As you all know by now, the Zimmerman trial is over and the verdict was “not-guilty”. During the trial and right after, there was all sorts of nonsense spread by the media, pundits and pretty much anybody with a Twitter or Facebook account. The media is one thing; they have a vested interest in promoting their own agenda and tailoring their reports to suit that goal. I think it’s disgusting and even criminal but I doubt this will ever change. There’s simply too much money involved; people sell their souls for a whole lot less.
It’s also been a while since I heard so many uninformed and flat out erroneous opinions on both the case itself and self-defense laws in general. In part, this is due to the media constantly pushing disinformation. In part because of NBC News trying to compete with Joseph Goebbels in spreading a lie. It got indeed repeated loudly and long enough for a vast majority of people to believe it is true. It’s still a lie and they admitted to it, but that little tidbit of information is not a headline anywhere. Their faux-apology didn’t impress me one bit. News professionals do make mistakes but even an amateur working with raw audio material would spot that he was taking things completely out of context. I believe it was a major factor in inciting the public at large to view this as a race-related crime.
This is also the reason why I won’t comment much on the trial itself even though I think it was handled terribly and won’t allow any comments on it here. People (black, white, green, yellow or polka dot colored) stop listening and using their minds as soon as they think race is involved. They collectively go apeshit and stop making sense altogether. When you point this out to them, they accuse you of all sorts of evil crap, including racism. If afterwards they realize they are wrong on specific parts of their argumentation (like the audio tape…) they ignore that part and focus on the rest.
I saw and heard some of the most outlandish things about legal self-defense in this case too. People with absolutely zero knowledge (as proven by their words) about the law and case law pontificate as if they have law degrees and dozens of years pleading murder trials. Even a first year law student would be able to correct them on everything they say. But they refuse to let go of their opinions (as unfounded and erroneous as they may be) when professionals and experienced experts who’s job is just that tell them otherwise. If find this even worse when movie stars and other celebrities jump on the bandwagon. Only very few of them actually made some sense when they spoke up. I particularly liked Charles Barkley’s balanced and fair view. [Read more…]
