Originally Posted By: Wonder Boy
 Originally Posted By: the G-man
Therefore, under the law, every self defense case "holds court" on the deceased.

Finally, neither you nor WB were there, neither of you are police officers and neither of you are sitting on a jury hearing admissible evidence. Therefore, both of you are simply engaged in speculation.


Yes.

beyond that, I've certainly been weighing both sides of the argument. When I began this topic, I was clearly sympathetic to Trayvon Martin's side of the debate. But have since been swayed toward leaning in the other direction. Or even that there's a shared portioned blame for both Martin and Zimmerman, that each are mutually or partially responsible for the escalation that led to the shooting.

And even though I lean toward Trayvon Martin partly bringing this on himself by physically assaulting Zimmerman who had previously only watched him from a distance according to at least 2 witnesses and physical evidence, I've also posted several articles that show witnesses and arguments against Zimmerman's version.

So all the "WB: racist, racist, klansman, bigot" shit rings pretty hollow.


Whereas I think M E M has been uncritically entrenched toward the Trayvon Martin side.


In MEM's defense I think there is a tendency in a lot of us to see a dead kid and immediately want to blame someone. When a child or teenager dies, we all want to make sense of it. And sometimes the easiest way to do that is assign criminal blame. There is comfort is being able to tell ourselves that it wasnt just a horrible act of random chance, that a "bad guy" caused it and, once we "get" the bad guy things will be better.

But the legal system can't work that way. We need to have checks and balances and we need to remember that not every tragedy is a crime. Otherwise, we risk codemnng the innocent on emotion instead of evidence.