PLEASE NOTE: The Reality TV World Message Boards are filled with desperate
attention-seekers pretending to be one big happy PG/PG13-rated family. Don't
be fooled. Trying to get everyone to agree with you is like herding cats,
but intolerance for other viewpoints is NOT welcome and respect for other
posters IS required at all times. Jump in and play, and you'll soon find out
how easy it is to fit in, but save your drama for your mama. All members are
encouraged to read the
complete guidelines.
As entertainment critic Roger
Ebert once said, "If you disagree with something I write, tell me so, argue
with me, correct me--but don't tell me to shut up. That's not the American way."
It is one of those situations where I don't know that we will ever really get to the truth, especially since the defense has to blame the victim in every way they are allowed to make their case and the prosecution obviously has to blame the person they charged. I would hope it is about justice all the way around, but that is way too idealistic. I do know that it seems all too often the victim ends up on trial and no one seems to pay much attention to determining if the accused should be found guilty or not.
I mostly see this as a case where testosterone probably got out of hand and if it hadn't been for the gun we'd probably have two people able to testify about what happened. I don't think either is completely blameless.
Maybe it is the county I live in and I know how much even trained police officers who really should know better have been in hot water for profiling people (although here Zimmerman would be much more likely to be the person followed for walking with skittles). It is hard for me to hold Zimmerman blameless especially since one of the reasons most places insist that the neighborhood watch people to not be armed (even if they are armed at other times legally) and to not follow people and to just call the cops is that when they are armed and start following and confronting people the odds of someone ending up dead too soon goes way up. If Zimmerman hadn't shot Trayvon, I wouldn't be shocked if he eventually ended up being shot when he confronted someone who was really up to some serious no good. Cops at least have the training to know what they are doing when they confront potential bad guys and still end up shot on a regular basis. Amateurs are even more likely to get into trouble, I think.
It would be a comedy of errors (as Trayvon should have run home and called the cops rather than confront Zimmerman as well or just never left his Dad's house for any reason, ever) if some kid didn't end up dead. Maybe he was such an bad dude he would have been shot dead by someone in a year anyway, but that doesn't mean he deserved to be confronted for walking home that night.
So I don't think it is just malicious that they are prosecuting Zimmerman as there really does need to be some investigation and determination of what happened. If for no other reason than we need to keep a lid on vigilante justice and define where that line is between murder and self-defense. If we had a way to do it other than a trial and through the legal system we could do it there, but this is what I think a role the courts play in our society. I do sometimes fear we are getting to be too much of a "well I felt he just needed killing and we'd have to shoot him/her sooner or later" society that encourages people to put themselves in situations where confronting someone to death is what you are supposed to do rather than last resort.
p l a c e h o l d e r t e x t g o e s h e r e - p l a c e h o l d e r t e x t g o e s h e r e - p l a c e h o l d e r t e x t g o e s h e r e -
p l a c e h o l d e r t e x t g o e s h e r e - p l a c e h o l d e r t e x t g o e s h e r e - p l a c e h o l d e r t e x t g o e s h e r e -
p l a c e h o l d e r t e x t g o e s h e r e - p l a c e h o l d e r t e x t g o e s h e r e - p l a c e h o l d e r t e x t g o e s h e r e -
p l a c e h o l d e r t e x t g o e s h e r e - p l a c e h o l d e r t e x t g o e s h e r e - p l a c e h o l d e r t e x t g o e s h e r e -