YOUR HIGHER MORALITY

[fpb]

Well, I suppose all my friends are right. We do need Zimmerman lynched. We are in need of a lynch mob unleashed by short and fraudulent media summaries to rip a man who has been judged innocent by a jury of his peers and hang him on a tree on the reports of MNBC and the rest. Because journalists never would lie and always understand everything that is going on, and are in fact fountains of virtue and sagacity, and we may confidently hate those whom they tell us to hate; whereas the jury that has spent weeks being exposed in detail to everything that could be retrieved of the facts are too stupid, ignorant and racist to make the right choice. We need more demos. We need more shouting. We need more threats.

Comments

[philosophymom.livejournal.com]

This is where the internet fails as a communication medium -- I have absolutely no idea what the tone of your question is. I have to tell you, though, that it doesn't feel friendly... Still, I'll answer it straightforwardly.

First, I think it's patently obvious that cable news outlets go for the sensational angle first, even when what they say is true. I'm not sure how that's "knowing better" than them (or than you, who also seems to distrust them). Second, I think it's unlikely that every jury in the history of juries has decided correctly, and I contrasted that opinion with what looked to me like your more trusting one. So maybe, in that case, I was implying that I know better than you, or at least that I have less respect for the common man than you do (if the latter, it may not be an opinion I'm proud of, but, yeah, I think I hold it).

I'm not sure I know better than the Zimmerman jury with regard to the specific charge they adjudicated. But "everything that could be retrieved of the facts" suggests to me that something unkosher went down, even if it wasn't manslaughter.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Let me hear those facts that I don't know. So far you have given generalities that prove nothing. I started out thinking as you do; then I had a series of unfortunate encounters with evidence. The police photographs of Zimmerman showed that his claim of having had his head smashed against the pavement by Martin were true. Martin's own tweets showed that he was a fanatical and unmanageable seeker for trouble, who had assaulted at least one teacher and a number of other people, and that he practised MMA (mixed martial arts) style assault. Have you ever been assaulted by a trained fighter? I have. The man was drunk at the time, and he only struck a few times, but he inflicted injuries that lasted for weeks. Martin was not drunk, and he was striking with his full strength. Another thing I know - from a man who worked with me as a security guard - is that if you strike the side of the head in a particular place, you can kill a man with one blow. I regard Martin's assault on Zimmerman's head as attempted murder.

So please, let us have your brilliant evidence that shows that Zimmerman was such a bad man and that it was at least in part his fault. And yes, I am not happy with anyone who follows the band to gamble away a man's life on inadequate and misleading information. Another thing I am quite familiar with is being the target of a Politically Correct witchhunt fed by lies spread by people in power.

[philosophymom.livejournal.com]

You know this is why you fall out with so many people, right? We have never, ever disagreed online without you getting hard and sarcastic right away. Did you even read my posts? In neither of them do I say that I'm sure Mr. Zimmerman was guilty of manslaughter and that I could prove it with "brilliant evidence" (my God! Do you read you *own* posts before you put them online?). I did say that I didn't have as much confidence in juries as you seem to have (a generalization, to be sure), and I also said that I thought Zimmerman did something that was wrong and should be illegal. I was actually talking about his following the boy, and even if I'm wrong that there oughta be a law against it, it still strikes me as more than a bit off. I suppose it will be considered in the inevitable civil case.

I'm going to do that thing I always do and you hate, which is drop out of this discussion. By all means, interpret it as some kind of a concession on my part, but the fact is I might have continued the conversation -- and, who knows, refined my views! -- if you weren't so awful.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

There ought to be a law against a member of neighbourhood watch following an intruder in a gated community (that is, practically in his own home)? Do you even realize what you are saying? And is it not obvious that you are looking for a reason, any reason, to find Zimmerman guilty of something? Picture yourself, the first time that an aggressive bully turns on you and growls "You followin' me, cracker?" Please, you are usually not this ridiculous.

[philosophymom.livejournal.com]

The one thing that can't be "obvious" is that I am "looking for a reason, any reason, to find Zimmerman guilty of something." It can't be obvious, because it isn't true: I have thought there was something wrong with his following Martin, which he did against the advice/wishes of the dispatcher to whom he was speaking on the phone at the time, from the first I heard of it. He wasn't even on duty as a member of the neighborhood watch that night. It struck me as stalker-ish (or harrasser-ish) and trouble-making.

And when an aggressive bully whom I am actually following asks me whether I am following him, I'll be rightly terrified, but what other answer would I have but "yes"?

I suppose the only reason I am "usually not this ridiculous" is that I hardly ever comment on current events or politics online. My trouble with Zimmerman is rooted in larger political views, but not racist ones and not, I think, knee-jerk political correctness. It's my general opposition to guns and vigilantism.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

You will not find anyone more opposed to second-amendment nonsense and gun fanaticism than I am. I think they are a disease in the American body politic, and I think the Second Amendment doesn't mean what they think it means. http://fpb.livejournal.com/tag/second%20amendment But when you say that there ought to be a law to make it illegal for one person to follow another on the street, you are saying something so utterly absurd that it can only be explained with the desire to find Zimmerman guilty of something.

[philosophymom.livejournal.com]

When I say there oughta be a law, I suppose I am thinking that if someone were following me down the street, and I had a phone on me and called 911, I would like for there to be legal grounds for the police to respond to my call and confront/detain the follower. In a culture where I can get in trouble for making an illegal left turn in the middle of the the night with no other cars on the road, yeah, I think it's odd that someone who stalks someone else even once isn't considered to have done anything wrong.

Now, why must my holding this opinion, even if it can be shown to be naive and unworkable, be taken as evidence that I am desperate to find George Zimmerman guilty of something? To me, the Zimmerman incident demonstrates something I already believed, which is that armed street patrolling by civilians acting completely on their own authority is behavior that causes trouble and should be formally (i.e., with laws) discouraged. Again, by all means disagree that my stance is practical, but don't you dare accuse me of being part of a would-be lynch mob.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

All right. I might tell you that the assault on the unfortunate Zimmerman is a reality (remember the price put on his head by the Black Panthers?) driven for dirty political reasons from the very top (nobody was so much as questioned about that little stunt) and from the top of the top (remember a certain presidential candidate remarking that Martin looked like the son he never had? a candidate who, as a trained lawyer, ought to have known that you simply don't say things like that before a trial?). But then I would be called to defend the murderous lunatics who openly rejoiced in the boy's death, and I have no intention to do that.

I want, however, to tell you a couple of true stories. The first took place in the hideous academic year 1989-90, otherwise known as the Year of Hunting Barbieri Down. Among the various stories that the academic authorities used against me, one that did me particular damage was that of a former friend who claimed that I was following her around in the corridors and that she was afraid of being raped. You will have to take my word for it that I was doing nothing of the kind, and that on one occasion not long before I had actually found myself alone with her in her own bedroom and had not even thought of any such thing. (She also was the most beautiful woman in the whole college.) The place was all corridors, and one could not help meeting someone who was studying many of the same courses and interested in the same areas; and as for wanting to do anything with her, this was the time of my head-over-heels total and absolute love for Debbie Wallace, and even though I tell you that this woman was as beautiful as Aphrodite, I simply was not interested. Now the authorities at SOAS behaved exactly as you think they should in the rest of the world: "Please, sir, this man is following me around!" "Who, m-" "CATCH HIM! GET HIM! HANG, DRAW AND QUARTER HIM!!!"
.
But even without that charming experience, I had still been taught a lesson a couple of years before. One night I was walking down a London street and I heard someone walking behind me. It was a young black man in a hoodie. I got nervous and tried to accelerate, but the guy was faster than me and caught up. He said: "Give me your money!" I said: "W-What?" - and then he started to laugh and walked away. I can't say this story does me much honour, but it taught me a lesson I've never forgotten.

[stahlhelm.livejournal.com]

"It's my general opposition to guns and vigilantism."

Easy to have that opposition to guns when your privilege to feel that way was secured by men with guns in the first place.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

I think I have to intervene here. I don't think Karen deserved this level of rudeness, and I doubt whether she said what you seem to think. Opposition to vigilantism is not opposition to the legitimate use of force, and in fact Karen said nothing to say that she disapproved of Zimmerman using deadly force in self-defence. What bothered her - and there I have to say I did not agree - was the picture of the older man following the younger. I don't think it's right to blanket-dismiss her opinions on the legitimate use of force on that basis.

This saddens me because you are both friends of mine and I think highly of you both. S., P. is a philosophy teacher, mother of three, classical chorus singer and all-around good egg, a kindly, constructive, hard-working person whom life has treated a lot worse than she deserves. P. S. is a Marine in active service and either now or recently on duty in Afghanistan, and so is apt to be touchy if he perceives a dismissal of the legitimate use of arms. He is a man of unusual and independent mind and an amazingly brilliant artist who could easily make a living from his drawings. You are my friends and I like you both; I would like you both, not to agree, which is an idea I hate, but to understand and respect each other.

Finally, S., I hadn't heard from you in months and you may imagine I was worried. It is very good to hear from you and be reassured, and since yesterday was my birthday I regard this as a birthday present.

[tekalynn.livejournal.com]

Happy birthday! I'm sorry, I was out of town, visiting family, and missed the occasion. Many happy returns.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

No need to apologize, and thank you.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Incidentally, I did not say that you said Zimmerman was guilty of murder or manslaughter. I said, and I repeat, that you are looking for reasons to find him guilty of anything. That should be obvious to anyone who reads your post. And yes, where a man's life and reputation being slaughtered for the convenience of political whores is concerned, I do turn hard and sarcastic. Ask yourself which one of us is placing himself against political and media power, and you may begin to understand why.