First up, Hawaii wants Arizona to know it is sick of their nonsense:
he attorney general’s office in Hawaii is telling Arizona’s secretary of state that if he wants confirmation of President Obama’s birth records, he’ll have to prove he legitimately needs it.
Special Assistant Joshua Wisch said late Friday that Arizona Secretary of State Ken Bennett hasn’t done that despite numerous email and phone exchanges between their offices.
***Hawaii officials have confirmed multiple times that Obama was born there.
In other news, torture fetishist Alan Dershowitz (click on that link to really get the zeitgeist of 2003- “If we’re gonna torture, we should at least do it lawfully!”), who apparently decided to throw away all respect for the law years ago, is now writing op-eds about the Trayvon Martin case, and has decided Zimmerman should be let go:
A medical report by George Zimmerman’s doctor has disclosed that Zimmerman had a fractured nose, two black eyes, two lacerations on the back of his head and a back injury on the day after the fatal shooting. Moreover, the New York Times has reported that traces of marijuana were found in Trayvon Martin’s body and that Martin’s father initially said that the voice crying for help was not that of his son. It is also been reported that a bruise was found on Martin’s ring finger that would be consistent with Martin having punched Zimmerman. No other wounds, aside of course from the fatal bullet hole in the front of Martin’s body, were found.
If this evidence turns out to be valid, the prosecutor will have no choice but to drop the second-degree murder charge against Zimmerman — if she wants to act ethically, lawfully and professionally.
Case closed! Self Defense!
And finally, via Wonkette, this:
The other day when the news came out that minority babies were now the majority of all births in the United States, my very first thought was that this might be the only thing that saves the Republic.
Egg Berry
Not a lawyer, but isn’t that what the trial is for?
Liberty60
I like Bill Maher’s comment-
“Just when I thought I was done calling them racist, they drag me back in!”
John Cole
@Egg Berry: Bingo.
Hunter Gathers
The question is whether or not the country can hang on long enough. At this rate, the Social Security fund is probably going to be spent on an invasion of Mars, the Roberts court will declare gravity unconstitutional and Islam will be banned in 20 states.
amk
alan for sc. Any takers ? Fuck the trial and let’s skip to
innocencejustifying killing blacks.Villago Delenda Est
@Egg Berry:
As John noted, yes.
I saw a comment from some idiot who objected to Zimmerman being arrested, as that violated the concept of innocent until proven guilty.
Apparently, in this chucklehead’s limited cranium, an arrest is tantamount to being convicted and sent to prison.
The stupid of the wingtards. It burns.
As for Dershowitz, the man is unmitigated scum.
Mnemosyne
As far as I can tell (though IANAL), in Florida you can pick a fight with someone and then kill that person and it’s perfectly legal under SYG because the law doesn’t care who started or provoked the fight. All it cares about is whether or not someone says they feared for their life in the course of the fight.
This is why an estranged husband who talked for weeks about killing his wife and her new boyfriend can go over to their house with a gun, kill the boyfriend, and walk free.
ETA: Another article on the same case.
4tehlulz
Looks like Alan is dangling for a retainer.
Villago Delenda Est
It’s worth pointing out, yet again for those who are slow on the uptake, to include Alan Dershowitz, Esq., that the Endlösung of the “Jewish Question” in the Third Reich was absolutely, impeccably done in a fully lawful manner under Reich law. The lawyers working in the various ministries responsible for the coordination of the “resettlement” would have it no other way.
The Bearded Blogger
@Villago Delenda Est: Wow… what a lack of self-awareness, if that held true noboby could be arrested for trial…
FlipYrWhig
@Mnemosyne: And I think the reason the law came about has to do with Villago’s comment above. Florida politicians came to understand that it was a terrible, terrible thing for people who shot other people to have to suffer the indignity of proving it was justified via the actual justice system. Because being arrested or charged is psychologically equivalent to being convicted and locked up, which makes it unfair to the people who pulled the trigger in self-defense.
Mnemosyne
BTW, the guy was able to get the judge to dismiss the case under SYG despite the 911 call from his estranged wife that her crazy ex-husband had shown up with a gun saying he was going to kill her and her boyfriend.
Mr Stagger Lee
I guess Alan’s fee fees has been hurt that he hasn’t been picked for SC, plus I guess the progressive side has not given him love now he has decided to go Fox News. I suspect Dershowitz will on day be part of Jared Taylor’s American Renascence rubber chicken circuit. Oh he has to penance for defending OJ too.
me
The word no one’s allowed to say any more? Doesn’t she mean the “N” word?
Tone In DC
Remember that video from a while back, of Zimmerman’s arrival in the police station? He looked pretty unharmed for a guy as beat up as this:
Just sayin’.
Amir Khalid
That nice man Sheriff Arpaio was investigating whether Obama really was born in the USA, like that “Hawaiian birth certificate” says he was. Did Ken Bennett by any chance ask the Sheriff to show him the case file, or to brief him (Bennett) on the findings?
Spaghetti Lee
@Tone In DC:
So?
Chris
@Hunter Gathers:
Exactly. Cole’s statement and your response to it summarize my opinion re demographics.
dmsilev
Adventures in rhetorical questions: So, has the Arizona Secretary of State requested equivalent documentation from Mitt Romney and/or the State of Michigan?
Tone In DC
@Spaghetti Lee:
Didn’t expect that for a response.
I’m still without caffeine, so my snark detector is uncalibrated. Think I’ll get some Arizona tea.
Villago Delenda Est
@Tone In DC:
Right. Like George Zimmerman’s doctor isn’t immune to the lure of wingtard lucre.
joeyess
I’ve always maintained that we, as a people, will never get along until we’re all a little bit brown.
amk
@dmsilev: Is mitt not white ? Simple Q&Q session.
GregB
Don’t forget that one of the main reasons why the right hates the left is because they think the left promotes a culture of victimization.
Guster
The ‘lawful torture’ thing was presented to me, uncomfortably, like a mirror image of the teen pregnancy debate.
Cons: Teen pregnancy is bad, and we should focus all our attention on stopping it entirely.
Libs: Teen pregnancy is inevitable, so we should focus on reducing the negatives,
Libs: Torture is bad, and we should focus all our attention on stopping it entirely.
Dersh: Torture is inevitable, and we should focus on reducing the negatives.
I had a tough time arguing anything other than, ‘you can’t compare torture and teen pregnancy’. But of course you can. That’s what an analogy is.
Help?
Guster
The ‘lawful torture’ thing was presented to me, uncomfortably, like a mirror image of the teen pregnancy debate.
Cons: Teen pregnancy is bad, and we should focus all our attention on stopping it entirely.
Libs: Teen pregnancy is inevitable, so we should focus on reducing the negatives,
Libs: Torture is bad, and we should focus all our attention on stopping it entirely.
Dersh: Torture is inevitable, and we should focus on reducing the negatives.
I had a tough time arguing anything other than, ‘you can’t compare torture and teen pregnancy’. But of course you can. That’s what an analogy is.
Help?
The Bearded Blogger
@joeyess: Well, here in Colombia nobody’s really black or white, almost everybody is shades of brown (varying mixtures of spanish, sephardic jew, arabic, american indian and black)… and there’s not that much racism… we kill each other for different reasons
Punchy
Im so sick of this country that Im going to Spain. OK, for just a week, but still….I get to see what REAL unemployment looks like…..
The Bearded Blogger
@Guster: Sure:
1) teen pregnancy is undesirable, torture is absolutely forbidden.
2) The state cannot control if teens get pregnant or not, it can control wether it commits torture
gaz
If I looked like this bitch, I’d try to make up for it with some sort of personality.
mouse tolliver
@Tone In DC: He didn’t have two black eyes in the photos they released. He had some scratches on his face and the back of his head, but no visible bruising. In other words, he looked like someone who was in a scuffle, but he did not look like someone who was nearly beaten to death.
Guster
@The Bearded Blogger:
But 1) begs the question. The proposal is for the state to not absolutely forbid torture.
And 2) is wrong. The state can’t control whether agents of the state torture. It happens regardless of legality.
Amir Khalid
@Tone In DC:
I distinctly remember seeing George Zimmerman looking quite uninjured in that photograph.
And the whole story about the injuries smells off. If Zimmerman had these injuries when originally arrested, why didn’t the Sanford cops take him to an ER? The injuries would have been noted and photographed there for the investigation record, and then promptly treated. Why did Zimmerman have to see his own doctor the next day, and why is that doctor the one reporting these injuries?
Svensker
@Villago Delenda Est:
Seriously? You think the doctor was bribed? What is this, a right wing comments section?
Jeez.
quannlace
Yes, no apparent wounds on Martin, except for that pesky bullet-hole.
c u n d gulag
@me:
Well, it could be.
Probably is.
It could also be “smart.”
Or “thoughtful.”
Or, “kind.”
Thank goodness WalMart sells XXXXXXLard dresses, or this twit would have given this little rant naked as an elephant – only not as good looking, and half as intelligent.
And thank FSM she’s “a Christian!”
Can you imagine how ugly her comments would have been if she hadn’t taken Christ into her heart?
scav
@Mnemosyne: Yup, welcome to Disneyworld FL. Come Armed, but only some people can legitimately fight back without consequence while others can provoke at will. “Where the Second Amendment trumps the Sixth Commandment” is a bit long for the license plates but will do nicely for the brochures.
JoyceH
@Amir Khalid:
Oh, I’m so glad I wasn’t the only person that thought that! From the police station video to the injuries reported the next day – does not compute. Unless you consider that something might have happened in the time gap – son comes home from killing an unarmed teen and daddy the retired judge told him ‘this is for your own good, son, now hold still’, and messed him up some.
Svensker
What is this with the “Zimmerman couldn’t REALLY have been injured” crap? Are you part of the legal team or on the jury? Have you heard any first hand evidence? Making shit up to suit what you want things to be doesn’t help anyone. Trayvon could have easily fought back hard against Zimmerman — wouldn’t you if some older big guy was stalking you in his car and then turned up with a gun? Zimmerman actually COULD have been in fear for his life at that moment, if he was in a scuffle with Trayvon. Doesn’t mean he should have been following the kid around and confronting him, doesn’t mean he should have been out there with a gun.
Reality, people, how does it work?
gbear
The licence plates could be shortened to ‘We’re fucking nuts here’. Just a suggestion.
Spaghetti Lee
For the Martin case, I’m wondering why people need to keep bringing stuff like this up. Like yesterday, the knowledge that Martin had marijuana in his system was, I believe, the 1st story on the national news. Well, so what? Does that mean he deserved to be killed? That’s the implication I got. People apparently just can’t bring themselves to believe that a black teenage boy died and it wasn’t his fault, somehow.
Same thing with this argument that Zimmerman was injured. Again, I ask, so what? You want to know how to avoid injuries? Don’t pick fights with strangers that you think look ‘suspicious’. Zimmerman stalked Martin after being deliberately told not to by the cops. Then he approached Martin. Zimmerman was the aggressor. Is Martin expected to not fight back, now? Or is the expectation that Zimmerman’s wounds and black eye or whatever are equivalent to Martin being, you know, dead? Jesus Christ already.
Clime Acts
Sigh…
…well, I suppose it’s no dumber than the “Case closed! First degree murder!” you were screaming a few weeks ago.
Honestly, Cole, your trolling on the Martin/Zimmerman thing, leading the lynching party to premature conclusions to fit your own orgasmically outraged prejudices, has been shameless and shameful.
gaz
@gbear: Funniest florida license plate ever.
Spaghetti Lee
I do have another question. While that woman in the video is expressing some stupid opinions, we’ve already had 2 people in this thread call her fat and ugly. So, when is that sort of thing OK and when isn’t it? Because we all know people have gotten yelled at for using it as an argument here.
Clime Acts
@Mnemosyne:
But as you’ve demonstrated repeatedly, that is not very far at all.
Svensker
@Spaghetti Lee:
Thank you. Criminy.
Clime Acts
@joeyess:
I wouldn’t count on it. Look at Africa: There is plenty of hate to go around despite the common skin color.
Humans will always find reasons to go tribal and hate each other.
Mnemosyne
@dmsilev:
You funny.
pk
I feel a bit sorry for the woman in the video. It’s basically making fun of her physical appearance, Poor language skills and her profound ignorance. You can find any number of people of all races spouting of nonsense and make fun. Too easy. It’s the suited booted sophisticated racists which are the true face of evil.
Chyron HR
@Clime Acts:
I’m curious to see how well you can hide your (metaphorical) boner if Zimmerman is acquitted.
(You are still pretending not to be taking sides, right? You’re just here to oppose the “lynch mob”?)
gwangung
Pretty much.
It’d been very telling if there had been NO evidence of injuries. But it’s still ambiguous with the evidence. Sure, Martin could have hit Zimmerman with no provocation, but if Zimmerman grabbed Martin to keep him from going (assault and battery) or blocked him from going home (false imprisonment), he committed a crime and is guilty of murder even if he did “fear for his life”. Hell, even if he didn’t do either of those things, but shot Martin after one pop in the face, THAT might be indicative of unproportional use of force and is murder.
We don’t know any of this…but that’s what a trial is for…to see if we CAN determine this.
Amir Khalid
@Svensker:
Unlike VDE, I wouldn’t reach for that conclusion just yet. The fact that Zimmerman’s injuries weren’t recorded until the day after, and then only by Zimmerman’s own doctor, might not necessarily lead to the prosecution to do so either. But the prosecution can now challenge the inference that Zimmerman’s injuries were inflicted by Trayvon. This looks like disregard of procedure by the Sanford cops, the kind of lapse that gets evidence excluded because it is unreliable.
It could also be that Sanford PD is making shit up now to keep its story consistent with Zimmerman’s i.e. to cover its racist and incompetent collective ass; but until that is proven, let’s assume otherwise.
Omnes Omnibus
@Guster: Torture isn’t inevitable. Teen preggers is.
Mnemosyne
@Clime Acts:
I don’t see what you’re so upset about since I’m agreeing with you that, under Florida state law, it was perfectly legal for Zimmerman to stalk and kill someone as long as he could claim later that he feared for his life. Zimmerman’s not even close to being the most egregious case of SYG — I would say that the case I cited above where the SWAT team responded to the ex-wife’s 911 call about her ex-husband trying to kill her is much worse than the Zimmerman case.
So keep in mind if you ever visit Miami that if a guy tries to gay-bash you while you’re walking around minding your own business, don’t even try to fight back, because if you do, you just gave him the legal right to kill you.
gwangung
@Amir Khalid:
I’d say that’d call for an FBI investigation.
Oh, hey, wait…..
suekzoo
About the birther thingy, remember that you can’t spell *crazy* without AZ.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mnemosyne: Cue Timmie shouting that you are calling for him to be killed for being gay.
Mnemosyne
@Svensker:
Which, for a lot of people out there, makes what Zimmerman did self-defense. Doesn’t matter to them that Zimmerman started it — once he started losing the fight, a lot of people think it was right and just for him to kill Martin.
That’s the narrative that a whole lot of people on the right have been pushing, and that’s why people here are pushing back on it.
BethanyAnne
@gbear: “Oranges and Nuts”
Villago Delenda Est
@Svensker:
I think the doctor is well aware that Zimmerman brought in a shitload of money from wingtards out there, and wants in on the action, so he’s going along with the narrative.
It’s utter bullshit. Yes, I question that doctor’s integrity, because the video evidence does not support his conclusions.
BethanyAnne
@Mnemosyne: The thing that worries me is that Zimmerman might have done this perfectly legally under Florida’s fucked up laws.
gbear
@Mnemosyne: Are there any figures on how all this is affecting Florida tourism yet? Seems like it would just be a no-brainer for foreign tourists to skip FL and go somewhere else.
Mnemosyne
@gwangung:
Not in Florida, it’s not. In Florida, it’s just Standing Your Ground and a perfectly legal use of deadly force.
In Florida, you can chase a guy and stab him to death to retrieve your car radio, and it’s perfectly legal if you can claim he took a swing at you to defend himself.
Villago Delenda Est
@Clime Acts:
Yes.
I point to the classic Star Trek episode, “Let That be Your Last Battlefield”, in which you’ve got Lou Antonio and Frank Gorshin playing members of a species that is white on one side, and black on the other. The problem of course is, one group is white on the RIGHT side, and black on the LEFT, and the other group is the opposite.
And they fight to the death at the end in the ruins of their world.
Suffern ACE
@Mnemosyne: And if you’re not good at fighting back, your death is really your own damn fault, and not the business of the justice system. As long as you’re killed, everything’s fine as far as the justice system is concerned. Warning shots prohibited.
Mnemosyne
@BethanyAnne:
The more I see about the previous cases that have been dismissed under SYG, the more I think Zimmerman’s case is going to have to be dismissed, because there are much more egregious cases than his that were dismissed.
Martin’s family has been using this case to focus on how fucked-up SYG is in Florida, and I think that’s the right tack. If they can use his case to get SYG overturned or repealed, they will have done a lot of good IMO.
Svensker
@Mnemosyne:
Pushing back is one thing. Claiming to have any idea of when and how Zimmerman got his injuries and when they were treated is just making shit up. I object to the latter.
Mnemosyne
@gbear:
I’m on the opposite coast, so I have no idea. The impression I’m getting is that the fuckedupedness of this law wasn’t well-known outside of Florida and that the Martin case brought a big ol’ national spotlight onto it.
catpal
@Villago Delenda Est: this. the Zimmerman Family physician medical report, is NOT the same as an independent ER physician report.
and GZs injuries should not be relevant to the fact that GZ was aggressively looking to attack/apprehend a black male, who he thought was a robbery suspect.
“These a**holes always get away.”
Svensker
@Villago Delenda Est:
See my response to Mnemo above. Making shit up because you want it to be true is what Fox News does. Leave it to them.
suzanne
@Spaghetti Lee:
As far as I’m concerned, it isn’t. Her relative physical attractiveness nor her weight/body shape have nothing to do with anything we’re discussing and bringing them up only serves anti-feminist and anti-equality purposes, so I think those people should STFU.
jl
@Mnemosyne: The Florida stand your ground law, and probably others like it, is so fricken insane that you can argue anything you like. Maybe as more facts come out of the case there will be less leeway to spin off into speculative la la land but I doubt it.
From news articles I read about the law in Florida, under stand your ground we have the following:
a white ex cop was justified in shooting a Jewish neighbor over an argument over garbage cans. The neighbor was standing on the shooter’s lawn was the justification of self defense.
a black neighbor might be justified in shooting a white neighbor over an argument about skateboarding rules in front of his house. Coincidentally or not, the black shooter is actually having to make a real effort in court to make this case, thought the cops let him walk after the shooting.
Dudes in bars of all races and ethnicities get off after shootings. The dead guy did something and is dead. Stand your ground.
I read that the white racists who were picked up for a series of race hate shooting in Oklahoma were getting revenge for a father of one of them who was shot by a black guy who walked with very little investigation after invoking the OK stand your ground law. The black guy surprised a burglar in a neighbors apartment, the burglar swung at the black guy with a stick, and the black guy shot him.
I guess it is a sign of progress in race relations that all sorts of people can walk after shooting people under this awful insane stand your ground law.
But the law is hideous. Even in the OK case, which is the only one I have read about where I think the shooter might have been justified, these laws prevent due diligence investigations, remove the long standing idea that self defense is an affirmative defense, which (IANAL) has meant that you can just assert self defense and get off. Even where the shooting may be justified, there is not enough investigation.
There are two big issues in the Martin shooting I think: racism in some places, and or favoritism in many places, that remain in law enforcement, and the horrible hideous stand your ground laws that have to go.
I am not into boycotting places, but I did get myself a list of states with stand your ground laws. You will not see me in Florida on voluntary trips anymore, out of principle (and I love the state, so that is sad).
LongHairedWeirdo
@Guster:
First, this is not an analogy. This is a straw man.
Here’s an honest way of looking at it:
Cons: Teen *sex* is bad, and therefore we should focus all efforts on preventing it.
Libs: Teen sex is inevitable, so we should make sure that teens – and those who wait until adulthood, of course – have the tools and education necessary to make wiser choices.
As for preventing unwanted teen pregnancy, liberals agree to do all that’s possible to prevent it. Conservatives say “just tell them not to and try to scare the little fuckers into being non-fuckers!”
Villago Delenda Est
@Svensker:
Svensker, I don’t think the Zimmerman family physician’s report should have any status as an impartial assessment of Zimmerman’s physical condition in regard to this trial.
I don’t trust it to be impartial in any way.
I remind you that our friends the wingtards were passing out that same information before the video became available, and the video didn’t show the sort of bruising and abrasions that the Zimmerman family physician described.
That’s the disconnect here.
Clime Acts
@Chyron HR:
Absolutely, hater.
The larger point for me has always been the very mockable, hysterical rush to judgement on this blog, sans even a partial understanding of the available evidence.
It’s not as though you haven’t had help: Even as of this morning, MSM outlets are still posting pics of Trayvon from when he was 12 years old, as if that is how he looked the day he died, all the better to feed the innocent victim narrative.
You’ve been had.
P.S. Are you saying you don’t need no stinkin’ evidence? That Zimmerman should go down regardless?
What am I asking? OF COURSE you are…
jl
@jl:
Sorry, Edit button has disappeared
But the law is hideous. Even in the OK case, which is the only one I have read about where I think the shooter might have been justified, these laws prevent due diligence investigations, remove the long standing idea that self defense is an affirmative defense, which (IANAL) has meant that you CANNOTjust assert self defense and get off. ADDED: You have to make an affirmative case that what you did was self defense END ADDED. Even where the shooting may be justified, there is not enough investigation
BethanyAnne
@Mnemosyne: *nods* That makes sense. Thanks.
Clime Acts
@Omnes Omnibus:
I’ve been curious for a while: What is it you think you’re implying/saying/etc. when you refer to me as “Timmy” or “Timmie?”
gwangung
“Twit.”
butler
@Guster:
When have conservatives ever said, done or thought that?
Their “plan” for dealing with teen pregnancy is
1) insist exclusively on ineffective abstinence only education and then
2) force teens who do get pregnant to carry it to term
That’s pretty much the exact opposite of “eliminate it entirely”
BobS
@Mr Stagger Lee: The execrable Dershowitz has always been Fox News, no matter where he’s spouted his bullshit. I’m pretty sure the only reason he was so critical of Bush v Gore was because his little neocon buddy Lieberman was on the losing end of that decision, so drop any illusions you might have there’s anything “progressive” about his politics. To understand Dershowitz, simply understand he’s single-minded in his work of legitimizing Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians, Israel’s theft of Palestinian land, Israel’s murder of American citizens, etc. If we cast Zimmerman as Israel and Trayvon Martin as the Palestinians, it’s perfectly reasonable for a guy in a car with a gun to fuck with a kid on foot minding his own business.
eemom
Yo Cole: we can haz John Edwards trial thread plz?
More flame war, less tragedy. Win win. kthxbai.
Amir Khalid
@Clime Acts:
We gave you this nickname because we love you.
jl
Me, personally, I do not care at this point whether Zimmerman maybe got his butt kicked. He stalked Martin, and initiated contact, against the direct and clear advice of the police, and against standard neighborhood watch policies that I have read about. So, under a sane legal system, Zimmerman should be responsible for problems that ensued, including the discharge of a gun.
But, from a purely legal point of view, I wonder if there is a conflict in laws situation in Florida, depending on how its stand your ground law is written and interpreted.
The way the law is written, seems like if you are the one with a gun, you get to decide on pretty flimsy grounds, regardless of how the situation developed, that you are in some merely possible life threatening situation and shoot the other person any way you please, as many times as you please.
I am curious about how the miserable and horrible stand your ground law works with other legal principles in Florida.
I do not care much whether Zimmerman lost the scuffle (and that is what it looks like at this point, not anything life threatening at all) or not, or who initiated the scuffle that was the immediate cause of the shooting.
But then I may not be able to follow the Florida trail and understand it, because I cannot think through things in my head sensibly operating on the Mad Max ALEX/NRA/teabagger thug life philosophy, which, amazingly enough, is now settled law in Florida and other states.
Corner Stone
From Talk Left:
From the George Zimmerman Discovery
“Officer Stacie McCoy:
I instructed Officer T Smith to have SFR provide medical care to the subject reference visible blood on his face and to transport the subject to the SPD for everyone’s safety.”
etc.
Villago Delenda Est
@eemom:
No one cares about Edwards. He’s been toast for three years now. Boring.
eemom
@BobS:
Dershowitz is quite a bit more complicated than that. Yes, he has taken some ugly sides, including in this case, but dismissing him as a single-minded Fox News hack is just ignorant.
JPL
@Villago Delenda Est: I’m curious about the trial. Since I didn’t follow it, I’m wondering if the prosecution has a case or are they hoping to send Edwards to jail because he’s slimy.
Bubblegum Tate
@Amir Khalid:
Seriously, this lawyer is on some Jackie Chiles shit. “Suzie. Call Dr. Bison. Set up an appointment for Mr. Kramer here. Tell him it’s from me.”
Sally Rakowski
@Clime Acts:
I believe that question was answered on Day 1 here. If you go back to the first threads here on the case and follow the evolution, there’s been very little wavering on it, either. Even as evidence continues to pile up that supports Zimmerman’s testimony. Each time the standard refrain is “Yeah, and so….?”
Look how long it took people to realize John Edwards was a scumbag.
JPL
Rush said the Martin case is similar to the Duke Lacrosse incident. I don’t remember a dead teen in that scenario.
eemom
@Villago Delenda Est:
The legal issue in the case is not at all boring, imo.
LongHairedWeirdo
@BethanyAnne:
This is a complicated issue, in some ways.
We only know what is actually *legal* if we know what actually happened. We may never know that.
Even if Zimmerman acted in a patently illegal way, it might not be something that can be provable, barring a confession. That doesn’t make it *legal*. It just makes it unprovable.
Citizen Alan
@Mnemosyne:
That or get a weapons permit, carry heat 24/7, and shoot preemptively at anyone who looks at you funny. Apparently, either solution is acceptable in Florida.
LongHairedWeirdo
@Clime Acts:
i
You dumb shit; Zimmerman is a confessed *killer*. *HE* needs to present the evidence.
Why is this so hard for people to understand? Killing people is prima fascie evidence of wrongdoing.
Hill Dweller
Even if Zimmerman is guilty, the SFD’s ineptitude and/or corruption has likely made justice impossible.
lacp
I agree with Charles Pierce: nothing good at all can come from the Martin/Zimmerman case.
butler
Is that the testimony where he admits to going out of his way to stalk, confront and get into an altercation with a total stranger, who he then kills?
eemom
@JPL:
They very much have a case, and I honestly don’t think they are on any kind of moral crusade against his sliminess.
The question is whether the money Fred Baron and Bunny Mellon gave him to hide Rielle was a campaign contribution rather than a personal gift. It was a campaign contribution if its purpose was to further Edwards’ political ambitions. Those ambitions continued even after he dropped out of the presidential race in 2008, because he continued to hope for the VP slot.
Edwards’ defense is that the purpose was to hide the affair from Elizabeth, but that has been shot to hell by the evidence that she already knew about it.
As I understand it, the prosecution won a major victory last week when the jury was instructed that the payments were campaign contributions if ANY of their purpose was to advance the campaign. The defense wanted an instruction that it had to be the SOLE purpose.
Most intriguing of all, of course, is the fact that the two people who could actually ANSWER the question can’t do so, Baron being dead and Mrs. Mellon being 101 years old and incapable of testifying.
However, I think the prosecution has put on a solid case and if I were a betting man, I would bet he’ll be convicted.
EconWatcher
I don’t know what happened, and neither does anyone here. But it cracks me up that Martin’s apparent “drug use” is being used in Zimmerman’s favor. It was weed. What’s the theory–Martin tried to mellow him to death?
Corner Stone
@LongHairedWeirdo:
I’m sorry, but what?
Redshift
@Guster: The problem isn’t that you can’t compare those two specific things, it’s that any argument premised on the idea that you’re being inconsistent if you don’t support the same response to anything in the broad category of “bad” is inherently idiotic.
“Bad” things are bad in different ways, such as being bad public policy vs. bad personal choices. Equating “produces lasting physical harm for the victim and psychological harm for the perpetrator, generates false confessions that are used to justify disastrous large-scale policies, and reduces our country’s ability to do good in the world by destroying our moral standing and enabling brutal regimes to justify their actions” with “likely to screw up one person’s life and have poorer health and developmental outcomes for their child” is just insane.
(Alternatively, as others have said, you could point out that conservatives don’t actually “focus all their attention on stopping it entirely,” they focus a small part of their attention on demanding that it stop entirely, while refusing to acknowledge any evidence for ways to do so that conflict with their ideology.)
jl
I guess ‘conflict of laws’ is not the right term. It is used for something else, at least Wikipedia says so.
IANAL.
Anyway, whatever it is called, I think there is some kind of settled legal principle that says if a person takes a positive action that can be reasonably supposed to lead to foreseeable consequences, then that person bears more responsibility for those consequences than otherwise.
So, I think people like me, who do not care whether there was a fight or not immediately before the shooting are using that reasoning.
Zimmerman was told by the police, and if he had understood usual neighborhood watch procedure, would have not continued to follow Martin, and would avoid making any contact. When Zimmerman did not do that, he gave up ability to invoke the Florida stand your ground law, which from cases I have read, allows you wantonly shoot some one on for almost no reason at all.
Seems to me how the FL stand your ground law is written, or state constitutional interpretation in FL, will determine whether that legal principle holds in this case.
eemom
@EconWatcher:
Nah, it’s the well known fact that weed, EXACTLY like alcohol, is scientifically correlated with aggressive behavior. [eye roll]
jl
@jl: Typing too fast and no edit button
“When Zimmerman did not do that”
means
When Zimmerman did not follow police instructions, did not follow standard neighborhood watch procedure, and did continue to stalk Martin, rather than breaking off contact
Edit: Edit button is back. Hi, Edit Button, glad to see you again.
A Humble Lurker
@Clime Acts:
This is why you didn’t rush to call Trayvon’s mom a grifter, right?
Sally Rakowski
@EconWatcher:
It’s in his favor because he told the dispatcher that he thought Martin was on drugs and up to no good, which is the reason he followed him, not so much because he profiled him solely on race.
Svensker
@Villago Delenda Est:
And all I’m saying is that you have no fucking clue what’s true and what isn’t. You aren’t seeing the evidence, you don’t know the facts, and you have no basis for judging anything as regards to physical evidence. This is why we have trials.
Egg Berry
@eemom: Hey, we’ve all seen “Reefer Madness.”
butler
@Sally Rakowski:
And yet somehow the dispatcher still told him not to get out of his car and to leave Trayvon alone. Its almost like it doesn’t matter what shitty reason he had for playing vigilante and causing this confrontation.
lacp
@butler: That’s what the dispatcher said? I had heard it was some weak-ass ambiguous shit like “we don’t need you to do that.”
Quarks
To answer one question brought up here: This case doesn’t seem to be having a huge effect on central Florida tourism. The theme parks are booming.
Probably because Sanford isn’t in the theme park area.
Hill Dweller
@Hill Dweller:
Yes, I’m making a douchey move by quoting myself, but I meant to type SPD. As far as I know, the fire department did nothing wrong.
wasabi gasp
That’s a manicure, baby!
butler
@lacp: The dispatcher asked Zimmerman if he was following Martin. Zimmerman said yes, so the dispatcher told him “we don’t need you to do that.” The dispatcher then tells Zimmerman to wait at a set location for the police to show up.
In other words, stay where you are and leave this to the professionals.
jl
@lacp:
“we don’t need you to do that.”
I don’t think that kind of language can be interpreted as being ambiguous when it comes from law enforcement.
And Zimmerman was supposed to be on neighborhood watch duty. If he was, the police were instructing him to follow standard neighborhood watch policy that Zimmerman should have known about, and so was not ambiguous.
But, I think that decision by Zimmerman is a very important issue. What laws applied to him after he made the decision to disregard the instruction, or if you prefer, advice, from the police?
mapaghimagsik
Doesn’t this make it harder for Neighborhood watch types as this progresses? It seems that Martin’s only crime here is that he didn’t shoot first. So then you can’t approach someone — even to ask them if they need help, because they could feel threatened, and shoot you in the face. So then, you have to make the argument “they were in my area, and were armed. I felt threatened, so I shot them with my rifle”
Say I’m out on the town, some guy says something that is disapproving of me, my lifestyle, someone who looks like me, etc, and I declare I’m threatened and shoot the guy in the neck.
It seems like the courts could get jam packed with ‘stand your ground cases’ with anyone with a grudge blowing someone away, even after taunting them to say/do something stupid.
As someone who can respect the position of wanting to own firearms, this seems insane, and could generate backlash of some pretty terrible proportions.
Does Lucas come out with “Han was standing his ground”?
Joel
Well, Dershowitz defended OJ, so you can say he knows a thing or two about getting murderers off the hook…
Amir Khalid
@jl:
I tend to agree. As I understand things, George Zimmerman followed Trayvon Martin against police advice; and then, also against police advice, instigated a confrontation that ended up with him shooting Trayvon dead. (I still don’t understand how Zimmerman, gun and all, let himself get into a fistfight with an unarmed Trayvon; that must have taken some heavy-duty stupid.)
I don’t see how losing a needless fistfight with Trayvon justifies Zimmerman killing him. Zimmerman started this, a kid ended up dead, he’s guilty of manslaughter at the very least. If this SYG law legalizes all that, man, that’s some fucked-up shit.
Clime Acts
@LongHairedWeirdo:
ever heard of the presumption of innocence, tiny brained one?
If you kill someone in self defense, you generally have not committed a crime, or is that too difficult for you to comprehend?
Clime Acts
@eemom:
I thought you were a woman. ???
jl
@mapaghimagsik:
” It seems like the courts could get jam packed with ‘stand your ground cases’ with anyone with a grudge blowing someone away, even after taunting them to say/do something stupid. ”
Not sure the courts will be packed, because it looks like if the police decide at the initial investigation that you are covered by stand your ground law, then you walk.
I have read news stories that say justifiable homicides and gun shooting have been up in Florida since that hideous law as passed.
Apparently you can do almost anything on the slightest provocation. As I noted above, an ex cop stood in his doorway and shoot a neighbor who stepped onto his lawn during an argument over trash cans on the curb. Stand your ground, cops say o problem and shooter walks off free. No crowded courtroom. No further investigation. That is what I have read.
butler
IF!
Its a big fucking IF! You better be able to prove that it was legitimately self defense.
Citizen Alan
As for the woman in the video…
Intellectually, I understand and agree completely that it is morally wrong to attack people like this for appearance-based or class-based reasons. And yet, when I look at her and listen to her raving insanely and idiotically about black-on-white racism and how offended she is that there is a Miss Black America but not a Miss White America(1) … I just hate her.
I hate her because hundreds of thousands of people like her are the reason the state in which I have lived my whole life is a fucking Third World hell-hole. I hate her because people like her are why Mitt Romney still has a decent chance of becoming President (and might well be leading if he weren’t a Mormon). I hate her because people like her are why public education is in its death throes. I hate her because I see in her the doom of my nation. And if I were to encounter her face-to-face and have to listen to her offensive racial blather, there is every chance that I would lose my shit, get in her face, and call her a “fat ugly bitch.”(2) Not because there’s anything wrong with being overweight or with being ugly. And certainly not because I hate women and regularly use misogynistic insults. It would be because I was offended by her and wanted to offend her right back. And when someone provokes that kind of anger in you, you don’t stop to think of an insult that would do the trick without violating any PC codes, you just open your mouth and let fly and then feel guilty later. That’s sort of how insults work.
(1)FYI, I just looked it up, and there are also pageants Miss Asian America, Miss Latino America, Miss Russia-American, Miss German America, Miss Italia-USA, Miss Polish-American, and Miss Arab-USA (headscarves are allowed). In fact, I imagine that no one would bat an eye at beauty pageants targeting any ethnic subgroup in America. But what you CAN’T do is have a beauty pageant open to contestants of any ethnic background except those with black skin (or presumably who have black-skinned parents, since the creature in the mumu probably doesn’t care for the miscegenated either).
(2)Actually, if I had the presence of mind (i.e. had not totally lost my shit at her ignorant racism), I’d have probably started asking questions about whether she has diabetes and whether she’s on Medicare or Medicaid or SSI disability for it, and if so, why should my tax dollars pay for her to sit around and eat Twinkies and play on the Internet all day. Because I’d bet good money she’s the sort of person who complains endlessly about welfare queens buying beer with their food stamps while in complete denial about how much she depends on the social safety net that she continually votes to abolish.
Suffern ACE
@mapaghimagsik:
It seems ironic then, that the point of these stand your ground laws seems to be to keep cases out of the courts. You know, the way that we have to determine what happened in instances where one person takes another person’s life. Perhaps if Florida wants to have these laws, they should also have a better system of open and formal public inquest into deaths than what took place in this case.
Sally Rakowski
@butler: Key words here “In other words…..”. Those are your words, butler. You’ve tried to make a strong case against Zimmerman based on a very weak suggestion by a dispatcher by saying “in other words”.
Do you not see how weak that is on your part?
Both sides can play that game with that little trick.
eemom
@Clime Acts:
yeah, but “betting man” sounds cooler. In kind of a John Wayne-y sorta way.
jl
@Clime Acts:
IANAL, but even non lawyers can remember what they learned in civics class, or do a little reading up.
Affirmative Defense
Burden of Proof
Because an affirmative defense requires an assertion of facts beyond those claimed by the plaintiff, generally the party who offers an affirmative defense bears the burden of proof.[6] The standard of proof is typically lower than beyond a reasonable doubt. It can either be proved by clear and convincing evidence or by a preponderance of the evidence. In some cases or jurisdictions, however, the defense must only be asserted, and the prosecution has the burden to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defense is not applicable.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affirmative_defense
Apparently, from what I have read, one of the problems of the FL stand your ground law, and others, is that it weakens, or removes the requirement that a self defense argument is an affirmative defense. It becomes a negative defense. Which as I understand it, means cops have to take the shooter’s word for a lot on facts of the case that when ordinarily would not under regular doctrines of self defense.
Edit: point being, for those who might have trouble thinking it through, in most places before stand your ground, if you shoot some one and claim self defense, you have some burden of proof that your claim is reasonable. The burden of proof is not ALL on the prosecution regarding ALL aspects of the case.
mapaghimagsik
@jl:
Not being a lawyer, does this stop civil cases as well, or just make them harder? Kind of like how OJ wasn’t convicted, but if I remember right, the ‘wrongful death’ suit was successful.
I’m still wondering about the escalation angle. My neighbor is packing. Do I shoot first?
PIGL
@eemom: Not ignorance, indifference. I remember the enthusiastic gleeful embrace of torture after The Worst Event In The History Of The World, and he was one of the notable proponents of this. People were not accepting torture with the greatest reluctance as a terrible necessity, they were masturbating over it public, and this motherfucker was one of them. It put him beyond the pale.I do not care what are his opinions on other issues, or if he likes puppies and romantic walks on the beach. I just want him shut the fuck up.
Call me “ignorant” on the account, well ve te faire cuire un oeuf.
butler
@Sally Rakowski: Go read the transcript. The dispatcher not only tells Zimmerman not to follow Martin but also makes multiple attempts to get him to agree on a location to wait for police to arrive.
There’s nothing ambiguous about this. He was told to stop and he didn’t stop.
eemom
@Sally Rakowski:
You have outed yourself on other threads as a creepy-ass wingtard troll. Fuck off back to redstate where you belong.
JPL
@eemom: Thanks.
eemom
@butler:
don’t engage this creep. See above.
PIGL
@Citizen Alan: Absolutely, Mr. Charlesworth? Positively, Mrs. Green.
jl
@mapaghimagsik:
As Mark Twain said: I can answer that easy as you please: I don’t know.
I am not a lawyer either, and I guess I should write IANAL on every one of my comments.
But I do distinctly remember learning in HS civics that not ALL of the burden of proof is ALL on the prosecution in criminal cases, traditional self defense arguments being given as an example.
I guess I remember it because I found that surprising, but then I found a lot of things surprising in HS. I remember the teacher explaining to us how things would work out eventually on the streets if people could just get off with self defense claims on their say so.
So, I am pretty sure about (Edit: pre stand your ground laws) self defense being an affirmative defense, and that the defendant has some burden of proof for the claim. But I have no idea how that works in civil law.
eemom
@PIGL:
You’re entitled to your indifference. I just think it’s ridiculous to dismiss a guy with this, for example, on his record:
as being some kind of reflexive one-note zealot.
Also, I don’t read the account of his position on torture, at least as it’s presented in the Wiki article, as gleeful masturbation.
jncc
@butler:
” The dispatcher not only tells Zimmerman not to follow Martin but also makes multiple attempts to get him to agree on a location to wait for police to arrive.
There’s nothing ambiguous about this”
Exactly!
The dispatcher EXPLICITLY told Zimmerman not to follow Martin.
grandpa john
@LongHairedWeirdo:
Well I am sure that after Martin tells the media his side of the story, they will immediately publish his account and clear up all this uncertainty . Oh wait maybe not.
Keith G
No. If the republic is saved, it will be by us narrowly pulling through a horrific catastrophe. We are just too fucking stupid and self interested to learn any other way.
Zimmerman will go free, eventually. The evidence is just not there for a conviction under Florida’s law. Civil court will be a slightly more hospitable setting to try to get a bit of justice.
Sally Rakowski
@eemom:
And eemom, you’ve outed yourself as a conformist authoritarian who can’t muster a thought outside the normal group-think. Any contrarian viewpoint drives you nuts.
I can’t imagine what that must be like for you. Convenient, I guess though, right?
eemom
@Sally Rakowski:
Oh yes, I’d say my comments about Dershowitz on this thread prove that point very well.
Now there’s a guy who must set your wingnutty little head a-spinnin’ with cognitive dissonance.
You got nuthin, creep. Off you fuck.
Svensker
@PIGL:
Yup. The nail, she has been hit.
Svensker
@eemom:
You’re defending Dersh because of MEK? MEK is supported by all the neo-cons. They’ve just managed to get MEK taken off the terraist list because the neo-cons love MEK. Loving MEK is part of their plan to bomb the shit out of Iran.
Dersh IS a one-note bastard.
gelfling545
@Guster: One of the terms of your analogy is illegal in under treaties to which we are a party. The other is not.
Secondly, to make something analogous to something else there should be certain similarities of degree, outcome, etc. not just the fact that there are “pros & cons” to both. I could state that either of those terms is analogous to eliminating dandelions from my lawn. They are not, but I could so state. My statement does not make them analogous anywhere but in my own mind. Your answer is that they are not analogous,
Chris
@Keith G:
Hard to imagine what it would take. Conservatism’s brought the country to the brink of total collapse at least three times that I can think of, once through open revolution during the Civil War, once through disastrous economic management during the Great Depression, and once by bringing us to the brink of nuclear war in the Cuban Missile Crisis (that last one’s arguable, but if you consider that the crisis was largely the culmination of fifteen years of increasing paranoia and brinkmanship, that psychos like McCarthy, Nixon, Welch and Buckley were largely responsible for creating that climate on the American side, and that the hard-liners like Curtis LeMay were openly pushing for war and didn’t seem to know or care that it would go nuclear).
And yet, the conservative gospel on race relations, economics and foreign policy is still alive and kicking. What in Christ’s name does it take?
eemom
@Svensker:
No, I was not defending him because of that, and in fact I wasn’t defending him at all. I was just making the point that he is NOT a one-noter, which I stand by. Read his fucking bio.
gaz's wife
@pk: It’s probably mean to make fun of her physical appearance. But shoot. She grew up white in a first world country. She doesn’t have to dress like that. She could choose to comb her hair before being recorded. She could have chosen to brush and floss and not lose all of her teeth. It takes some really willful sloth to push tooth decay to that point. While English is (likely) her first language, she can’t use complete sentences. She can’t effectively use the English language to communicate her own thoughts or feelings. She is incoherent. A lot of this comes down to choice. People don’t become as she has become by accident. It takes a long series of bad choices over a long period of time. At any point she could’ve chosen to hop off the fail train. But she didn’t. She did, however, take the time to be a spokeswoman for White America, a group to which I belong. She has made her private failings, her sloth, her filth, her ignorance, into some type of promotion of the rights of White people. That is stupid. She is stupid. I will spend the rest of the summer working on my tan so that no one will know that I am White. Yuck.
Mnemosyne
@mapaghimagsik:
The whole point of SYG laws in places like Florida is to keep these cases out of court — basically, if you tell the cops that you killed the guy because you felt he was a threat to you, they’re not allowed to arrest you and you are immune from prosecution. In fact, one provision of the law is that you can sue the police department if they arrest you and you successfully claim SYG.
There is no judge or jury involved in these cases at all. The cops are supposed to let you go at the scene if you claim self-defense under SYG.
Mnemosyne
@Clime Acts:
That we know perfectly well you’re a repeat offender troll who keeps showing up under new names.
Bruce S
“Do you know something else I don’t understand?”
Lady – I don’t have time for the obvious answer to that question. It would likely take eons to hear it all. Do us all a favor and go read a fucking book, if you can. Any book. Christ – start with Curious George if you must. Meanwhile, STFU! Life is too fucking short to deal with your ignorance.
Dershowitz, on the other hand, doesn’t even have her multiple excuses.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I don’t want to attempt to deconstruct everything that woman says, but when she says the black lady at the track called her daughter a honky: does this ring true with anybody?
Bruce S
@eemom:
“he is NOT a one-noter, which I stand by. Read his fucking bio.”
His bio or his AUTO-bio?
I’ve never seen a biography of Dershowitz. I have to admit that I wouldn’t read it if one exists, but I’m not surprised that he wouldn’t portray himself as “one-note.” Sure, he’s been an advocate in numerous cases and has published quite a few volumes of the Wisdom of Alan Dershowitz, but he’s “one-note” in the sense of a man drenched in self-regard whose glib opinions have become as predictable as they are specious.
jncc
I see.
Bruce S
Dershowitz: “Zimmerman had a fractured nose, two black eyes, two lacerations on the back of his head and a back injury on the day after the fatal shooting.”
The day AFTER the fatal shooting? No liklihood that Zimmerman was creating an alibi? If these injuries weren’t reported and documented when Zimmerman was taken into custody and presumably questioned on the night of the shooting, this is totally specious.
Mnemosyne
@jncc:
ETA: Emphasis added since jncc’s reading comprehension is weak.
myiq2xu
If ignorance is bliss this must be the happiest place on earth.
mapaghimagsik
@Mnemosyne:
Thanks for the clarification. I get this sinking feeling this hasn’t fully sunk in with folks, and when/if it does, things could turn into a shooting gallery.
Mnemosyne
I really don’t get what the trolls are so cranky about. You guys don’t have to tie yourselves into knots anymore trying to twist the facts to make Zimmerman look better.
You can admit that he followed Martin against the dispatcher’s advice. You can admit that he confronted Martin. Heck, you can even admit that Zimmerman could have started the fight by trying to grab Martin. None of that matters, because under Florida law, it’s perfectly legal to start a fight with someone and then kill them, and the cops can’t even arrest you as long as you claim you were in fear for your life during the fight that you started.
Bruce S
I thought we became “post-racial” when a one-dimensional version of Martin Luther King was constructed in the wake of his getting honored with a holiday, well before President Obama.
“Post-racial” is when people who reviled him in his lifetime use “the content of our character” to evade any discussions of race. Frankly, I wish King hadn’t been turned into a milquetoast figment of white America’s imagination, even at the expense of insult to his family, to Stevie Wonder and to other well-meaning folks who pushed to get him accepted as a white-washed “American hero.”
Dr. King’s radical ideas – as he believed and lived and died for them – are still controversial. His message has been diluted and his image has been buffed. My reaction to all of the pictures hanging in grade schools and the stone figure on the Washington Mall is “Too soon!” The price of King’s deification has been too high IMHO. The man and his message have been smothered in that embrace. Fuck “post-racial.” And fuck anyone on FOX News who yammers about “the content of one’s character” in an effort to deflect the issues that King cared about that still afflict this nation. King would be challenging these same assholes today – even in his eighties, were he alive. I love the man – not some imaginary icon etched in stone. Not to deny progress, but he was demanding transformation of this country on some deeper levels than are acknowledged in the MLK Holiday Version – he was not pleading for palliatives.
Footnote – the 1963 March on Washington was for “Jobs and Freedom.” Check the unemployment statistics, and not just for black people – although those are the most telling.
eemom
@Bruce S:
Oh fer fucks sake. I was referring to the Wikipedia bio.
Heliopause
What, more of this simple-minded nonsense?
Obama carried the white vote in 19 states plus DC. He even carried the white male vote in all the left coast states plus Hawaii plus a number of others. Rather than just throw your clumsy racial spaghetti theories at the wall what you really ought to do is figure out what’s going on regionally. Throw the fucking Confederacy out of the Union and you’d solve 98% of the problems.
Bruce S
“Throw the fucking Confederacy out of the Union and you’d solve 98% of the problems.”
Not for the folks who would have to live with that shit. Nor would that solve the myriad problems that lead to our prison stats on “the left coast.”
Bruce S
@eemom:
Oh for fucks sake, indeed! Although, considering the source I guess I should have assumed that level of analytic competence.
LongHairedWeirdo
@jl:
Nod. Here’s what bothers me. People are using a double standard.
Let’s assume that there was a fight.
Trayvon Martin doesn’t get to claim the right to self defense. Why?
Well, primarily because he’s dead. We should disregard anything he might claim because he’s dead.
But Zimmerman? We get to assume that he was the innocent victim of an unprovoked assault. Why? Well, he *said* so, and, being alive, gets to say so.
So, we’re supposed to assume that Martin was guilty of a crime – no presumption of innocence – so we can let his killer go.
What on earth makes people think this is rational, just, or even *sane*?
I’ve mentioned this before: there was a time when gun rights advocates sternly warned people that, if you save your life with a gun, you might have saved your life so you can spend it in jail. They explained that the cops and prosecutors will have to come to the situation later, and try to reconstruct what happened, and even the cleanest shoot in the world could end up looking like murder or manslaughter.
And, you know something? I’m okay with that. I want to live in a world where people think, before drawing, or using, a gun. I want them to be fully aware that they are probably going to go to jail. I want them to only draw and fire if they think “shit, I’m probably going to jail for this, but I don’t want to *die*.”
Now, the gun rights advocates sternly warn you that using a gun can a big loud sound.
(Herm. But there is a humor value here. Maybe we should insist on mandatory counseling before you can buy a gun, with warnings about the physiological and psychological after effects – at the gun buyer’s expense, of course. And maybe they shouldn’t be allowed to buy a gun unless they come back to do so on another day, because it’s an important emotional decision. It’s not a *denial* of a right, after all. It’s just making sure they’re informed consumers.)
Bruce S
Christ – re “eemom’s” fine whine, I just read Dershowitz’s Wikipedia bio and there’s nothing there that elevates my opinion that – aside from his obvious skills in getting a lot of dubious types off as a criminal defense lawyer, which is what he’s paid to do in those cases and for which he should not be criticized as a professional, nor held in any higher esteem than mob attorney Bruce Cutler – he’s a supremely arrogant asshole whose current hobby horse is accusing people who hold any dissenting views on Israel of “anti-semitism.” Outside of the courtroom that’s his forte.
Heliopause
@Bruce S:
Without the Confederacy the Senate would be 63% D and the House would be 151-138 D, and that’s after a GOP wave election. “Moderate” Dems who conspired with the GOP on “tough-on-crime” policies would not have been as emboldened and the current police state would not be as bad as it is. By the way, I’m not actually endorsing that the Confederacy be jettisoned.
This is about John’s positing (and Doug, repeatedly) that the problem is white people. The actual problem is political operatives cynically exploiting a complicated economic and cultural landscape. That’s the problem that needs to be solved, not some hypothetical racial deficiency.
jl
@LongHairedWeirdo:
I’m cynical and think the push for these laws by the NRA and ALEC is all about selling more guns and ammunition. So, I think your questions are irrelevant to the way that the powerful corporate advocates think about the issue. And I think the ordinary teabaggers and wingnuts are living in a fantasy land where reasons of any kind do not apply.
I guess I am the conservative here, figuring that hundreds of years of our legal system dealing with people shooting each other have worked out a good system of assigning reasonable burdens of proof a person has to meet to claim self defense, etc.
And I think the stand your ground laws throw that wisdom out the window, in order to sell guns and ammo. The corporate bigshots are so unlikely to be in a tricky situation among ordinary people that they have no reason to care at all about what does and does not work in terms of maintaining a good balance between order on the streets and meeting out justice.
I shot guns of many kinds as a kid, and I guess if disaster occurs and the wingnuts take over, and the stand your ground law gets federalized, I guess I would buy a gun and start going to the shooting range.
I have plenty of gun nut relatives who will set me up with the best equipment. Actually, they have already tried when I resided in what they considered to be very dangerous big city places.
So, I guess I am game, but that vision of the world disgusts me.
Edit: and, what @Heliopause: said about corporate manipulation. Helio’s statement about racism seems so broad though, not sure I agree with that.
Horrendo Slapp (formerly Jimperson Zibb, Duncan Dönitz, Otto Graf von Pfmidtnöchtler-Pízsmőgy, Mumphrey, et al.)
@4tehlulz:
I don’t know about a retainer, but he sure is dangling. That’s what dingleberries do.
And that woman in the video, damn. The Koch brothers must be laughing themselves into fits. They squash people like her into the mud 87 different ways every day, and she’s pissed off about the people below her on the ladder who are trying to make it through life. These Koch assholes are geniuses in a way. They have poor, ignorant losers screaming that rich people are getting a raw deal in this country.
rea
@Spaghetti Lee: A positive test for marijuana means that he consumed it within the previous 30-45 days, not that he was high at the time. Not that being high at the time would make it more likely that he was the aggressor, for crying out loud.
arguingwithsignposts
@Heliopause:
How about we say it’s “both.” The GOP vote is overwhelmingly white, in any district in the nation.
Now whether that’s because of some cynical exploitation or pure racism, the fact is, the GOP’s racist policies and dog whistles (voter disenfranchisement, 3-strikes laws, crack c0caine sentencing disparities, welfare queens and young bucks, etc.) have helped those poor whites who vote to pull the lever in the R position.
Baron Jrod of Keeblershire
@jl: Yup. It’s my theory that the NRA supports SYG laws because they want the old west. They want the country to be a land of constant gun battles where the unarmed are simply prey to the armed. I mean, just think of what that will do to gun sales! Through the roof, baby!
I mean, this is pretty much literally a law that makes murder legal just as long as you claim to be scared. Want to know the feeling of taking a person’s life and you live in Florida? Just go down to the bar and start flinging insults. Then, as soon as someone gets in your face, shoot them. This isn’t some whacky scenario, this is literally how the law works. What kind of sick fuck actually wants to live like that? What kind of twisted moron is actually happy about the thought that gun battles have been legalized?
I’m never going to Florida. Too fucking dangerous. Too bad about that tourism industry they’re so big on.
jl
@Baron Jrod of Keeblershire:
Except from what I learned in school, and read, the old west was communist and had way too strict gun control, at least in the frontier towns.
ALEC and NRA want to save us from those bad big government, second amendment quashing, communist, frontier cow town days.
Chris
@jl:
I was going to post “actually, the West had a pretty low crime rate” – your post explains why.
They don’t want to return to the West as it was in real life, they want to return to “the West” as it existed in John Wayne movies. In other words, as usual, they’re in love with something that never existed.
Egg Berry
@Chris:
Sergio Leone/Clint Eastwood movies, I imagine.
Heliopause
@arguingwithsignposts:
How about not. The evidence is clear, white people, even the dreaded white male demo, will vote for a black guy named Hussein under the right circumstances. Instead of flailing about with half-assed racial theories how about focusing on accentuating that set of circumstances, unless you have some sort of master political strategy for disenfranchising the white male demo for the next 50 years or so.
arguingwithsignposts
@Heliopause:
Which is why the Southern Strategy turned out to be suuuuch a failure, amirite?
Let me refresh your memory:
Now, somebody is voting against their own interests. They may be being manipulated. Hell, they are being manipulated, but last I checked, Haley Barbour, Lee Atwater, Ronald Reagan and Karl Rove aren’t pulling any damned levers in the ballot booths for them.
Corner Stone
@jl:
Which old west was this?
jncc
Somebody should tell Zimmerman’s lawyer about this here law so he can let the judge know about it because it seems that the prosecutor who had Zimmerman arrested and is prosecuting him and the judge who set his bail don’t seem to know that Zimmerman is “immune from prosecution.”
Unless, of course, this is the sort of inaccurate generalization that can only come from truly not having a fucking clue what one is talking about.
Evolving Deep Southerner
@myiq2xu: Holy shit, haven’t seen you here since Hillary was still a contender.
Keith G
@arguingwithsignposts:
And with this you claim support for the notion that the problem is a whole skin color group? So if you belong to that skin color group you are, by definition, a part of the problem? Amirite?
Interesting.
Yutsano
@Evolving Deep Southerner: Oh Mytzlplk has been sneaking back over here on very rare occasions. But no racist screeds, just little lines that are both out of context and illogical. It’s tough out there for a PUMA these days.
Chet
@gaz’s wife:
Uh…you do realize we have these things called SOCIAL CLASSES in this country, don’t you? And that not all white people belong to the same one?
Heliopause
@arguingwithsignposts:
What the fuck does any of this prattle have to do with what I wrote?
You hint at the solution yourself. Instead of an idiotic “pray that hispanics keep breeding faster than whites” strategy what you really need is a “West Coast Strategy”. You’d think with all the hundreds of millions of dollars being raised in politics that some Dem genius somewhere could be paid to get that ball rolling. Or do you plan on waiting until 2050 for the race-based solution to work its magic?
John M. Burt
@jl: The Old West was “communist”? Well, people did help their neighbors build their houses and barns, and turned out to help when one of those structures caught fire, and fed neighbors who had fallen on hard times. By 21st Century Repub standards, that’s Marxo-Tito-Mussolinism for sure.
As for gun control, that does conform to what I have heard. Wyatt Earp, famous as “the man who cleaned up Dodge City”, did so by prohibiting open carry within city limits.
Mnemosyne
@jncc:
Again, I don’t know what you’re getting so upset about since I now agree with you. Under SYG, Zimmerman could legally pick a fight with Martin and kill him when he started losing, and there’s no need to come up with all kinds of “but it was really traditional self-defense” justifications after the fact like the ones you’ve been coming up with.
So, no, the second-degree murder charges won’t stick and he’ll be acquitted, just like you wanted.
opie jeanne
@Chet:
I have cousins who went to school in the Ozarks; they write semi-literate letters to me online now, and they got good grades in English. I have no illusions about the schooling available to them, and as recently as 25 years ago there was no expectation that any of the grads of this system would go to college.
I thank God my grandparents to Kansas City when my mom and her sisters were little.
RadioOne
I had a conservative polisci teacher in high school who knew Alan Dershowitz personally, and he spent most of his time drilling into our heads the idea that he was the only valid liberal voice in America on foreign policy, even though, as a coservative, he disagreed with Dershowitz on a fundamental level.
Brutusettu
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/05/18/486523/audio-witness-says-george-zimmerman-repeatedly-bullied-him-at-work-targeted-him-with-racist-jokes/
Joey Maloney
@LongHairedWeirdo: And we require every gun retailer to read a script at point of sale about how firing a gun elevates your risk of testicular cancer.
BobS
@eemom: I knew if anyone showed up to defend Dershowitz it would be eemom.
Thanks for confirming my prognosticating ability, Mrs. [email protected]Bruce S: Isn’t the job of ‘supremely arrogant asshole who accuses anyone holding a dissenting view on Israel of anti-Semitism’ held by eemom here at Balloon Juice?
Another Halocene Human
What legal principles? Black people do time, even if they didn’t do the crime; non-Black people who are former cops or related to cops or judges can kill with impunity; and nobody gives a sh!t if drug runners and gang bangers are slaughtering each other wholesale in Miami and kill a few brown kids by accident. Let God sort out His own.
Another Halocene Human
@Bruce S: Dersh is someone who wanked on and on about the “statist” Supreme Court, yet when he felt threatened he was the first to call for the authoritarian (and useless) remedy of state-sanctioned torture.
Feet of clay.
Another Halocene Human
@Keith G:
Keep kicking that strawman. I’m sure you’ll impress some nice if slightly dotty lady with that performance sooner or later.
Another Halocene Human
@Heliopause:
The West coast strategy is never having been a slave state? I’m not sure even a cool billion could pay for a time machine.
We probably need another wave of idealistic young people to bring social justice to the South. A lot of the young people who will do this were born and bred in the South :) Racism is still be taught to kids but I think there’s a good chance that the young kids who grew up with Barack Obama as their president will start questioning their parents’ attitudes.
jncc
Have you contacted Zimmerman’s lawyer yet to let him know that his client is “immune from prosecution” since he “felt” Martin was a threat to him?
I mean, the prosecution just turned over their evidence to Zimmerman’s lawyer so the prosecutor seems to be under the mistaken impression that Zimmerman is not “immune from prosecution” since, you know, she is prosecuting him.
Patricia Kayden
@pk: But she chose to put herself out there on the internet to be ridiculed and mocked. I’m no beauty queen so while I have no problem rambling anonymously on websites, you WILL NOT see me on TV, Youtube, photographed for a newspaper, etc.
She gets what she deserves. I had a good laugh at her inanity. Yes, she definitely is being oppressed by me and my ilk. She looks oppressed.
Heliopause
@Another Halocene Human:
No, the West Coast Strategy is to figure out what sociological factors allow whites (and even, gasp, white males) to consider voting for your preferred candidates in some regions and try to come up with ways to accentuate those factors. It would be complicated work and far beyond what I myself would be capable of, but there is a shit-ton of money in politics and plenty of eager young social/political scientists who need jobs. Conversely, you could just hope that whites go away a few decades from now and the GOP will finally be marginalized.
jncc
@Patricia Kayden:
Exactly right, Patricia.
Fatties should be heard, not seen.
TenguPhule
A wholesale bloody purge of the Rightwingers from the country in fire and steel.
Nothing less will work.