The day after: some thoughts on the Zimmerman trial
Just a few random thoughts on this case:
—The Zimmerman case has often been discussed as dealing with issues of race. And of course it does, although primarily because of racemongers who have stirred up that aspect of it for their own purposes.
I don’t think it actually had all that much to do with race for Zimmerman. One of the most important issues in the case, though, was that of self-defense. If Zimmerman had been found guilty, it would have been a very ominous sign for the doctrine of self-defense, and would perhaps have set us on a road (or been an indication that we were already set on a road) similar to that of Britain, where the concept of self-defense has been more or less gutted.
—Have you noticed how, after the prosecution kept calling Martin a “child” during the trial and especially in its closing argument, the use of the word to describe the 17-year-old Martin has escalated tremendously around the MSM? It’s “child” this and “child” that, said in the most solemn tones. Sometimes “frightened child.”
I’ve called this case a tragedy (for the reasons I have purposely used that word, please see this). I am not making light of the taking of the life of a 17-year-old for whatever reason. But Martin—and most 17-year-olds—was no “child.” In fact, had he committed a crime (and he apparently did in this case, assault and battery) and lived to be charged with it, there is a very good chance he would have been charged as an adult. To watch people on TV solemnly intoning “child” is to see their blatant and unapologetic propaganda at work.
—I really admire the defense attorneys in this case. Something about their demeanor seems incredibly smart and thoughtful, as well as compassionate. I very much enjoyed their post-trial press conference. West didn’t pull his punches, whereas O’Mara was the contemplative, almost Mr. Rogers-like one who nevertheless had some very sharp words about the media’s role in the case.
I didn’t watch all that much of the trial itself, but instead relied on Andrew Branca’s great summaries at Legal Insurrection as well as watching some of the video. But I did see much of O’Mara’s final speech to the jury live and was highly impressed. He’s exactly the kind of lawyer who made me want to go to law school, the kind that does in fact exist and has always motivated me to defend lawyers when people bash them in generalities. Yes, of course, I know what those people are referring to when they diss lawyers. But there are more lawyers such as O’Mara than one might think.
This article about O’Mara, written when he first came onto the Zimmerman case over a year ago, turns out to have been spot on—even the Atticus Finch comparison. O’Mara’s website reads, “Helping good people through difficult times.” It turns out that’s not false advertising.
O’Mara has an interesting combination specialty: criminal law and family law. Those were the two fields of law (along with jurisprudence) that most interested me when I was in school. In fact, they were pretty much the only areas of law that interested me. But early on I realized I didn’t have a lawyer’s temperament. O’Mara does. During his post-verdict press conference, he said something that highlighted that fact for me, and as a person who got a law degree but did not practice law I understood what he meant. I don’t have the exact text of his remarks, but when asked what was the best part of the trial for him (after answering it was the moment he heard “not guilty”), he added something like this:
It’s a trial. It’s where we [trial lawyers] live. It’s like a surgeon in surgery. It’s where you want to be.
It’s certainly not where most people would feel at ease or want to be. It was never where I wanted to be, I discovered, although certain things about law and even trial law really appeal to me. But I’m very glad there are people like O’Mara who do belong there.
Race permeated every aspect of this case. I actually do think the police would have acted differently that night, and the days afterward if Martin had been white. I think there is a good chance that Zimmerman would have had a trial in that case without the media pressure, but that the outcome would have been no different. Of all the evidence presented at the trial, the photograph of Zimmerman with that smashed nose and bloody upper lip was far and away the most important. It, by itself, established the assualt, and there was basically no evidence offered by the prosecutors that Zimmerman was the one who resorted to violence first. The jury reached the only verdict it could logically support.
Yancey Ward:
Race permeated every aspect of the case in the public sense. But it certainly did not permeate Zimmerman’s mind, IMHO, in terms of his reasons for shooting Martin. And race obscured to a certain extent the other extremely important issue, that of self-defense.
And note just how many of the reactions to this verdict completely omit the established fact that Martin was assaulting Zimmerman. Thankfully, the jury did take notice of it.
Neo,
I am not so sure what Zimmerman was thinking, or even that he was truthful about the reasons for following Martin in the first place. For me, it just didn’t matter. Zimmerman could have been a KKK member in good standing, and I would still think he should be acquitted based on the evidence that was actually offered.
Yancey Ward:
Agreed. The evidence just did not support a conviction.
Neo-neocon,
” . . . early on I realized I didn’t have a lawyer’s temperament.”
Did you mean to say “a litigator’s temperament?” As you know there are many way to practice law outside of a courtroom. As to that “litigator’s temperament,” you seem to do just fine establishing arguments and defending those positions on this site.
T,
It’s the difference between adversarial and inquisitorial.
T:
Yes, a litigator’s temperament—but litigation happened to be the only area of law I was interested in, except for philosophy of law (jurisprudence), and I had no interest in being a law professor either, the only thing one could do with that.
I like to argue, though. Just not that much in person :-).
Have you noticed how, after the prosecution kept calling Martin a “child”
Had St. Trayvon committed a felony, those very same prosecutors would have been in court asking that he be tried as an adult.
I R A Darth Aggie,
Plus, had Martin been charged with assaulting Zimmerman, I have no doubt People would have tried to enter the habit evidence on Martin they had excluded in the trial.
Is Reid acting in concert with Holder and the Obama regime? He wants the DOJ to look into this.
Even though the judge and the special prosecutor were a joke, Zimmerman was aquitted by a jury with integrity. He is a free man. He was brutally attacked and he defended himself. Zimmerman could have been killled.
This is unbelievable. All these leftists and their hate of Liberty. They are stipping Zimmerman of his civil rights, yet they scream for theirs.
It is depressing because none of this nightmare, since Obama took office, ever ends. We get no closure. When will there be truth and justice because of Fast and Furious, BENGHAZI, the IRS scandal. What really happeded to Seal Team 6 and the American Sniper? Congress starts hearings and makes committees and we get no results. “Hope makes a good breakfast but a poor supper,” and we are starving for justice. Zimmerman should not have to face another court room except to sue them and corrupt media.
I am going out to garden and to get “far away from the things of man.”
T, Neo,
Plus, arguing in a trial is not like arguing on an internet forum. It’s a competitive arena that’s highly structured, exhaustingly rules-bound, detail-heavy, and closely judged that requires a whole lot of work and prep that observers don’t see. Then on top of all that is the human unpredictability of juries, let alone judges.
The best litigators are tenacious, competitive, intuitive, and operate with systematically detailed minds. They’re athletes, artists, and engineers.
Another great post, neo. We must all thank God for lawyers who are talented, ethical, and willing to do battle in our court system. O’Mara is certainly one, but there are many others. Some of them appear on Foxnews from time to time.
I would think, to be a good litigator, you have to be quick witted- a quick thinker. A lot of highly intelligent people, people who are deep thinkers, are not necessarily quick enough to succeed in the arena of the court room, though such people can often make up for it by anticipating the events that will transpire.
A few thoughts regarding the case —
The victim was almost invariably referred to as Trayvon. The defendant, Zimmerman.
Something that our Clerk of Courts brought up one time when I was called for Jury Duty — There are two folks in the courtroom not sworn to tell the truth. The prosecutor and the defense lawyer.
And it always has bothered me that the purpose of our court system doesn’t seem to seek the truth, but to see who is better at persuasion.
Another thought about the trial. Like Da Tech guy says, this was black on black. The press turned a blind eye to the fact that Zimmerman has a black grandmother.
I find it satisfying that the media further sullied itsef in a failed attempt to railroad Zimmerman. Inasmuch as they consistently referred to Zimmerman as a “white Hispanic,” I shall use the same basis to begin referring to Obama as a “white African.”
“I don’t think it actually had all that much to do with race for Zimmerman.”
I posted this link on another thread here but I think it’s worth posting again, an excellent commentary on the case by Daniel Greenfield:
http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/2013/07/wrong-side-of-street.html
Yancey Ward: “I would think, to be a good litigator, you have to be quick witted- a quick thinker.”
Yes.
Kit–to add to the lengthening list of all of those events which our government-media complex has ignored/covered up/deliberately mislead us about/muddied the water on so thoroughly that it is impossible to get to the truth/and demonized and laughed at those actually trying to find the truth, add the 1996 crash of TWA Flight 800 on Long Island.
There were apparently many witnesses that day who swore they saw some sort of missile arch up and hit the plane, but they were–each and every one–blown off/ignored/discredited and, after four years of work and a 400 plus page report, the NTSB came up with the explanation that the crash was due to a vapor explosion in an interior fuel tank.
I have always thought that it was very likely another Jihadi attack, one that the Clinton administration would have found very inconvenient to have to own up to, so, they and their MSM allies buried it, just made it go away.
However, In the last week or so there has been notice of a new video/book, coming out this week, authored by several of the chief NTSB investigators who worked the TWA 800 crash, who say that the supposedly exhaustive report was a government cover-up.
Now, today, there is this long, front page story in the UK’s Daily Mail (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2362820/9-11-World-Trade-Center-bomber-Ramzi-Yousef-revealed-secrets-TWA-800-crash-mafia-boss-jail-cell.html) –reprinted FBI intelligence reports from their mob informant and all–that claims that, while in jail in Manhattan, Bin Ladin’s chief bomb maker, Ramzi Yousef, disclosed the intent of Jihadis to bomb an American commercial airliner over U.S. soil (this in the months just before TWA 800) to an important Mafia capo, Gregory Scarpa, Jr., (Yousef deeming Al-Q and the Mafia to have the same enemy) who was in the next cell, and that Scarpa informed the FBI in the hopes of getting some time off his sentence. Then, over the course of some 11 months, Scarpa made copies of the notes that Yousef had slipped to him describing the Jihadi’s signature explosives and methods, traces of which were found on TWA 800.
Thus, the FBI knew that something like what happened to TWA 800 was in the offing before it happened but didn’t want to reveal this information, for it would put the spotlight on Scarpa, whose father–a major Mafia hit man–had been secretly cooperating with the FBI for decades, likely reveling/jeopardizing this close FBI-Mafia connection/association.
So, a lot of people in government had a lot of reasons to make this Jihadi attack just disappear.
A major, massive cover-up like this–which had to have had a lot of people involved in it to make it work–would have seemed “outside the realm of possibility” a few presidential administrations ago, but now, after what we have seen and experienced from the Clinton administration onward–I think that this is now well “within the realm of possibility.”
I pray for the day when the professional racemongers are held to account. They have done immeasurable harm to this country. And none more so than those they profess to represent.
Reminds me of the Rodney King beating case where the media played the last thirty seconds of the video over and over again. They never show the first part of the video where King is resisting arrest, only the last part where the police loose their tempers and beat the crap out of King. In this case the media kept showing a picture of Treyvon martin as a 12 year old and refering to him as a child. When the jury found the officers not guilty the DOJ came up with some charges that the police violated King’s civil rights. Look for something similar with Zimmerman.
Is it just me, or do Wolla’s conspiracy theories keep getting more rococo with each re-telling? Next he’ll be telling us that he only reads the Daily Mail for the articles 😉
You’ve just described why our president (who gave up his law license) never spent one hour in front of judge and jury defending a client: Without a teleprompter, Owebama is simply a rambling incoherent mess, and would bore a jury to snores. (We all know Owebama could never be a prosecutor.) Besides, Owebama doesn’t think anything he says warrants an objection.
Gary Rosen,
Thanks for the link. I’ve read Greenfield’s stuff before once or twice. He has his finger on the pulse and expresses it well.
I felt steady, quiet optimism about this jury from the start. O’Mara had very much been involved in picking those ladies. He wanted a smart, thorough, thoughtful jury. Grown-ups. He got them.
Like you, Neo, I was really struck by the tone and thoroughness of his summation on Friday. All the blathering heads on cable were lamenting his ‘lack of passion’ and ‘taking too long’, blah-blah-blah. NONSENSE. I believed it was Pitch Perfect for THIS Jury.
Thank God, justice was done.
I think one of the most disturbing aspect of this is the attack on self-defense as a legally legitimate option. We no have the so-called civil rights community on their high horse on a crusade to get rid of this option because of Trayvon. I hope those with more rational mindsets of all races push back on this. I do not believe that a law abiding person should have to retreat in the face of threat from a hudlum. And I do not believe we should eviscerate the legitimate option to defend oneself because of the collective emotional reaction of one group and that group’s sense of grievance.
Soviet–I absolutely never look at those pictures on the right hand side of the page.
Who names their children “17 year-old”? According to the press, Martin’s full name was: Seventeen Year Old Trayvon Martin…
thank you Wolla Dalbo and you are right that the truth has not been told about Flight 800. The mafia connection is interesting.
I lived in Northport, Long Island when that plane came down and scores of people on the East End saw what looked like a missile or a rocket hit the aircraft. Jack Cashill has investigated this for years and says that the testimony of the witnesses was changed without their knowledge to fit the official narrative. I have read that since it happened a few months before Clinton’s reelection, he did not want another terrorist attack on his watch to be made public and so the bogus middle engine explsoion story was fabricated. By the way, the man who was training the bomb sniffing dog to sniff out the explosives says he did not use the plane that became flight 800 and he did not leave traces of explosive behind on thejet he did use. Curiouser and curiouser.
I would put nothing past the Clintons or Obama and you are right what was unthinkable is now inside the realm of possibility.
Obama has spoken and says we must do something about guns “to honor Trayon.” Okay, repetition for emphasis…. “to honor Trayvon.”
That just about does it for me. Now we are being told to honor a thug. And Holder is going to prosecute Zimmerman for violating Martin’s civil rights. Martin’s civil rights ended where his fists and the concrete began.
In this case, maybe a gun saved a life. Martin may not have stopped the thrashing until his thirst for blood had been fulfilled. Remember his cell phone message that the guy he fought with did not bleed enough to satisfy him. Bleeding enough could have meant when Zimmerman’s skull cracked open.
kit: Re-Obam-Bam and “Honor Trayvon”…? Please file under the Daily: You CANNOT Possibly Make This S*** Up!!
NeoConScum: “I felt steady, quiet optimism about this jury from the start. O’Mara had very much been involved in picking those ladies. He wanted a smart, thorough, thoughtful jury. Grown-ups. He got them.”
I think the keys are they are wives, mothers, and working middle class, the demographic most sensitive about the anxieties described in the post Gary Rosen cited and most reliant on their menfolk to protect their neighborhoods from encroaching threats, more so when police protection is viewed as insufficient.
The prosecution relied on a theory of the case that painted Zimmerman as the aggressor with ill intent whose unreasonable actions caused the altercation, but the jurors would have understood what Zimmerman was doing that day and why. They probably could empathize with the wives and moms in the neighborhood that Zimmerman sought to protect.
Yes, they need to “honor Trayvon.”
Just like the race hustlers rallied around the Duke false accuser, rallied around Rodney King, rallied around Tawana Brawley, they will continue to rally around such losers and just who, besides themselves, are they helping?
Watching the news on this case, I just have to say: Thank you Neo, for providing a sense of rationality in this crazy world!
They do so for such people for the same reason the Left does for Palestinians and Islamic terrorists.
Because they are their allies.
Obama joins Neo in terming Trayvon’s death “a tragedy”. She should have no problem with his call to “honor” Trayvon’s memory either. It was a “tragedy”, was it not?
I stand by my original reservation about “tragedy” being applied to Trayvon’s death.
Obama called the deaths of the Ambassador, an aid and the two Navy “not optimal and a bump in the road.” Big difference between those deaths and Martin. At least he is not blaming this on a video.
Sorry, I am not the most articulate person and I cannot type well. That should read Navy SEALs
Regarding the racial component of the Zimmerman controversy, recall John White, the black Long Island middle-class home owner who shot and killed a white teen in 2006.
A difference is that White wasn’t under direct, urgent, physical attack by the white teen punk unlike Zimmerman.
Yet white middle-class homeowning conservatives rallied around White, too, as a fellow middle-class homeowner exercising self defense.
Soviet–let me repeat something I wrote here a long time ago, about how I learned to stretch the limits of what I at first thought was “likely” and “possible.”
I once was tasked with finding out if it was true that “JFK gave a medal to the person who planned the attack on Pearl Harbor,” an assertion that I found very unlikely, indeed. In all of my graduate and undergraduate studies–which focused on History and East Asia, in all of my reading, in all of my subsequent intensive and wide-ranging research in these areas and others, I had never run across anything indicating that this had happened. But, out of an abundance of caution, I queried our in house military analysts, who gave me a “look,” and said that they had never heard of such a thing either, so my answer to this question was that this was not possible and did not happen.
Months later, a different requester asked the same basic question and, intrigued, I decided to devote more time than usual, and to expand the sources I searched through–this before computers and the research capabilities and resources they offered were available to us–to dig a little deeper.
Well, to my amazement, I discovered that JFK had, indeed authorized the award of a medal to the former Lieutenant Commander Minoru Genda, in the 1930s a fighter pilot who was a rising star, and a brilliant naval strategist known for his advanced ideas about carrier warfare, late of the Imperial Japanese Navy, and the officer who, under Admiral Hirohito, was given the task of planning of the attack on Pearl Harbor.
After the war, Genda returned to military service in 1954 when the Japanese Air Self Defense Force (JASDF) was formed, rising to the rank of General and Chief of Staff. Retiring in 1962, he entered politics, was elected to Japan’s House of Councilors four times, where he served as a strongly nationalist member of the “Sato faction” within the Liberal Democratic Party and was reportedly influential in Japanese politics for some 20 years. On Genda’s retirement JASDF in 1962 , it was decided that the U.S. should honor our longtime ally.
So, JFK–to the vocal dismay of several members of Congress–did, indeed authorize the award to Genda of the nation’s highest award to foreigners, the Legion of Merit, Commander. General Lyman L. Lemnitzer, then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, actually presented the award to Genda. Genda died at age 85 in 1989.
After this experience, I was very wary of dismissing things that at first blush and on their surface seemed “very unlikely” and “outside of the realm of possibility.”
Wolla Dalbo:
I also remember that the video “explaining” the cause of the crash and shown on television was made by the CIA, rather than the NTSB.
I thought that was exceedingly strange at the time, in fact downright suspicious.
That was also at the height of the 1996 election season, so Clinton had every reason not to want a major terrorist attack to occur at that time.
The official explanation of Flight 800 stank to high heaven. I thought so at the time, and still do. To the best of my knowledge, no other Boeing 747 has ever crashed due to a spontaneous explosion in the center fuel tank.
To the best of my knowledge, no other Boeing 747 has ever crashed due to a spontaneous explosion in the center fuel tank.
There are other aircraft with center–or other places–fuel tanks. How many of them have spontaneously exploded?
Reminded of the charter aircraft crashing at Gander bringing soldiers of the 101st home from Sinai zookeeping duty. Supposedly flew right into the ground and exploded. But, after some fighting, the families got the heavily redacted medical reports which indicated the guys’ lungs were full of combustion products–soot, most likely. No compute.
Oh, yes. During the trial, I heard numerous headlines at the top of the hour on the radio saying, “Zimmerman is accused of murdering an unarmed black teenager.”
Not exactly “child”, but pretty close. I noted the emphasis on “unarmed”. I guess so, if you don’t count Martin’s fists. Or the pavement.
Don Carlos:
I would have thought that sort of misleadingly-equating sophistry beneath you.
Apparently I was wrong.
rickl: “The official explanation of Flight 800 stank to high heaven. I thought so at the time, and still do. To the best of my knowledge, no other Boeing 747 has ever crashed due to a spontaneous explosion in the center fuel tank.”
All the Boeing jet liners from the B-727 up through the 747 have essentially the same fuel tanks, pumps, and piping. The fuel tank explosion explanation never made sense to me because it would mean that it was a danger on all Boeing aircraft. The fact that there had never been a similar occurrence made it improbable in my eyes.
I have always argued that keeping an actual terror attack quiet would be just too difficult, considering the number of people with inside knowledge that would have to be kept quiet. I have a theory that is nearly impossible – 10 million to one odds or higher. My theory: The airplane was hit by a very small meteorite. A golfball size meteorite could cut through the side of the fuselage as happened on Flight 800. The pictures look like the fuselage was sliced vertically by some sort of object. That makes a terrorist’s rocket seem plausible. But how do they suppress the truth about that all these years? The meteorite would look like it came from the ground up because, as it came in sight, coming over the horizon or “UP” to an observer on the ground. When in fact it was on it’s final arc toward the surface. The meteorite would crumble and disappear into the water below. Voila, no evidence of the meteorite. Yes, I know it’s wild, but no wilder than the fuel tank explosion or a terrorist’s attack that has been kept quiet all these years. 🙂
My dad, now 85, said, “I was already in college when I was 16. And I had played football in high school. When I was 17, they drafted me for World War II.
“We sure didn’t think we were children.”
Yahoo Propaganda has as its lead story that “400,000” blacks marched in the streets today, demanding “Justice for Trayvon.”
The Leftwing Media really, Really want a Race War.
“I have always argued that keeping an actual terror attack quiet would be just too difficult, considering the number of people with inside knowledge that would have to be kept quiet.”
Conspiracy theories often founder on just this, e. g. many JFK assassination plots that would require participation by numerous individuals at the hospital or in the Dallas PD. But I’m sure we’ll be hearing them again this November (50th anniversary alert).
JJ…
Putting my historians hat on…
I can point to quite a few BIG stories from WWII that have been effectively suppressed — even though the witness count is astronomic.
(1) Stalingrad. In EVERY video account (almost) and popular history the tale is told that the bloody fighting was in the city, proper — and its immediate surrounds. This is completely FALSE. Contemporary documents and diaries (seized OKH maps, etc.) make it crystal clear that FOUR Soviet armies faced the Germans west to east between the Volga and the Don. It was at this land bridge that 80% of the dying occurred… miles and miles and miles from the city.
The German battle maps have been uploaded to the Web. Russian losses were far, far, far, higher than admitted — then or now. German accounts tell of entire divisions marching into machine gun fire — dying to the last man… in the morning. Then the process was repeated around noon… and then in the afternoon. 35,000 dead in one sector in one day. Any fleeing soldier was gunned down by the NKVD.
(2) The Ju-52 fiasco, in the summer of 41, cost Hitler the war. The ENTIRE fleet (except the most recent production) was stranded in Russia — because of broken landing gear. It was THIS fiasco that caused the German armies to be vectored south to surround Kiev. The way forward to Moscow — Plan A — was impossible without these planes. You’d have to troll through specialty records and diaries to discover the enormity of this fiasco.
The Nazis classified this debacle at the highest level. Even after the war, no German accounts touched it. Cover stories launched during the war were maintained after the war. All this to protect the reputation of the professional military — of Nazi Germany. (!!!)
(3) The true nature of the Chinese phase of the ‘Korean’ War… namely the liquidation of all SOUTHERN Chinese armies is STILL not acknowledged in popular historical accounts. Writers pretend that forces that had fought for generations suddenly became best friends forever in less than one year. (!)
In sum: the number of people in the know is not relevant to twisting history. Burying an RPG strike against Flight 800 is child’s play.
As for a meteorite — they come in showers — and it would almost certainly have a light signature running above the aircraft — which was VERY low when struck. It was so low that it could be hit — Blackhawk Down style — by an RPG — some of which come with a TRACER OPTION. (Night fighting)
By contrast, at the low level of the plane, a ManPAD would not even be armed — normally. And, every ManPAD I’ve read of has a very smoky exhaust — NOT a tracer. With internal guidance, leaving a trace is only counter-productive.
Strictly speaking, an RPG is not normally termed a missile. It’s originally designed to penetrate tank armor. So, an RPG strike would FLY IN AND OUT of the airplane — NOT even detonating. This is why the experts were totally confused. Even the round itself was missing. Being dense, it went to the bottom of the ocean — non-magnetic, to boot. The rest of the RPG would be aircraft style aluminum alloy — and shredded to bits.
There you have it.
How to murder someone legally in Florida:
1: Instigate a fight.
2. get beat up enough
3. pull your gun and kill the other guy
4. If you don’t have any witnesses, or unreliable murky witness claims, then when you claim self defense nobody knows but the dead guy and he’s not going to talk.
As long as number 4 works out, you’ll probably walk free.
Zimmerman may be innocent of such, but I sure don’t see why it wouldn’t work out for others.
What a great country where murder is so easy.
Everyone talking about Martin should know that Martin wasn’t convicted of anything either.
He really is still innocent, and died never convicted of any crime. Yup that’s right.
Bigots and their slurs show all the true character of some of those here.
Sorry abut that. Make that Admiral Yamamoto.
Most all pro-Trayvon people out there have been brainwashed to believe he was a little 12 year old boy. Even the facebook pics of him holding guns were a couple years old. Virtually no pictures showing the 6’3″ 17 year old have run anywhere on the internet.
Palaten – drive-by troll much?
Palaten,
Traygone is innocent? Of what? Being a good guy?
Let’s talk about ‘purple drank’ and the ingredients for the concoction Traygone was known to have taken; he even bragged abut it on social media.
http://thekansascitian.blogspot.com/2012/05/more-than-bag-of-skittles-trayvon.html
So it appears that those Skittles and iced tea Traygone went to the store to buy and which is a major ‘talking point’ are not so innocuous as they first appear.
Let’s tak about Traygone being suspended from school three times. He was on suspension and living with his daddy’s girlfriend when he bought the farm.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2120504/Trayvon-Martin-case-He-suspended-times-caught-burglary-tool.html
Hmmm. Burglary tools. Why was George Zimmerman concerned about the skulking Traygone in the first place? Oh yeah, there were a rash of burglaries in the gated community, and the hinky Traygone was spotted and not recognized as someone living in that community; his father was not an owner of record in the community, either, so Traygone was a ‘visitor’. Now what visitor gets all bent out of shape at being watched as a suspicious character who did not live in a community and having questions raised about his reasons for skulking around at night in the rain? A thug looking to take his Skittles and iced tea home so he could make some Purple Drank. Either that or casing apartments for future burglary. Don’t forget, Traygone had enough time to go ‘home’ and drop those items off before going back out to hunt down the cracker for ‘dissing’ him.
What’s the side effects of Purple Drank?
Traygone was innocent? Yeah, as innocent as a baby rattler with MMA training.
Sgt Mom,
Zimmerman is their OJ.
Thanks, RickZ…….
I’ve heard it before, but, it can’t be said enough!
Our race-baiter-in-chief Barack Obama and his side kick Eric Holder planned and coordinated all of this from the very beginning.
Just as during the 2012 campaign when David Gregory asked Romney about contraceptives we knew that the beginning of a demonic political campaign had been kicked off here the race-baiter-in-chief kicked it off when he declared Martin to be the son he would have had. So now we have a demonic political campaign of race hatred, intimidation and riots for the 2014 campaign.
We can be absolutely certain that spineless Republicans will tremble and stammer, lending credibility to the latest demonic campaign from the left. Instead they should be openly, explicitly accusing Obama and Holder and others of this and openly saying that some white people are going to die as a result of this race baiting.
We can also be absolutely certain that the Republicans are politically incapable of coming up with anything as coordinated or sophisticated as this current campaign.
I suspect (and would suggest) neo-neocon, that you and your fond commenters could take up a discussion of tragedy as a subject quite apart from the Zimmerman case, and that possibly everyone would profit in the deed, both on account that the concept is very old and terribly important at its origin, as well as that the disappearance of the peoples who originated that concept and view of life have given way to new and quite varied uses of the term. Homer, for one, would probably be pleased to learn his obsession was still a lively topic of thought three thousand years later.
The fact that Obama and Sharpton didn’t give a damn about some black kid who made straight As, getting killed by a 4×2 by some other black gang banger, proves how much they despise blacks.
Getting them killed is part of the game.
It doesn’t matter to me whether Neo Neocon calls it a tragedy or not. That’s more of a personal perspective.
Society attempts to shackle people with concepts of right and wrong, when humans should be attempting to think for themselves and break free of such shackles. Whether Obama says the sky is blue or not, merely justifies a further check, and does not justify that we must automatically say it is yellow, if it is not.
Truth, as determined by how many people agree, is worth less than a throne on a pillar of sand.
Rousseau: MAN is born free; and everywhere he is in chains.
Marx-Engles: The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win.
. . . And too, so not to be left out, the possible antecedent of those (a far echo from the time of tragedy) —
Plato, Republic vii: And now, I said, let me show in a figure how far our nature is enlightened or unenlightened: –Behold! human beings living in a underground den, which has a mouth open towards the light and reaching all along the den; here they have been from their childhood, and have their legs and necks chained so that they cannot move, and can only see before them, being prevented by the chains from turning round their heads.
Neo @ 12:04 am:
That we disagree as to what constitutes
tragedy does not mean I am engaged in sophistry. I merely, and with brevity (honoring EB White) tried to show that naming this death as tragedy can lead one onto a slippery slope (i.e., “honor”).
I prefer to reserve ‘tragedy’ for the ‘tragedy’ of the classics; e.g. Shakespierre or Sophocles- the fatal flaw in an otherwise good man, who is thus also worthy of honor in memory after death. Trayvon does not qualify, IMO. Tragedy is, to me, an uncommonality; to others, not so much.
I recognize with admiration that one of your tasks as blogess is to stimulate thought and discussion. Let’s stay away from rebuttals like ‘sophistry’ when there is disagreement of the non-troll variety.
You hit it right on the head, Harold.
Our Community Organizer in Chief has kept this country in turmoil. The haters want a hater; that’s why they chose Obama over Romney.
The “riots” aren’t about Trayvon or justice. They are just another astro-turfed event, like the Occupy Wallstreet event, to create confusion and fear.
Endure. Ignore the hysteria. Let the babies have their bottle. Vote. Prosper.
Due to the current level of education, the word tragedy means as follows:
I didn’t get my welfare benefits.
I have noticed over the last week or so that a noticeable percentage of the group of the people who disagree with Zimmerman being acquitted are not the ones who envision Martin as a 12-year-old, or the ones who see this as race-based, or even ones who seriously differ with the best-known presentation of events. They seem to be arguing from a perspective which views physical violence as acceptable or even desirable unless a weapon is involved. I have begun to consistently see variations of this viewpoint in enough places to see it as a body of thought on this subject. Usually, it features the ideas:
1) Hitting people is a perfectly reasonable response to a non-physical confrontation, ie someone watching you, or asking you what you’re doing or following you briefly
2) If you do these things, you have “started” a fight and while the other party is within their right to beat you, you are not allowed to use lethal force to defend yourself
I have noticed a consistent anti-gun viewpoint that tends to accompany this thought, but it comes with a bizarre pro-violence attitude that I have not typically noticed with most anti-gun people.
Honestly, I am not sure where this has come from. I’ve seen people lambaste Zimmerman as a weakling (not the word they used) and not a “man” because he was losing the fight.
I don’t know about anyone here, but I live in the United States in the 21st century and there are laws against assault and battery. I would no more expect the men in my life to be highly skilled in a fist fight than I would expect them to be able to organize drug deals or steal cars. Do these people live in a dystopian movie? Where is this anti-gun/pro-beat the snot out of someone who looks at you sideways mindset come from?
The story might have been different if Trayvon had been white — but what is Zimmerman had been black? What then? What if a black guy had stalked a white teenager coming home with Skittles from a convenience store, eventually got into a fight and ended up shooting him?
The evidence was weak and I think that given the weakness of the prosecution’s case, it was not too surprising the jury came back with a not guilty verdict. But while Trayvon Martin had a criminal record, Zimmerman had a record of stalking black guys in his neighborhood and calling the police 46 times over six years. He was arrested in 2005 for getting into a shoving match with a cop. He had a domestic violence dispute with his former fiancée, resulting in a mutual restraining order. Zimmerman himself is hardly a level-headed, calm guy. He’s a vigilante with a history of problems with violent outbursts.
What happened that night only Zimmerman knows for certain. But it isn’t only Trayvon Martin who has a checkered past.
Mitsu, do you think the facts that you mention about Zimmerman are news? A lot more has been reported about the shortcomings and the past of Zimmerman than of Martin.
I’m just responding to posts in this thread and the other posts where people say things like “Trayvon Martin was a thug”, “he was giving off a vibe” and so on. Sure, Trayvon had a record of problems, but so has Zimmerman. What is indisputable is that Trayvon, on that night, wasn’t doing anything wrong, and Zimmerman didn’t need to be “protecting” his neighborhood against him, and however the final altercation broke out, Trayvon would still be alive had Zimmerman not been doing his unnecessary “neighborhood watch” act.
Trials demand facts. Now the Left didn’t get what it wanted because the facts got in the way. Does the Left really want non-factual procedures to prevail?
Yes, it appears it does. When it doesn’t happen, we see slander and denial.
It’s a stunner. The very things, law and facts, which have emancipated and protected minorities, are now anathema to them. And the thing they most hated, unfair prejudice, their hallmark.
But not all. Thank God, not all.
And let us not forget the real culprits: the spewers of Rousseau and Marx and Critical Race Theory. I wouldn’t want their lives, much less their souls, stained as they are with lies and ingratitude and fury.
The wicked have no rest.
Mitsu:
Your points are irrelevant.
The point is not whether Martin was intent on committing a crime that night—something we don’t know, although he did apparently have a burglary and/or fencing of stolen property history (see this).
The point is whether his behavior that night would have caused a reasonable person on neighborhood watch to become suspicious, follow him at a safe distance for a little bit to see, and then call police and wait for them to come. That is exactly what happened, if you actually watched the trial rather than read MSM summaries (and lies) about it.
And this is what Martin was doing that was suspicious according to Zimmerman’s 911 call about it—you know, the one that NBC deceptively edited to make it sound as though Zimmerman was racially profiling Martin when he was not?:
It was raining that night and Martin was not going home. Nor did he go home after that, although he had plenty of time to do so.
But none of that is even as important as the fact that Martin was beating Zimmerman up in a way that reasonably made Zimmerman fear for his life. Zimmerman and his neighbors have every right to form a neighborhood watch and patrol their neighborhood and keep any eye on anyone they wanted to. They are not the ones responsible for that person’s violently attacking them! What absurd reasoning of yours. A neighborhood watch is supposed to be preventative. Not only do you NOT know why Martin was wandering around like that and what he actually had planned, but you have some absurd idea that neighborhood watches have to have a 100% correct record of only suspecting and following those who later commit burglaries or other crimes, and otherwise the watch was “unneccesary”?
You could choose any act in the chain of events and say but for this, or but for that, it wouldn’t have happened. If Martin hadn’t gotten suspended from school he wouldn’t have even been in the neighborhood. Why not start the chain of events there? Your choice is purely arbitrary. You could just as easily say none of it would have happened if Martin hadn’t been wandering around, which is also true. But the definitive moment—the one that caused this to escalate—was Martin’s violent and sudden attack on Zimmerman, who was no longer “following” him but was waiting (pretty much in the same area from which he had called 911) for the police to come.
There is nothing wrong with a neighborhood watch in a community such as the one where Zimmerman lived that has experienced an outbreak of crime. That is why it was warranted. You are acting as though Zimmerman took a look at Martin, walked up to him, and shot him. If that had happened, you’d have an argument. But you haven’t got one, and must resort to illogic.
Don Carlos:
You misunderstand.
I was referring to your comment at 6:45 PM yesterday.
Here, let me refresh your memory:
That is the “misleadingly-equating sophistry” that I had thought was beneath you.
My definition of “tragedy”—and why I called it that, which I took the trouble to explain at some length—has nothing to do with Obama’s definition, or motives, and certainly nothing to do with his call about “honor.” You certainly ought to know that—and in fact I think you do know that (although perhaps I’m giving you too much credit). But the cheap sophistry of your remarks did surprise me.
And your “disagreement” in that comment of yours was very much of “the troll variety” rather than the non-troll variety. Your earlier disagreement about whether Martin’s death was a tragedy was of the non-troll variety, but I was not addressing that discussion in that comment of mine.
And by the way, your guide as to which comment of yours I was referring to should have been that, unless specified, a person is usually commenting on the most recent comment above theirs from the person they’re addressing, rather than earlier ones.
In fact, in a quick perusal of the comment thread, I see only that single comment from you above mine. So I think it should have been quite clear to you to what I was referring.
>illogic
Sure, Zimmerman had a right to form a neighborhood watch. But the evidence is hardly that he didn’t have a 100% correct record — he had a terrible record of nuisance calls to 911, in recent years mostly reporting on “suspicious” guys who were almost always black. He also, as noted before, had a history of violent outbursts, he was arrested for shoving a cop, he had domestic violence complaints on his record.
We can never know exactly what happened that night, I’ll grant you that. But I think it’s perfectly reasonable to suggest that the evidence is fairly strong that Zimmerman had the wrong temperament to execute a neighborhood watch in a sober and responsible manner. Did he really just watch from a “distance” and never went up to Martin, never got close to him? How do we know that for certain? We don’t. The cell phone call Martin made to his friend indicates Zimmerman was following Martin closely enough that Martin was spooked.
The evidence isn’t clear that Zimmerman was guilty but it is also not clear that he is blameless. Your description of Zimmerman’s actions is the absolute most generous possible — and I think it is rather implausible he acted with total restraint and care, given both the evidence and his own record.
When is Mitsu going to elect another tyrant to the throne and wash his hands of the thousands he got tortured and killed?
And when will he come back here and talk with his chest held high at his Good Works so far?
Where is this anti-gun/pro-beat the snot out of someone who looks at you sideways mindset come from?
Comes from community organizers that people like Mitsu put into power with their entire heart and soul. Things kind of flowed down hill like crud after then.
Mitsu, read the notes from the calls. The guy wouldn’t confront a pit bull in his own garage without requesting an officer present.
Kyndyll.
Mitsu knows better. He’s just trying to get us to run ourselves to exhaustion explaining…what he already knows.
“. . . Trayvon would still be alive had Zimmerman not been doing his unnecessary “neighborhood watch” act.” (Mitsu @ 1:25)
Mitsu,
This is a comment based upon a flawed premise.
Just as self-defense must be used before a fatal wound is inflicted so, too, is the idea of a neighborhood watch prophylactic. Both are designed to thwart events before they occur. To call a neighborhood watch program unnecessary because nothing was immediately happening (the implication behind your sentence) is like saying one should wait until s/he is killed to defend one’s self with lethal force.
As Neo points out, there indeed were a series of problems in the gated community Zimmerman was helping to watch, but even so, since programs like neighborhood watch are intended to be prophylactic, there is no need to even try to justify such a program by a recent spate of break-ins, burglaries or thefts. One can justify creating a neighborhood watch program even in the safest of neighborhoods as a means of keeping them safe.
Oh! and Mitsu,
“. . . Trayvon would still be alive had
Zimmerman not been doing his unnecessary “neighborhood watch” actTrayvon not been beating the snot out of a man he had pinned to the ground.”There, fixed it for you.
I think the most important question is the rate of break-ins and burglaries in the neighborhood since the innocent child is no longer around.The Nobel Commitee should demand the Peace Prize back from our Community Organizer in Chief who has tuned MLK’s famous comment about character and the color of one’s skin on its head.
FYI, Mitsu referred to my comment here:
http://neoneocon.com/2013/07/13/zimmerman-not-guilty/#comment-627773
My neighborhood in Chicago, Lakeview, has a varied population with all kinds of people, rich and poor, young and old, walking around. (I’m talking daytime, early evening. Late night is a whole other story).
EVERYBODY reacts to thugs with hoodies walking their certain slouchy walk. Nobody feels ashamed for reacting.
My question is: WHY are so many liberals and their ilk determined to defend the THUG CULTURE???? The ones I know in Chicago identify thugs the minute they see them. There are no “NICE” thugs to be found.
Of course, the suburban liberals I know think it’s a big deal to go to an exercise class where there are a few black people. For them, blacks are exotic creatures, and slouchy hoodied thugs aren’t part of their daily lives.
I just don’t get this craziness re Trayvon Martin. He was obviously a thug in his appearance. Any rational person, black or white or “other” would want to be protected against this type. Sultan Knish thinks the big issue is that rich liberal-types don’t like lower/middle class types to have nice homes and safe neighborhoods. It’s a basic snobbery.
Here’s a thought experiment I haven’t seen proposed yet:
What if all the facts were the same except Zimmerman was black?
Eric. O’Mara said there’d be no trial because it was a valid SD case, and, the shooter being black, no media/DC pressure to bring one.
Blert. I’d heard about the Ju52. Not about Stalingrad. Did hear that UN commanders in Korea were trying to figure out what the Chinese were up to. Literally wondered about population control.
In “Russia at War”, the author lists the numbers–staggering numbers–of Soviet army officers purged just before the war. Huge. However political the guys were, top ones especially, they had to be better than their hurried replacements. See anything on that idea?
And did German intel stoke Stalin’s paranoia? Or was he capable of that nonsense all by himself? Heard Gehlen’s bunch may have faked him into it.
Promethea,
At least in my neck of the woods, NYC urban liberals are comfortable with thee/me double standards when it comes to their social-political opinions versus their own homes and families.
They will publicly support politically correct positions despite the harm to ‘thee’, but are borderline sociopathic with rational calculations regarding their ‘me’, eg, where and around whom they live, what schools their kids attend.
You want to see fighting spirit?
Watch a true-blue liberal mom who can’t or won’t pay for private school fight to keep her apartment building from being rezoned for the public elementary school across the street that the (housing) projects kids attend versus the public elementary school a few blocks away that the kids from families like hers attend.
And yes, they will teach PC lessons to her kids at the ‘good’ public elementary school. They just won’t learn the lessons sitting next to projects kids.
Mitsu: who said Zimmerman is “blameless”? The point of the trial was not to determine whether he was worthy of any blame at all, but whether he committed murder. Your insistence here that he made mistakes is entirely irrelevant. The criminal justice system does not require us to be “blameless” in order to find us innocent, thank God. And, as you so often do, you have moved the goalposts. The initial question that resulted in this prosecution was not whether Zimmerman was “blameless” but whether he was motivated by racism to shoot down an unarmed kid. Now that you must concede that there is no evidence — other than that falsely generated by NBC — that racism had anything to do with it, you’re flailing around grasping at straws and insisting, “But he got out of his car! But he had the wrong personality to be in a Neighborhood Watch!! But but but, he must have been guilty of SOMETHING!” It’s silly and irrelevant and well past time for you to stop it.
Eric:
Rich liberals have long purchased their smug sanctimony at the expense of working-class whites, who often bear the brunt of liberal “solutions” (and sometimes the black working-class pays, too). See this for another example.
Mrs Whatsit,
Mitsu is merely attempting to manufacture a link on the causal chain that will stand up in the court of public opinion, if not survive the rules of evidence in court, that he can assign to Zimmerman and is sufficient to negate self defense.
Mitsu concedes Zimmerman’s ultimate action – firing his weapon in self-defense – was caused by Martin’s attack. For Mitsu’s position to cohere, Zimmerman must have caused or provoked Martin to attack. The evidence is absent where that link needs to be, though, in terms of both Zimmerman’s actions and state of mind.
So Mitsu is doing his best to fill the blank space in the causal chain by connecting dots inferred from sketchy premises (eg, neighborhood watch, police aspiration, and possessing a legal firearm are sinister) that Zimmerman must have *purposely done something* that rose to a provocation inducing a justified attack by Martin.
Neo,
I thought the Sultan Knish Daniel Greenfield post that Gary Rosen linked upthread really nailed the fault line in the Zimmerman controversy. It’s not about black vs white. It’s about the working middle class.
blert, I will bow to your knowledge of great historical cover ups. Your scenario of an RPG sounds reasonable to me. I can’t believe the investigators didn’t look at it, but maybe they didn’t. And who are the people and how many of them are there who know the truth, but are keeping their mouths shut? The coming video will be interesting to peruse.
JJ…
To show you how blinding preconceptions can be…
The US Army was honestly SHOCKED when RPGs were used against our soldiers in Mogadishu. The city was AWASH with RPGs on every street corner… but these were not deemed a clear and present danger to the helicopter operations. (!)
While the Hollywood movie takes some liberties — it wasn’t filmed on location — it was pretty realistic — hauntingly so.
The NTSB simply has an empty dataset for RPG shoot downs.
I must recommend that they post Flight 800 as their first data cluster.
====
BTW, MOST people — to include military — are not aware that RPGs even have a tracer option. It’s NOT a Western ‘thing.’
My crude understanding is that the Red Army intended to occasionally use RPGs with tracers (normally at night) to direct MASSED FIRES. That is, the first shot — by an officer — would both hit AND designate a target priority. Everyone else was to pile it on. Such gang tactics are shades of the Eastern Front of WWII.
In Western armies, anti-tank/ anti-pillbox rounds were not intended to be used in a massed fire.
The Soviets/ Russians figured out that RPGs can make every soldier a ‘Stalin’s Organ’ in miniature.
The tracer option can be selected in the field — effectively at the last second, IIRC. It’s just a pyro-technic squib. Various colors exist. The emitted glow is far, far, far, beyond any laser designator — yet idiot proof.
JJ…
One technical detail…
RPGs are deliberately designed to NOT be prematurely triggered by skin armor.
( See German Mark IV ‘H’ and ‘J’ tank variants from 1943 onwards. These were the first to have ‘skirts’ to over wrap the conventional armor — specifically to prematurely detonate the American Bazooka anti-tank rockets. The Germans were so impressed with this weapon that they threw EVERYTHING at it. This led to the Panzerfaust, the Panzershreck — and the Soviet RPG.)
The upshot… thin aircraft ‘skin’ aluminum would NOT be tough enough to trigger the warhead.
It would rip in and out… leaving the NTSB to look for where in hell did this hole come from?…
If the RPG was triggered on a delayed basis — then you have a 747 en flambe….
kyndyll!
Let me share a personal experience with you. Last Christmas I was attacked by two kids, who threw me to the ground and pummeled me WWE tag team style.Did not know them. They did not ask for anything. They did not talk to each other during the attack.Very methodical, very cool, all silent. In less than a minute they broke off the attack and fled.Yes they were blacks.No they wore no hoodies.At the local police precinct I asked and was told the attack was probably random act of robbery broken off after I defended myself.Other than some bruises to my body, my ego, some headaches and chest pain,I sustained no serious injuries.
All this did not impress my white, liberal friends from DC-Baltimore corridor.My friends instead tried to educate me to look beyond the violence itself and instead focus on the social injustices these two “kids” were subjected to so I may better understand what made them violent. I was lectured on history of slavery and of Jim Crow etc.
The irony is that at least two of my lady friends in the bunch have themselves been mugged yet continue to hold on to the believe that muggers must be understood and deserve our sympathy.The other irony is that the neighborhood the attack took place is an overwhelmingly modest income and black.All sympathetic to me, giving me tips and advise on how to stay safe in their backyard.
I share your concern and I worry about social acceptability of physical violence. I find it easier to understand the behavior of thugs in the society than that of the intellectuals’ narrative on social (in)justice.
blert.
My father was an Infantry platoon leader in the ETO. One of the doctrines was for an officer to designate a target with tracer for riflemen. Using M1 carbine instead of RPG was easier, and you could do it more often and more accurately. So the Reds did it, but they were not alone.
What was 800’s altitude when hit? Infantry rockets burn only in the tube. IME, the 3.5–which we saw demonstrated–and the M72 did not draw any residual smoke along behind them as the simulated RPG did in Blackhawk. Is the latter accurate? Range of RPG? Keep in mind it would have been a hell of a shot. RPGs don’t have AA sights. No ring and bead or whatever.
If you presume RPG, then you can work out a circle within which the shooter must have been from the position of the AC when hit. How far from that circle were the eyewitnesses? Somebody might even figure the vertical angle which would then bring up the question of backblast. How far could that be seen by the random eye? If it hit the water?
IMO, possible but most unlikely due to practical issues. I presume the motivation, but, like the Wall Street bomb plot, it may have been abandoned as impractical.
The shoe bomber failed because his shoes didn’t blow up. No reason to think shoe bombs are always a failure.
Edsall and Edsall, in a book on liberalism many years ago–they liked it but thought it could be marketed better–had a telling line, an admission against interest.
Pretty good paraphrase:
“For the white patrolman passed over for sergeant by a black officer with lower scores; for a single mother whose children are bused to distant and unfamiliar neighborhoods, for the third-shift nurse raped in the hospital parking lot by a convicted rapist let out of jail early, for the early commuters threatened by the deinstitutionalized demented [my phrase] on the subway, the promises of liberalism may not seem to be fulfilled”
Note that each example involves “others”. Not the elite. Liberalism is imposed on those who cannot fight back. In addition, complaints are answered with accusations. Mostly it’s “racist”, but there are others.
The victims are those whose concerns the elites, the powers-that-be, are not bound to respect.
Neo said something like in her piece about busing in Boston.
And the chattering classes demonize, smear and “other” the victims. See the Branch Davidians, or the Weaver family.
Here’s what the juror who voted initially to acquit Zimmerman and believed the defense’s story 100% said about Zimmerman:
‘She said she believes Zimmerman’s “heart was in the right place” the night he shot Martin, but that he didn’t use “good judgment” in confronting the Florida teen.
“I think George Zimmerman is a man whose heart was in the right place, but just got displaced by the vandalism in the neighborhoods, and wanting to catch these people so badly that he went above and beyond what he really should have done,” she said.
“But I think his heart was in the right place. It just went terribly wrong.”
If anything, Zimmerman was guilty of not using “good judgment,” the juror said.
“When he was in the car, and he had called 911, he shouldn’t have gotten out of that car,” she said.
She also said she believes Martin threw the first punch in the confrontation that followed.
“I think George got in a little bit too deep, which he shouldn’t have been there. But Trayvon decided that he wasn’t going to let him scare him … and I think Trayvon got mad and attacked him,” she said.’
Poor judgement leading to death isn’t necessarily a crime (depends on the wording of the statutes). But what you guys are all ignoring here is that while you’re focused on Martin appearing to be a threat, you’re ignoring Martin’s fear that Zimmerman was a threat. Martin was clearly afraid of Zimmerman, he thought he was stalking him, following him, had no idea what Zimmerman was doing there or why he was following him. That’s why Zimmerman shares in the blame for this incident. As the juror went on to say: “I think both were responsible for the situation they had gotten themselves into.”
Mitsu:
You know what? I think that juror showed good judgment in acquitting Zimmerman. But on the subject of his judgment she shows bad judgment.
There was actually nothing wrong with Zimmerman getting out of the car. Nothing.
I am sick and tired—really sick and tired—of this inability to assign responsibility where it is due. There is no justification whatsoever for Martin beating Zimmerman up, throwing the first punch, any of it. I’m sorry it led to his death, but it would not have done so if he hadn’t attacked Zimmerman, or if he’d kept it to just hitting him, rather than immobilizing him and continuing to hit him.
Why this need to blame Zimmerman for something? Just because someone’s actions were part of a chain of events that led to a death does not mean their judgment was bad. For example, to take a different tragic example, let’s say a person crosses a street at night, in the dark and rain, in poor visibility, wearing dark clothes. That person becomes virtually invisible. A driver comes up, going the proper speed limit for the conditions and following proper driving rules and doesn’t see that person crossing, and hits and kills them. While it is true that if the driver had chosen a different route that night the victim would still be alive, it does not mean the driver demonstrated poor judgment, although his decision to take that route did in fact lead to the death, and but for that decision that person would almost certainly be alive. But the bad judgment was solely on the part of the victim.
And let me explain again that the reason I am going into this, and responding to several of your other remarks as well, is not to convince you, because I doubt you can be convinced. If you do end up changing your mind, that would be a nice bonus. But I don’t expect it. I am responding mostly for other readers who might be following the thread.
Neo,
At this point, Mitsu is revealing his prejudicial colors. He is assigning the agency of a wild aggressive animal to Martin rather than a human being. Martin was a thug, but I still assign him the agency of a human being.
On the other hand, the question is begged:
If, as Mitsu contends, Zimmerman’s mere act of stepping out of his vehicle was indeed sufficient to provoke Martin to attack Zimmerman in a manner justifying self defense, then just how dangerous was Martin on the day he died?
Other than wild aggressive animals, I can only think of someone hopped up on bad PCP being as helplessly violent as Mitsu portrays Martin.
Neo and Eric,
IMO it’s simple really. The non-black is always the oppressor and always at fault (directly or indirectly) while the black “victim” is never at fault. With these posts, Mitsu joins the faculty and administration of Duke “University” who excoriate on the basis of narrative. Facts be damned.
Having Mitsu and some other people here judge Zimmerman, would be like having a Leftist lawyer judge the actions of Iraq or Afghanistan.
Y.
I believe Ramsey Clark did opine on the destruction of a town and its inhabitants in Iraq by SH’s forces. Somebody had tried to off the boss in the area. Sort of a Lidice, but Clark thought you needed a strong lesson.
Clinton’s WACO was also executed using his Justice head.
To the Left, guns are useful. But only for certain people.
Richard Aubrey…
A jumbo jet is a massive target — a flying barn door it is.
Having just come off a JFK runway, its flight profile would be predictable in the extreme.
There are NO end of practice planes to clock prior to the magic moment.
By that point in time, laser range finders were widely available even in the construction industry. (I still have my Hilti.) These would give you the height of a climbing jumbo to the nearest 0.25″ — if it was still.
The use of RPGs by Somali fanatics had just occurred in the early 90s. Such a gambit begs for imitation.
RPGs are cheaper than Chicklets. So much so, that many a practice run is affordable.
The Duck of Death handed them out like door prizes or sales spiffs… right along with AK-74s.
A ManPad would’ve gone straight for the ENGINES.
The NTSB conclusion would cause us to expect falling jumbos like they were Space Shuttles.
The use of tracer would be consistent with obtaining video proof of an atrocity, something that is plainly important to fanatics. See Youtube.
It’s a possibility that should’ve been seriously pursued. After Blackhawk shoot-downs in Mogadishu… Clinton & Co had every reason to bury the idea.
You can be certain that the relevant waters are now forbidden to pleasure craft.
Likewise extensive security zones have been established all around sensitive sites — just about everywhere — since 9-11.
blert.
Getting skeptical here. If there are practice runs, somebody would have noticed. You don’t quit practicing until you hit. So somebody got hit in practice. Was that 800? Someplace there would have been dozens of RPGs exploding near an airport.
Various sources show the max range as being 500 meters. This is considerably more than its range to a target considerably above the shooter.
So let’s be generous and figure the thing started to drop at 2000 feet. At that point its velocity is low and whatever lead you estimated has to be awfully big, with the concomitant error.
What was 800’s altitude at that point?
So the circle from which the thing was fired has to be particularly small. And if we know that, we know where it is, and we know what kind of visibility the firing craft would have had to people on shore.
Considering the Gander crash and the following questions–to put it mildly–I figure a bomb on board.
I predict bombs are easier to use. At least unless you are part of Ayers’ group. If so, be sure to be out of the house when they test the bomb. Only way those two survived. That bomb was supposed to be for the revolution and social justice, in killing military men and their wives. Unfortunately, it was a one off only.
But instead of using a devil’s proof concerning the actual incident, we can use Hempel’s Ravens for this.
By judging and looking at all current and future terrorist attacks, we can see whether it is possible for them to use rpgs or not. Because if it worked once, why not again and again? Especially if there are no defenses against it. Thus far from proving an impossibility, we are thus slowly gathering relevant proof from other incidents that support the relevant concept.
Richard…
I’m not going to travel any further down this logical road, for I would have to quickly get too detailed as to how a fanatic might pull off such an atrocity.
That you can’t see how it could be done… I accept that.
Most of humanity would be in your camp.
However, there will be some clever fanatics out there who are capable of coming up with a gambit.
I give you 9-11. Had it not been done, there is no way in Hell that it would be accepted as a supposition. Indeed, we have Truthers running around even at this hour.
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RPGs were NOT perceived as a threat to low flying aircraft/ helicopters — until Mogadishu. Those fellows were elite, had been trained to the highest standard. THEY were shocked.
Military helicopters can flit all over — in every direction — yet they were being shot up by hopped up militiamen.
Jumbo jets are about as steady as a locomotive on rails. FAT targets.
It take it as a given that the zones around all landing and takeoffs have been expanded since 9-11 — worldwide.
RPGs are as cheap as Chicklets, particularly ex-Libyan RPGs. They don’t require ANY sophistication/ bomb maker/ master armer.
Multiple eyewitnesses insisted that something flew up from the ocean/ small craft into the plane.
Detonating an on board bomb just as it was taking off is weird. All prior known plots involved bombs set for the deep ocean skies — typically multi-plane atrocities.
The point of impact is e x a c t l y where a fanatic would place his cross hairs — the fattest part of a fat target. What a co-incidence.
It should have been explored. I’ll bet the experts thought exactly like you… and dismissed the possibility out of hand.
Since 9-11 the authorities have picked up and broken up quite a few attempts to blow up jumbo jets. AQ is obsessed with re-creating the atrocity on a larger scale.
Any further ‘successes’ by the fanatics would likely cause a sequence of harsh measures that would cut off all food deliveries to the ummah. Unlike WWII, no naval campaigns would be required.
blert
RPG–then sometimes called B40 and B41–were considered threats to helicopters in Viet Nam. But then, as now, when hovering, on final, on the ground, just taking off. Which was the case with the SEALs in Afghanistan. Everybody I knew figured the Sov version of the fifty was worse.
Actually, admittedly with hindsight, 9-11 could have been predicted although, as with trying to predict WW I in 1910 it would have been a tough sell. What I would have balked at would be the coordination of so many.
I would entertain eyewitnesses seeing something fly up. I would also moderate that for various reasons including having witnessed a couple of accidents and witnessed people coming along later giving “eyewitness” statements to the cops. Dot-connecting is an automatic process, and that’s the most charitable view of such things.
I would entertain a MANPAD, particularly if there was evidence of something going up.
We still haven’t heard about 800’s altitude at the time of impact.
The shooter wouldn’t have had his sight on the aircraft unless he’d had a purpose-built sight for this particular flight path. And then we have reduced accuracy after a couple of hundred meters and the altitude question.
I refer back to the Gander crash when I see the 800 crash.