the encounter are very much undetermined questions. Given the information that leaked out in the weeks following the incident and that is being (re)introduced at the trial, it’s not unreasonable for outside observers, who are not subject to a prosecutor’s professional ethical code, to think that law enforcement officials should at least investigate a death they find suspicious.
Nor is it unreasonable or unethical for law enforcement officials to take up an investigation in response to that pressure. It is obvious that, for there to be reasonable grounds on which to actually bring charges, the state should have a higher level of confidence that it can prove its charge beyond a reasonable doubt. However, one can disagree with the state’s overzealous pursuit of a case without immediately understanding it to be the result of unseemly politics. One can also disagree with the state’s approach while finding the public outcry that led to it worthwhile, or at least not corrupt. After reading RigelDog’s comment and the resources supplied by Neo (especially the material on Corey’s history of overzealous prosecutions and witnesses conflicting stories), this is where I find myself. Doubtless, yall still disagree.
rickl,
Of all the names I’ve been called here, “timewaster troll” is maybe the most inaccurate. It’s as much a waste of my time as it is of yours to be doing this, and yet still we argue, probably because we all find something of value in it. I get some kind of perverse pleasure from being challenged in this way, I think, and enjoy the chance to maybe at least get someone here to think slightly differently about race in America. I don’t know what you or anyone else here gets out of it, but there it is.
As I point out in my previous comment, the question of whether Zimmerman deserved to avoid prosecution for shooting and killing Martin is and always has been uncertain, because of uncertainties inherent in self-defense as a legal defense for violence. Again, I concede that public pressure led to the trial of Zimmerman. I also concede that, as far as I can judge from my own limited knowledge, RigelDog’s explanation, and the coverage Neo linked, murder is hard or impossible to prove beyond a reasonable doubt in this case.
I think what the arguments we’re having suggest is a pretty fundamental disagreement about how race affects the choice to prosecute crimes in American police forces generally.
Mr Aubrey,
In response to your earlier comment: The “reasons that are speculated about” for the case being “so bad” include the intimation that law enforcement officials in Florida are being intimidated by supposed threats of large-scale violence by black people. This is racist, even if the people saying it may have no specific hatred of black people as a group. The Rodney King riots have been brought up, though the incident and ensuing case took place in an entirely different city and general context; the relationship between the black community of LA and the LAPD, in particular, speaks to how important context is in evaluating the causes of events like the Rodney King riots. Even if you believe that there could be nothing behind the Rodney King riots (a misnomer, I think…) other than the LA black community’s anger at and unjustified response to the acquittal of the officers itself, you should at least consider that both black and white people are convicted and found innocent of crimes every day without riots or protests breaking out.
Your response to this might be that the infrequency of these kinds of events is just further proof of their having been orchestrated political stunts, but to believe this also requires a belief that the forces of anti-racism/the left/whatever have an incredible capacity for political coordination and planning. The Obama campaign did not make Zimmerman and Martin get in a fight in late February in an election year, the left did not make Zimmerman shoot Martin or make Martin “ground and pound” Zimmerman, and it is the stuff of science fiction or conspiracy theory to think that Obama or other Democrats/leftists, whose support among minorities in the 2012 elections simply cannot be put down to the hullaballoo surrounding Zimmerman/Martin, would seriously think they could milk this kind of thing long and hard enough to get themselves any kind of significant electoral advantage.
I give as much credence to that suggestion as I did to the suggestion that Romney/Republicans/conservatives (diverse as I know those groups are) were bought and paid-for Koch brothers shills or corporate bogeymen out to self-interestedly hijack the American democratic process. That is to say, I give neither suggestion any credence at all, in large part because I know enough liberals/Democrats/progressives and conservatives/Republicans to know that the former aren’t daily preoccupied with avenging cynical racial grievances and that the latter aren’t daily preoccupied with exploiting America’s underprivileged. Put simply, you’ve replaced a simple, “MSM” narrative with an equally simple narrative of your own. Neither narrative leaves room for the complexity that really characterizes not only how people live their day-to-day lives, but also how people make their political decisions.
In response to the following comment (which was more fun to respond to): You’ve found me out! In my role as a dyed-in-the-wool Alinskyite, my goal throughout these exchanges has been to waste your precious time arguing on the internet. The slow revolution pushes on, now that Richard Aubrey, Internet Commenter, has had his time wasted by a loyal social justice warrior.
Also, some kind of structure would make it easier to understand your responses. I still don’t know what you mean by EKBAIY.
I want yall to presume my good faith because it’s frustrating arguing with people who don’t. Of all the commenters on this post, only Neo and RigelDog are willing to allow nuance of some kind in their understandings, respectively, of my motivations and of how the case came to trial. For others including you, I am variously a troll, an interested hack, or an unwitting member of the same anti-racist political campaign that has unjustly brought Zimmerman to trial.
John Dunne Says:
June 29th, 2013 at 10:56 pm
For the record, here is his original comment:
Yeah, that was pretty much why I decided to ignore him.
Also, I want to ask at what point a generalization about black people, as a group, would qualify as racist, for those of you who have been responding most angrily about my use of that term?
rickl,
You seem to fundamentally misunderstand why I call racist the comments that I listed way up there. I called them racist because I really do believe them to be racist: they make unjustified generalizations about black people, their intelligence, their propensity for violence, and their basis for making political decisions, to name just a few things. I did, in fact, provide explanations for many of the individual quotes and prefaced each “category” with a summary explanation. You have responded to none of them specifically.
Excuse me if you seem more like the “troll.”
Neo,
I didn’t respond to your last several comments.
The substance of my response to your answers with regard to the Zimmerman trial are contained in my responses to RigelDog, rickl, and Mr Aubrey.
I wanted to use this comment to thank you again for your assumption of good faith.
Also, just for shits and giggles I’d like to point out why it’s unreasonable to immediately assume, based on a very selective culling of social media responses, that there is a serious threat of retaliatory violence against the judge, or defense, or… someone:
Angry, sometimes bigoted responses to the Zimmerman trial by black social media users say nothing more about black people than do angry, sometimes bigoted responses to the Zimmerman trial by white social media users.
People get “stirred up” on Twitter about everything. I think commenters on this post are right to point out that there was significant reaction outside of Twitter, among people of every race, to the shooting and ensuing controversy, but it is probably unfair to use the most racist and poorly thought-out responses on Twitter (itself not the best medium for intelligent commentary) to characterize the outcry as a whole. It’s not enough, in my view, to simply note that there was outrage that seemed to break along racial (or at least political) lines. There were better-written and more thorough criticisms of the relevant authorities and of Zimmerman himself that this: “If #zimmerman get off ima kill him myself since no one wanna take care of his Mexican burrito eatin [expletive].”
Excellent summary of the Martin/Zimmerman case:
http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/06/another_race-based_show_trial_turns_into_farce.html
I second Aubrey’s investigation line of where people get the “stalked” propaganda meme. Because I’ve heard it described as such by more than one person before.
One of the signs of a propaganda campaign is that people start using the same “words” not just ideas, to describe an event.
John Dunne.
You messed up again. Calling the presumption that the black community might generate some rioters “racist” is an incorrect use of the word.
Racism is action based on racialism, the idea that some races are superior and some inferior.
Presuming the possibility of a riot, considering Watts, Detroit in 67, the riots after the not-guilty verdict in the Rodney King case, presuming the possibility of another riot in a high-profile case is not “racist”.
So, either you know better and hope we don’t, or you don’t know better.
In either case, the weight we should give your views is….
Especially after discovering your ignorance of the case.
Yeah, easiest way to make yourself feel superior is to accuse others of racism. As you can see, you brought that act to the wrong place.
EKBAIY
Acronym for Everybody Knows Better Already Including You.
I’m thinking of expanding it by adding, “And Everybody Knows You Know Better”.
Richard Aubrey to John Dunne @ June 29th, 2013 at 7:39 pm:
John Dunne to Richard Aubrey @June 29th, 2013 at 8:24 pm:
Then you are woefully ignorant about the details of the Zimmerman case. Your writing such extended comments about the Zimmerman case -when you don’t know such basic details about the Zimmerman case- is why others have called you “a classic ‘timewaster’ troll.” As in, why should we waste our time discussing this case with someone who doesn’t know his coccyx from his ulna? It would be one thing if you came in with a humble “I have a lot to learn” attitude, but you come in with an arrogant “You are racists and I am not” [apologies to Chevy Chase] attitude. Which Richard Aubrey took apart rather succinctly.
It is amazing that you can spew so much verbiage when you are so ignorant of such basic details of the Zimmerman case. While you may lack basic knowledge of the Zimmerman case, as shown by the below links, you certainly don’t lack for chutzpah.
http://tinyurl.com/kgnrkjj New Black Panther Party threats of violence
http://tinyurl.com/ce3rts5 George Zimmerman injuries
Gringo.
Ref yr links:
He knows this stuff. He didn’t know we know.
Dunne: <>
This is the same kind of liberal nonsense pro-offered by a Women’s studies professor that merely saying something like “Man, that test just raped me.” is evidence that we exist in a culture of rape.
If we find Dee Dee Jeantel to be a sullen, indolent, and ill-educated, liberals tell us that it’s merely a cultural divide and that it says more about our ignorance than it does her’s.
Liberals go through such mental gymnastics to maintain the narrative. Thats how compelling it is. Reality be damned.
Opps…Looks like my Dunne quote got left behind. He had labeled the thought of violence breaking out if Zimmerman’s acquittal racist. (as if that’s never happened).
Harry the Extremist:
If we find Dee Dee Jeantel to be a sullen, indolent, and ill-educated, liberals tell us that it’s merely a cultural divide and that it says more about our ignorance than it does her’s.
I listened to a minute or two of her testimony. I found it impossible to understand what she was saying, because she was speaking so softly.
Did she give a deposition for the trial? Did she speak so softly for the deposition? If so, didn’t someone tell her to SPEAK UP?
It is standard operating procedure for attorneys to coach their witnesses before trial, to give them questions they believe their witnesses may encounter. I find it hard to believe that someone for the prosecution, when coaching her, didn’t tell her “SPEAK UP. WE CAN’T HEAR YOU.” It is possible that she spoke up when being coached, but I find that unlikely.
Granted, sometimes attorneys do not coach their witnesses. Her not speaking up in the courtroom implies to me that she was not coached. When a witness is not coached before coming to court, the witness is usually a disaster in the courtroom. Not coaching a witness is not an example of competent attorney practice. If the prosecution didn’t coach her, that was not a very competent thing to do.
Not coaching a witness reminds me of the phrase “throwing her to the wolves.” Because the opposing attorney will destroy an uncoached witness. Did the prosecution not coach her because they considered the case a lost cause?
Her not being a good witness is more a reflection on the prosecution than it is on her.
“Her not being a good witness is more a reflection on the prosecution than it is on her.”
No it isnt. That’s ridiculous. Jeantel IS a sullen, indolent ill-educated teen. No amount of coaching hides that.
Harry the Extremist, I was speaking more to her inaudible testimony.
There’s this weird idea from public Leftist indoctrination that no matter what you, as a person feels, if your comments and words are racist, then that’s all that matters.
Essentially what that means is that thought crime can be prosecuted based upon thoughts, and it doesn’t require us to know whether the person is thinking this or that. Just that him writing it means he needs to be penalized.
Like a boy that draws a picture that looks like a gun, he shall be punished as if he had thought or said that “I’ll kill all of you with a gun”. He’s “dangerous” because of what he did, since what he did is gun nutty. It doesn’t matter if we know or don’t know he was thinking gun nutty things. What he did, what he drew, means he needs to be arrested, interrogated, punished.
“This is racist, even if the people saying it may have no specific hatred of black people as a group. ”
Is not the only example from JD of what I described. He claimed this kind of “logick” before.
You are guilty of thought crime, even if you never thought or felt a moment of hate against the ruling elites.
Ymarsakar:
In other words, since overt racism on the part of white people is so rare these days, covert racism must be the focus. And covert racism can merely be inferred from “dog whistles” that end up covering any criticism of a black person whatsoever, even if it has nothing to do with his/her race. It even covers statements that acknowledge actual statistical differences between races, even if those differences are not called innate by the covert supposed-racist.
So, to a race-baiter, almost anything is racist if a white person says it and that person doesn’t like it. And black people are allowed to do or say anything and they cannot by definition be racist, even if they use pejorative epithets for white people.
I get the impression that JD happened on a bunch of people who were simultaneously ready to blow at one more accusation from a lefty.
Many of us are, individually, but in this case it was an entire population at once.
Magnificent.
Neo, certainly that has been one Leftist application of the concept. Although I remember them applying it to far more concepts than race now a days.
Black inner city gangs revel in their power to commit crimes against whites, powerless people, and black kids they hit with a four by four until dead.
They think the “whitey” bunch are too weak, effete, to do anything. They only fear the police, backed by unions. And think, like Islam, that American white culture is ready to be replaced.
They have forgotten something very important. The US Constitution was never designed to protect the predators and the warrior-killers in society from the sheep. It was never designed to protect the people from corruption, evil, and politicians.
It was to protect the evil corrupt bastos from us. Prisons exist to protect blacks and hispanics and white killers from us.
Period.
Those who think they can threaten the Status Quo to adjust legalities and “laws” and “prosecutions” to individual standards based upon Leftist ideology… Know This.
When you strip away the protections of law and custom, I and various other people I know will no longer have to keep ourselves Restrained.
There will be nothing to protect the criminals and the politicians from us.
Nothing.
Since everything from the length to the shortness to the anger to the supposedly feigned attempt at objectivity of my answers is inevitably taken as evidence that I’m an arrogant troll, I’ll just keep my paragraphs a little shorter and more strongly-worded because that’s easier:
The reason I believe much of the discussion in this thread to have been tinged with racism (or, if you want to avoid that word for some reason I just can’t understand, unfounded assumptions about the behavior of black people as a group) is just that: there have been many examples, just in the responses to this post, of unfounded assumptions about the behavior of black people as a group. And, again, no one at this blog has made any attempt at addressing the individual comments that I highlighted early yesterday as examples of unfounded assumptions of the behavior and beliefs of black people.
The New Black Panther Party is a joke of a story, and that it has been brought up several times suggests that my fundamental point has not been well-taken. First, a point of fact: the NBPP is nowhere near the size or influence of its namesake organization, with which it has no real connection. Second: there is no more reason to believe that the actions or words of the NBPP characterize the beliefs of black people generally than that the actions or words of Neo-Nazi groups characterize the beliefs of white people generally.
Rather than respond to this or any of my other points, yall responded en masse (to Mr Aubrey’s glee), calling me (and black people) the victims of indoctrination. It is ridiculous to expect a “humble, I have a lot to learn” attitude in the face of reflexive racism. This is exactly the kind of overt racism, Neo, that you say I and like-minded people are reduced to grasping for modern examples of.
I did not, however, respond with ridicule. I responded with long comments laying out why I believe the things I believe with regard to this trial, and was received (to Mr Aubrey’s and others’ apparent glee) with ridicule and condescension, not to mention apparent delight at your eliciting emotional reactions from me. This, it would seem, is characteristic of the behavior of people you call “trolls.” But, once again, this point, which I have made several times, has gone unaddressed in favor of baseless accusations about my motivations.
I’ve been asked, entirely out of context, why Hollywood liberals support Roman Polanski. I have no idea. It’s been suggested that I, as the unknowing recipient of “public Leftist indoctrination,” believe that racism is a kind of “thought crime” that deserves some kind of immediate prosecution. I do not believe this. I was immediately treated as a bogeyman of the left, apparently incapable of independent though, possessing all the extravagant beliefs of the caricatures you have drawn of the people who disagree with your point of view. I reemphasize: I did not respond in kind; I did call much of this discussion racist, but this IS NOT to make the same accusations of yall that yall are of me. I’ve said this before (though, of course, it has gone unanswered): insofar as many people here have said things (examples of which I provided above) that assumed black people, as a group, will respond in ways that we have NO WAY of knowing they will respond, those things which have been said are racist. Again, if you want, you can substitute “unreasonable assumption about the character, beliefs, actions, etc., of black people as a group” for “racism,” but that’s too unwieldy for my taste. I am not calling you Hitler when I call your comments racist. You can respond to accusations of racism with more than sneering condescension.
The irony is that this community reacts with indignation to accusations of racism, but does not react to the substance of the accusations. I am not “race-baiting”; I’m not Al Sharpton, who I imagine annoys you and in whose financial and political benefit it is to “race-bait” in the way you suggest I have been. All I’ve done is point out why it’s unreasonable to immediately assume that the black community will react violently to the verdict of this trial. Another point I’ve made that has gone unaddressed is that there are trials of both black and white people every day, in which both black and white people are found guilty and innocent, without protests and riots breaking out. I’ve explained the importance of this at length, but no one has responded.
But most important among the points I’ve made that have not been addressed is this one: many here seem to have replaced one narrative with another, equally simple narrative. You give to black people none of the benefit of the doubt that you give to yourselves or like-minded people. Your beliefs are well-considered, where theirs are the result of black/liberal leaders’ “race-baiting.” Yours are simply true, and theirs simply false; the explanation for these obvious differences of opinion does not come down to history, or life experience, or the fact that perfectly rational actors can come to entirely different conclusions about the relationships between the same sets of facts. Rather, the explanation is that black people, not to mention liberals of any color, have been duped. As I went to great lengths to emphasize above, I do not believe the same thing of (neo!)conservatives, because it makes. no. sense.
“It was to protect the evil corrupt bastos from us. Prisons exist to protect blacks and hispanics and white killers from us.”
It’s telling that only the whites in prison need to be qualified as “killers,” in this sentence. Your whole comment is racist bullshit, frankly.
Can you provide anything close to a thorough reasoning for any of the claims you make in this comment?
“When you strip away the protections of law and custom, I and various other people I know will no longer have to keep ourselves Restrained.”
Please, please tell me the ways in which you have had the “protections of law and custom” stripped from you.
John Dunne;
Please reconsider YOUR comments – having read through all the comments, you are the one who is doing more “generalizing” about others (and the group they “belong” to) than the comments you claim are racist.
On a related topic – the best sign that I saw at a tea-party rally was this: “no matter what this sign says, it will be called racist.”
So, folks, no matter what you say, “John Dunne” will call you racist.
Charles,
Please provide specific examples. Surely it won’t be too hard, since you say you just noticed some.
I have not, despite what you say, labeled everyone here or everything said here racist. I have pointed out specific comments and shown why they make unfounded assumptions or intimations about black people.
Nobody has made generalized comments about all black people.
JD, you keep stepping on your necktie. I figure you’d learn, sooner or later, that EKBAIY And everybody knows you know better.
The NBPP is small. Smaller groups, such as the Symbionese Liberation Army, have made a good deal of trouble. See Tim McVeigh.
So pointing to the NBPP as an example of some people making threats does not indict an entire race. As you know but–against all evidence–hope we don’t.
However, as Thomas Sowell said, cultures vary and differences have consequences.
How about another acronym? NABPALT. Not All Black People Are Like That. In civilized discussion regarding race, this is a continuo playing constantly in the background. As you know but hope–against all experience–that we don’t.
However, SBPALT. Some Black People Are Like That. SBPALT and NABPALT can coexist. As you know….
Now, it being a free country, you can continue to pretend to find racism hereabouts in order to feel superior.
Just keep in mind, EOTY. Everybody’s On To You.
YNFA. You’re Not Fooling Anybody.
I could explain myself, but I don’t think it would make much sense to someone who isn’t ready yet.
First one must learn algebra and addition/subtraction. They may be able to memorize the multiplication table up to 12 x 12, but that doesn’t mean anything if they want to know how derived equations work in the real world. They have to understand the theory of why 1+1=2 first. As in math, so the case goes for human wisdom and life as well.
Sadly, the public education of 12-15 years these days is like equivalent to 4 years in the ancient world. 4 years of elementary school for kids that is.
There are many things in life that cannot be explained or understood, only experienced.
JD feels very familiar to me. Helen L, a poet, over in the long long past at Bookworm Room, made many of the same assertions.
That you can be racist, but not a racist that is. It’s an application of double think. I did not, and still do not, fully comprehend it. But its application is simple enough to comprehend.
It’s also why people indoctrinated by the Left, are guillible or act like they are ignorant when they should be intelligent and well educated. Most of their brain cycles are devoted to this kind of Double Think.
They are holding more than two mutually exclusive ideas in their head, at once here.
So (to respond to both you and Mr Aubrey, since you are tag-teaming quite effectively), you’ve experienced something that makes “by the way, the NBPP exists, advocates violence, this is a bad thing, and some black people sympathize with it” a reasonable piece of evidence in favor of the contention that there is some significant likelihood that there will be violence in response to the Zinnerman trial?
Please also, if you will answer just one of the many points I brought up, explain to me why then it wouldn’t be reasonable for me to presume that Tea Party rallies are likely to produce violence simply because someone with similar anti-government positions once flew a plane into an IRS office in Austin? I don’t believe this, but it seems reasonable that you might, using the standards for evidence that y’all seem to have accepted in this conversation about the black community’s potential (or even plausible) reactions to the Zimmerman case.
JD, while I understand why you might feel alienated and find what people say here to each other and you, to be incomprehensible, I’m not sure what anyone can do to help out here.
The Left believes in changing the world by forcing people to be what they are not: people aren’t racist but their behavior is racist, etc.
I, at least, believe that changing the world is meaningless when human individuals are corrupt, heartless, weak, and unjust. I believe that a human’s first priority is in changing themselves for the better, far far before they can speak about changing the world for the better.
So when you speak, the rest of us hear “1+1=10”. When we speak, you hear “1+1=10”. To you, all you said was that 1+1=2 and all we heard we say was 2+2=4.
In some logical systems, such as base binary number systems, 1+1 does in fact equal 1 and 0 or 10. In base 5 number systems, 4+4=10, not 8.
While some of us understand “why” these systems of thought are different…. I’m not sure how to help you out if you don’t understand the principles of human thought here. And those who do not understand how human thought is constructed, will probably never understood how humans manipulate their own thoughts and beliefs.
For an easy way to explain how different base systems count, I’ll use a binary and a trinary system.
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
00 01 10 11 100 101 110 111 1000
0 1 2 10 11 12 20 21 22 100 101 102 110
First is the regular base 10 counting system. 10 fingers, etc.
Second is the binary system. 1s and 0s.
Third is a number system based on 3.
Not that complicated, but very strange for people who have only counted in base 10.
In fact, I only reproduced this based upon principles and reconstructed them from the base up. There might be inaccuracies.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ternary_numeral_system
Anyways, info is available in lots of places on this issue.
It’s not a big deal. Human minds are “very flexible”. Especially when the interrogator has time, pain, and various other ideological tools under their disposal. A person can be made to think in very…. different fashions.
John Dunne @June 30th, 2013 at 6:08 pm:
I’ve been asked, entirely out of context, why Hollywood liberals support Roman Polanski. I have no idea.
Perhaps somewhere someone has asked this question of you sometime, but a text search for “polanski” on this particular thread only turns up YOUR comment- and my quoting it. As such, I HAVE NO IDEA WHY you made this comment on this thread.
It would appear that this is another case of LPWIYM: “Libs putting words in your mouth.”
“In base 5 number systems, 4+4=10, not 8.”
Whoops, correction. In base 5 that would be 13. In base 8, 4+4 would be 10. Since 8 would equal 10.
The white institutional racist upbringing Americans were brought up, causes so many problems when thinking subtly and multiculturally via different cultural viewpoints and thinkings.
John Dunne @June 30th, 2013 at 6:08 pm:
I’ve been asked, entirely out of context, why Hollywood liberals support Roman Polanski. I have no idea.
Perhaps somewhere someone has asked this question of you sometime, but a text search for “polanski” on this particular thread only turns up YOUR comment- and my quoting it. As such, I HAVE NO IDEA why you made this comment on this thread.
Is this another case of LPWIYM: “Libs putting words in your mouth?”
John Dunne:
“I just can’t understand, unfounded assumptions about the behavior of black people as a group) is just that: there have been many examples, just in the responses to this post, of unfounded assumptions about the behavior of black people as a group.”
Unfounded? Does the attack on Reginald Denny (1992 LA riots) ring a bell? Crown heights? Freddy’s Fashion Mart ring a bell? or is all that merely just another cultural misunderstanding on our part that says more about us than it does about the rioters?
Gringo:
Maybe it was misspelled the first time?
rickl
Gringo:Maybe it was misspelled the first time?
I stand corrected re
John Dunne @June 30th, 2013 at 6:08 pm:
I’ve been asked, entirely out of context, why Hollywood liberals support Roman Polanski. I have no idea.
There was a comment made about Hollywood, but not Polanski by name- but Polanski could definitely be inferred from the comment.
Found by “Hollywood” text search.
http://neoneocon.com/2013/06/28/whats-up/#comment-622388
JD. The reason to believe the Tea Party will not turn to violence is two-fold. One, none of the official–to the extent that something that inchoate can have something official said–calls for violence. Two, none of the Tea Party activities have ever yielded violence.
Now, you can pretend to be concerned about the Tea Party and violence if you wish. All the Right Sort of People pretend that.
But, as I keep saying, EKBAIY.
John Dunne @ June 30th, 2013 at 6:08 pm:
Let’s go back and see when the NBPP, or New Black Panther Party, has been mentioned.
Richard Aubrey to John Dunne @ June 29th, 2013 at 7:39 pm:
As I see it, Richard Aubrey’s point here was to simply establish a common knowledge base about the Zimmerman case. See reference to Z’s injuries.
I also brought up the NBPP @ June 30th, 2013 at 2:59 pm, where I quoted Richard Aubrey and also quoted your response to Richard Aubrey:
I went on to make a comment about the validity of your making copious comments on the Zimmerman when you admit that you didn’t know such basic details. I went on to give a link to the NBPP threat. I was simply making a comment about knowledge.
Until your 6:08 comment, no one else made any further comments about the NBPP/ New Black Panther Party. While you asserted that @ 6:08 “there is no more reason to believe that the actions or words of the NBPP characterize the beliefs of black people generally,” NO ONE made any claim on this thread before your comment @ 6:08 that “the actions or words of the NBPP characterize the beliefs of black people generally” – or any similar statement. You were attacking a straw man. This is a case of LPWIYM: libs putting words in your mouth.
Please have the integrity to attack WHAT WE SAY, not WHAT WHAT YOU IMAGINE WE SAY. And none of this nonsense about implied subtext or such: WHAT WE SAY. Try quoting us before attacking us for what we say.
Also: if, as you admit @June 29th, 2013 at 8:24 pm: “I don’t know any of the things you say I know”[NBPP ETC], then why do you consider yourself qualified to make the copious comment @@ June 30th, 2013 at 6:08 pm about the NBPP- an entity which you previously said you didn’t know about? You don’t know, but you know. Doesn’t make sense to me. But since I am a clueless wingnut, I lack the “nuance” of libs. 🙂
I wonder where JD will take his act next?
Why does JD think that comment, or any other comment that didn’t have his name in it, was directed at him?
It’s like people can’t have thoughts or conversations after he has posted something here, that isn’t about the topics he wants to talk about.
Somehow my comment about the Left is perceived as being personally directed against him. Some kind of inferiority complex plus martyr victimhood.
Ymarsakar:
Why does JD think that comment, or any other comment that didn’t have his name in it, was directed at him?
Like many lib commenters here, JD does not always carefully read what is written in the comments, and accordingly does not bother to carefully respond to what was written. His comments are at times better compared to a spontaneous response to a Rorschach blot than to a carefully written response based on a careful analysis of what someone else had written. Think of “rushing off madly in all directions.”
Ymarsakar @ 9:24 . . .
I thought your previous comment about different mathematical systems was excellent. I never saw a tertiary system before, and it would take me some time figure out how it works.
I’ve found in talking to liberals that they just don’t get certain things that we “neocon/conservative posters” get. For example, John Dunne assumes that when we talk about potential black riots, we believe that ALL black people will riot. He doesn’t understand that one can only use language in an abstract manner.
We know that certain blacks WILL riot if demagogued because we’ve experienced it personally. Of course, the very classy blacks in our families and among our friends and neighbors would not do this. He probably thinks we should say “some blacks” every time we talk about possible black rioting.
In Chicago, we’ve had lots of (maybe 50???) black flash mobs in the past few years. The media doesn’t talk about this because it’s bad for business and for Chicago’s image (as if we still had one after Obama and his Chicago mobsters went to Washington).
On the other hand, it’s hard to describe individuals without mentioning their race or other obvious identifiers like sex, hair color, glasses, height, etc. Just today, I was in a small group of mixed people (Hispanic, Asian, and unknown) and and we were trying to recall the name of a woman. The Hispanic asked if she was “white.” I almost blerted out “you mean “white Hispanic?”) but caught myself in time because I knew they wouldn’t get the joke. Anyway, the Hispanic looked “white” to me and was obviously an American, no accent, but his name is Salvador, so it’s obvious he self-identifies as Hispanic. Until I learned his name, I thought he was an observant Jew for various reasons I won’t go into here.
I used to try to identify people without mentioning their race if not obvious (i.e. “white,” “no accent”). Then I realized that this is stupid. I describe my cats by their color (black, tabby), and I describe dogs by their looks (black lab, malamute), so it’s normal to describe individuals by their obvious appearance.
I see that I could go on and on about this subject, but the point is that JD doesn’t understand our language. That’s why I like the binary/tertiary example. Of course, that example is pretty esoteric for non-mathy people.
JD is so lost in the liberal world that he doesn’t know how to read the words of people from another world. He won’t understand anything until he does some homework, like read the link to Clarice’s Pieces that I supplied this morning.
Gaak. That comment took me an hour to write. I’m done here. 😉
I’m put in mind of a column Jonah Goldberg wrote about the reactions to Lord of The Rings.
There were some, probably of JD’s persuasion, who thought the portrayal of the Orcs was racist, referring to blacks.
Goldberg said he sees strange looking critters with funny eyes, fangs, raggedy skin and thinks, “cool. orcs.” Liberals look at them and see African Americans. Who’s the racist?
Yeah, and before that, Jar Jar Binks of one of the Star Wars flicks was possibly a stereotype of blacks.
You have to have special dog-whistle detecting gear to be like JD.
It’s been a long time since we had a new troll, and one with so much time on his (or her) hands. Rave on, John Dunne.
I am particularly annoyed because a colleague of mine died some years ago and the family wanted me to speak at the funeral.
I took “no man is an island” from John Donne as my text.
“John Dunne” as a nic profanes a great writer and a good man.
Promethea,
The American capitalist culture made me learn it in science/engineering school. It seems they expected me to be able to actually think from different conceptual frameworks (relativity, coding, behavioral analysis). The thing is, they even expected me to “discriminate” between different systems and not boot up a computer programmed for binary using decimal, hex, or trinary programming languages. Cause that would just sort of destroy the system, the social rules it was built on. The idea that one system was the same as another, and “just as equally deserving of social justice”, never ever was considered feasible. How’s that for racism and classism?
While it is not impossible to brainwash people with real ancient Greek/Roman/Logical/Emotional education, it takes a bit more oompf in the propaganda machine for the indoctrination to take hold.
The theoretical mathematicians… those guys are in another dimension entirely. I can only barely understand hyper volume physics, at the fifth dimension let alone the 9th dimension. Quantum mechanics was always something I liked more. Einstein’s relativity viewpoints took several years to sink in. Learning how to count in different base systems, was like cultural shock for Americans going to Japan.
Trolls are people too. Discrimination is wrong, so sayeth social justice dogma tablet 1.
Until people stretch their minds and make it into their own personal fortress, complete with memetic weapons and defenses, there is no way they can defend against the Left’s BS, aka propaganda. A closed mine is often what they belittle their enemies for, the so called enlightened Left. They just want you to open the gates of your home so their barbarians can invade and loot it. That is all.
Gringo,
Rorscach tests reminds me of Dennis Miller. I guess the modern version would be Richard’s Middle Earth orcs. Hey, look at this picture, what do you think of first?
I read some of John Donne’s works, although I eventually chose as my final essay project William Blake’s Tyger. It felt more… something to me.
With regard to media coverage, I’m intrigued by the decision of CNN, Headline News and MSNBC to ALL prominently feature black reporters and “analysts” throughout the trial. 90% of these analysts evince a decidedly anti-Zimmerman bias. Do the cable networks think these analysts have unique insights into what happened, or into the reliability of the witnesses? Of course not – they just know these analysts will be predictably biased against Zimmerman based on nothing more than their race.
Apparently CNN just gave out Zimmerman’s social security number and people are passing it around to harass him for the Two Minute Hate.
Are we living in Stalinist Russia or Nazi Germany, or what? This kind of outrageous behavior cannot be allow to continue.
The Left doesn’t need the NSA to get the goods on people. They’ve been hacking email accounts (Sarah Palin’s) and getting the dirt on people they hate for a very very long time.
To a certain extent, Leftists find it hard to infiltrate the NSA and work with “those people”. Just as AQ seems to find it hard to infiltrate Mexican drug cartels, otherwise they would be shipping nukes, bombs, and all sorts of things into the US from those smuggling channels by now. Instead, we have Mr Eric Holder sending our machine guns to criminals so that Mexicans can be killed by them.
Perhaps that signifies Holder, like Obama, thinks there are “freedom fighting Islamic” rebels down there? Why else give them weapons, the way Obama gave AQ rebels in Libya manpads?