Something tells me that a man arrested and imprisoned for six years isn’t your idol and standing your ground against someone based on the distinction between legal and common usage interpretations doesn’t rise to the level of non-violent dissent of Dandi shore. Hell, I don’t think insulting Tao’s Revenge would even qualify as violent insurrection.
But hell, keep up the good fight man. Maybe one day lawyers will be paid a living wage. Sarvodaya and all that.
I was a public defender. Barbers made MORE than I did.
Well in your scenario, what exactly did Zimmerman do (or fail to do) which engendered moral responsibility on his part?
He was not instructed not to follow Martin, he was told he didn’t need to. This may seem like a hairsplitting point, but when it comes to determining whether his actions were criminally reckless, it’s pretty important.
You don’t seem to grasp the distinction between kill and murder.
In my personal narrative, Zimmerman was struck first by Martin, but then had an opportunity to withdraw. He should have taken the punch, withdrawn, and waited for the cops, now with a much better story to tell them than inchoate suspicion. I believe that instead he chose to exercise his legal right to defend himself, which, considering he created the problem,was not the thing to do.
It makes sense to me that Martin might respond to an insulting question by having or hitting, but I don’t think he would continue a beat-down unless Zimmerman escalated by trying to strike back.
Just my own personal narrative, imagination-based.
Why didn’t Trayvon just keep running all the way home, if he thought he was being pursued by a creepy dude with a gun?
Wasn’t he like a 100 yards away from where he was residing?
Why stop, hide and lay in wait for creepy dude?
Nobody will ever know, but I would guess it’s one of two possibilities:
First, that Martin was in a subconscious dominance contest with Zimmerman and Martin felt (subconsciously) that by running away it was like submitting to and being humiliated by Zimmerman. Of course such an urge would have been exacerbated if Martin was in contact with his girlfriend at the time.
Second, that Martin felt that Zimmerman was making homosexual advances towards him and was repulsed and disgusted and felt the urge to beat up Zimmerman.
They are both omission. The traditional method of infanticide is by exposure, at least in western cultures. There are some references to religious sacrifices, which would be commission. I’m not sure why you care about the distinction. Most moral codes have sins of omission and commission.
You obviously didn’t understand the post I linked. Morals are cultural standards, not individual standards. Moral standards don’t necessarily make sense. They were evolved by prescientific cultures that only have loose ideas of cause and effect. Ogg ate clam, Ogg died, Clams are taboo. Cultures that evolved moral codes that work, survive. The trouble is that moral evolution is a rather chancy thing. The trouble is that we have a lot of morality that evolved in a agrarian technology and a lot of it doesn’t actually make sense in a post industrial society.
I actually think this is a pretty interesting discussion, but it way off topic.
Damn, brazil84, really though?
Those questions have been asked before. Plenty of posters have suggested that Trayvon didn’t want the crazy, creepy man to know where he ‘lived’. I think that’s much more plausible than your two scenarios.
Yes really.
So what?
I don’t think so – if Martin’s primary concern was to make sure that Zimmerman did not learn where he lived, the obvious thing to do would be to run away and sneak back later.
You seem to equate fistfight with some sort of school yard altercation. Over 800 people are beaten to death every year in the U.S. The last time I checked pounding someone head against the sidewalk isn’t in the marquis of queensbury rules.
You just psychoanalyzed somebody you know very liittle about. I know it’s a speculation/imho thread but both those theories are out there.
I believe that was his intention; to hide or evade until Zimmerman left. Once he realized Zimmerman wasn’t giving up on the search. Trayvon decided to confront Zimmerman, verbally(I’m not conceding TM was 1st to strike).
So what? I know human nature pretty well. Jamicat asked a question and I answered it.
Again, so what?
That’s silly, he could have easily disappeared for 15 minutes or half an hour or longer. As opposed to a minute or two.
Besides which, confronting someone doesn’t serve the purpose of concealing where you live since it just draws attention to you. Unless perhaps you kill them.
I didn’t actually read all of chapter 21. I just skimmed enough to determine the other sections didn’t apply. I still don’t Crump would bother, but a lawyer wanting to make a reputation might.
The FBI is actually considering charging Zimmerman with a Federal Hate Crime.
http://www.wftv.com/news/news/local/fbi-seeks-charge-george-zimmerman-hate-crime/nN5pR/
I seem to recall a recent case where a defendant was convicted of federal perjury even though the statements weren’t made to a federal agent. I’ll see if I can find a reference. I think it involved evidence collected by state agents that was used in a federal indictment.
For some people, fantasy can be healthy. You, however, should probably resist it.
If by “fantasy,” you mean “reasonable guesses based on available evidence which guesses happen to offend Leftist bigots”; and “should probably resist” means “should probably resist if you want to avoid offending Leftist bigots,” then yes I would agree with you.
Yes, I think you’ve put your finger on it. ETA: Perhaps his handle itself was meant to be sarcastic.
Doesn’t a lot of this hinge upon an unanswered, and maybe unanswerable, question: when did Martin know that Zimmerman had a gun? As I said before, somehow I had the assumption that it was holstered in the small of his back, and hence unseen. But what if it wasn’t?
If Martin feared this “creepy” guy, and found out when standing closer that he was carrying a gun, I think the needle on his “reasonable fear” meter goes up some notches. Faced with the prospect of trying to outrun a bullet, or attacking Zimmerman to prevent him reaching the gun…I think the second choice seems obvious.
By this reasoning, we arrive at another goddam plausible scenario: that Martin did in fact attack Zimmerman, but thought he had no choice.
As always when one matches wits with you, one slinks away battered, bruised, and regretful.