Make your own here.
Saturday, March 31, 2012
On Bullying
I’ve never much liked bullies. When I was a kid, I was particularly tall and over-confident, so I didn’t get bullied, but I had friends who got bullied and I made it a habit of sticking up for them. I was no white knight, mind you. I only stuck up for my own pals, and I can remember on more than one occasion mocking people I didn’t like for basically no reason at all (well, besides the fact that they had the audacity of being slightly different).
The terms “bully” and “bullying” mean something very specific to me, and I see people use it in a very different way, which belittles those who really are bullied. To me, a bully is someone who physically harms you. Until a person lays their hand on you, they are just mocking you or making fun of you. To me, bullying is child-on-child assault.
Imagine my chagrin when I see people accused of being bullies online, or to hear about liberals getting up in arms about some conservative saying this, that, or the other thing about some poor, defenseless woman/homosexual/minority. I don’t think most liberals would know a bully if one came up behind them and gave them a wedgie.
I don’t want to get into the first amendment here, because I can already tell most people who rail against “verbal bullying” are sick of hearing it. So, allow me to present my counter-argument to those who would silence the mean-spirited in another fashion.
For one thing, words only hurt those who let themselves be hurt. I know it’s a hard truth to swallow, to accept that you must give someone permission to offend you. The only reason words can hurt you is if they are true, because false words bounce off like rubber, and if a word bothers you because it is true, then you had best come to accept the truth and learn to live with it.
Sometimes that truth isn’t what you would initially think. If someone calls you a slut or a nigger or a faggot, the truth does not pertain to you, but to them. It’s doesn’t mean they’re a misogynist, or racist, or homophobic, it means they are angry at you for something, and they are expressing that anger in a juvenile fashion… or they might just be making a joke. That doesn’t mean the joke is funny, but even a bad joke isn’t worth getting upset over.
But these are just how to deal with someone criticizing you. I think such advice is moot, because anyone who is mocked knows how to deal with it. They’ve probably been dealing with it their whole lives, so it’s often not that big of a deal to a well-adjusted individual. Rather, I see other people getting offended on a semi-regular basis for things that don’t even affect them.
On some level, I can relate. I’m white, straight and a man, but I don’t like seeing anyone treated unfairly for being different from me. However, when someone says something to offend an individual or group, I don’t get all up in arms about it and act more offended than the target of the insult. I may make a cursory comment of opposition or just plain mock the jackass, but I know that people can stand up for themselves. They don’t need me riding in on a white horse to save them, starting campaigns and donning ribbons all the colors of the rainbow. That kind of faux-noble stance seems condescending to me.
This isn’t apathy on my part, it’s just good judgment. It’s not worth anyone’s time to get upset about what gets said when there are still so many horrible things being done. Liberals have sidetracked themselves with countless crusades against words. This in a world where women are still paid less, gay people still cannot marry, and where black kids are gunned down in the street by paranoid vigilantes.
There are bullies in the world, but we have laws enough to stop them. We need to focus on enforcing the laws we have, not policing the thoughts of innocent people whose only crime is opening their mouth or typing on their keyboard. I’ve honestly see “verbal abuse” described by more than one person as being similar or equivalent to rape… I am assuming by people who have never been raped. This is utterly ridiculous tripe, even from the fringe elements of the censorship movement.
You know what I think of people who would use force to stop someone from saying something? I would call them a bully, maybe even a thought rapist. Actually, no… just a bully.
The terms “bully” and “bullying” mean something very specific to me, and I see people use it in a very different way, which belittles those who really are bullied. To me, a bully is someone who physically harms you. Until a person lays their hand on you, they are just mocking you or making fun of you. To me, bullying is child-on-child assault.
Imagine my chagrin when I see people accused of being bullies online, or to hear about liberals getting up in arms about some conservative saying this, that, or the other thing about some poor, defenseless woman/homosexual/minority. I don’t think most liberals would know a bully if one came up behind them and gave them a wedgie.
I don’t want to get into the first amendment here, because I can already tell most people who rail against “verbal bullying” are sick of hearing it. So, allow me to present my counter-argument to those who would silence the mean-spirited in another fashion.
For one thing, words only hurt those who let themselves be hurt. I know it’s a hard truth to swallow, to accept that you must give someone permission to offend you. The only reason words can hurt you is if they are true, because false words bounce off like rubber, and if a word bothers you because it is true, then you had best come to accept the truth and learn to live with it.
Sometimes that truth isn’t what you would initially think. If someone calls you a slut or a nigger or a faggot, the truth does not pertain to you, but to them. It’s doesn’t mean they’re a misogynist, or racist, or homophobic, it means they are angry at you for something, and they are expressing that anger in a juvenile fashion… or they might just be making a joke. That doesn’t mean the joke is funny, but even a bad joke isn’t worth getting upset over.
But these are just how to deal with someone criticizing you. I think such advice is moot, because anyone who is mocked knows how to deal with it. They’ve probably been dealing with it their whole lives, so it’s often not that big of a deal to a well-adjusted individual. Rather, I see other people getting offended on a semi-regular basis for things that don’t even affect them.
On some level, I can relate. I’m white, straight and a man, but I don’t like seeing anyone treated unfairly for being different from me. However, when someone says something to offend an individual or group, I don’t get all up in arms about it and act more offended than the target of the insult. I may make a cursory comment of opposition or just plain mock the jackass, but I know that people can stand up for themselves. They don’t need me riding in on a white horse to save them, starting campaigns and donning ribbons all the colors of the rainbow. That kind of faux-noble stance seems condescending to me.
This isn’t apathy on my part, it’s just good judgment. It’s not worth anyone’s time to get upset about what gets said when there are still so many horrible things being done. Liberals have sidetracked themselves with countless crusades against words. This in a world where women are still paid less, gay people still cannot marry, and where black kids are gunned down in the street by paranoid vigilantes.
There are bullies in the world, but we have laws enough to stop them. We need to focus on enforcing the laws we have, not policing the thoughts of innocent people whose only crime is opening their mouth or typing on their keyboard. I’ve honestly see “verbal abuse” described by more than one person as being similar or equivalent to rape… I am assuming by people who have never been raped. This is utterly ridiculous tripe, even from the fringe elements of the censorship movement.
You know what I think of people who would use force to stop someone from saying something? I would call them a bully, maybe even a thought rapist. Actually, no… just a bully.
Saturday Reflection #75
Beta dogs have a saying. It goes, "Bark bark, growl, bark bark bark, bark bark."Alpha dogs also have a saying, and it goes, “...”
Friday, March 30, 2012
Snippet: The Wise and the Otherwise
There are two kinds of people: the wise and the otherwise. Here is how you tell them apart: the wise are those who come up with great ideas, while the otherwise take those ideas out of context, ruin them, and hurt people in the process.
Life, the Universe, and Nothing
I’ve never really believed in nothing. I mean, the concept of nothing is not something I ever believed in. That sort of came out sounding like a statement made by a double-negative using, nihilistic Forrest Gump.
I have wondered for a long time where theists come up with the idea that the Big Bang posits that everything came from nothing. Is this error genuinely the result of naivety, or is it a deliberate distortion? I don’t know, but I would like to believe it’s the former, because I don’t think (or don’t want to think) religious people make up nonsense for the sole purpose of upsetting others with false accusations.
I don’t believe in nothing, because I have seen no evidence that there has ever been nothing. The Big Bang does not begin at the point of nothing, it begins with a singularity. From the moment the universe was concentrated energy in a point smaller than an atom until it expanded and cooled to its current state, we have a fairly good understanding of what happened.
There are always thresholds for human knowledge, and I have confidence that it will continue to expand, much like the universe has done. It’s already expanded quite a bit, from the point where we became self-aware to where we are now, able to see ourselves in the perspective of one of millions of species orbiting one of billions of stars in one of trillions of galaxies.
Personally, I think it’s likely that the universe is unending, and by extension, has no beginning. The Stoics of ancient Greece had a view of the universe that was startlingly similar and modern. They saw the universe as being born in fire, and that one day the world will return to this fiery primordial state, only to form again.
The process was called ekpyrosis, and they believed that each time the universe reformed, everything started over, precisely the same. According to the Stoics, you have already sat in the chair you are now sitting in, you have read this sentence countless times before, and you will read it countless more times again in the future.
Stoics believed in fate by virtue of the fact that all things follow basic laws of cause and effect, so all the events that led up to this moment - from the formation of the universe to the moment you were born to the moment you purchased the device on which you are reading this, to the moment you read it - were all the result of Universal Reason, or as we might think of it, the laws of nature.
I think the model is relatively elegant, but I have one problem with it: I don’t think the universe is on an infinitely repeating loop. Sure, I think the universe’s own dissolution will lead to its eventual rebirth, but I don’t think the new universe will be precisely the same. Every day begins with the sun rising in the East, but it’s not as though every day is the same as the last.
I also believe in agency, or as most people would be familiar with it, “free will.” I don’t like the term “free will,” because it implies that we have more control over our lives than we actually do. Most people are not free, and their will is inherently limited by their circumstances and opportunities, so what people have is not “free will,” but the ability to act in the world. That’s what “agency” means, being able to respond to the world.
The Stoics believe you have no control whatsoever over your life, what happens to you, or what you achieve. The only thing a Stoic believes you can control is your attitude. For the Stoic, the ideal attitude was to be calm and free of passion. If one was able to attain this virtue, then one could be happy, regardless of what happened in life, making you immune to misfortune.
I don’t know that it’s truly a good thing to go through life avoiding passion, even if all passion leads to suffering (a staple belief of Stoics, as well as Cynics, Epicureans, Buddhists and many others, including some monotheists). Since I think you can change things, even if it’s only in a small way, I think a little suffering can be a good thing. Suffering can drive one to act, just as happiness and contentment can cause one to fall into a passive stupor.
What is the point of feeling nothing, or even more eerie to me, what is the point of always feeling happy? I’m not one of these people who thinks you need a little suffering to make the good times that much better, but if there’s no chance to fail at all, it makes me feel unfulfilled. It’s sort of like how people have ruined kid’s sports by not keeping score and giving everyone a trophy: playing the game and having a trophy means nothing anymore.
Maybe I’m alone on this one, but I always learned more from losing than I did from winning. I came away from failures stronger than I came away from successes. One of the joys in life is knowing that you have to work hard to get ahead. However, in this world, even if you fail, you stand a good chance of still being rewarded, especially if you’re already very well off.
Just look at people who head major companies. When a corporation fails, the CEOs still get bonuses. When a firm starts to crash and burn, and bankruptcy is declared, those at the top float safely away on golden parachutes. For some reason, we just let these people run this country’s economy into the ground while helping them carry their bags of money to their getaway car.
We may not be able to control everything, but we certainly can bring individuals to justice. We can even make the world a better place by how we treat others, even if the world itself keeps sending us earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, volcanoes and droughts. It’s better to go about doing and feeling something than to try to avoid feeling anything. I’ve never really believed in nothing.
I have wondered for a long time where theists come up with the idea that the Big Bang posits that everything came from nothing. Is this error genuinely the result of naivety, or is it a deliberate distortion? I don’t know, but I would like to believe it’s the former, because I don’t think (or don’t want to think) religious people make up nonsense for the sole purpose of upsetting others with false accusations.
I don’t believe in nothing, because I have seen no evidence that there has ever been nothing. The Big Bang does not begin at the point of nothing, it begins with a singularity. From the moment the universe was concentrated energy in a point smaller than an atom until it expanded and cooled to its current state, we have a fairly good understanding of what happened.
There are always thresholds for human knowledge, and I have confidence that it will continue to expand, much like the universe has done. It’s already expanded quite a bit, from the point where we became self-aware to where we are now, able to see ourselves in the perspective of one of millions of species orbiting one of billions of stars in one of trillions of galaxies.
Personally, I think it’s likely that the universe is unending, and by extension, has no beginning. The Stoics of ancient Greece had a view of the universe that was startlingly similar and modern. They saw the universe as being born in fire, and that one day the world will return to this fiery primordial state, only to form again.
The process was called ekpyrosis, and they believed that each time the universe reformed, everything started over, precisely the same. According to the Stoics, you have already sat in the chair you are now sitting in, you have read this sentence countless times before, and you will read it countless more times again in the future.
Stoics believed in fate by virtue of the fact that all things follow basic laws of cause and effect, so all the events that led up to this moment - from the formation of the universe to the moment you were born to the moment you purchased the device on which you are reading this, to the moment you read it - were all the result of Universal Reason, or as we might think of it, the laws of nature.
I think the model is relatively elegant, but I have one problem with it: I don’t think the universe is on an infinitely repeating loop. Sure, I think the universe’s own dissolution will lead to its eventual rebirth, but I don’t think the new universe will be precisely the same. Every day begins with the sun rising in the East, but it’s not as though every day is the same as the last.
I also believe in agency, or as most people would be familiar with it, “free will.” I don’t like the term “free will,” because it implies that we have more control over our lives than we actually do. Most people are not free, and their will is inherently limited by their circumstances and opportunities, so what people have is not “free will,” but the ability to act in the world. That’s what “agency” means, being able to respond to the world.
The Stoics believe you have no control whatsoever over your life, what happens to you, or what you achieve. The only thing a Stoic believes you can control is your attitude. For the Stoic, the ideal attitude was to be calm and free of passion. If one was able to attain this virtue, then one could be happy, regardless of what happened in life, making you immune to misfortune.
I don’t know that it’s truly a good thing to go through life avoiding passion, even if all passion leads to suffering (a staple belief of Stoics, as well as Cynics, Epicureans, Buddhists and many others, including some monotheists). Since I think you can change things, even if it’s only in a small way, I think a little suffering can be a good thing. Suffering can drive one to act, just as happiness and contentment can cause one to fall into a passive stupor.
What is the point of feeling nothing, or even more eerie to me, what is the point of always feeling happy? I’m not one of these people who thinks you need a little suffering to make the good times that much better, but if there’s no chance to fail at all, it makes me feel unfulfilled. It’s sort of like how people have ruined kid’s sports by not keeping score and giving everyone a trophy: playing the game and having a trophy means nothing anymore.
Maybe I’m alone on this one, but I always learned more from losing than I did from winning. I came away from failures stronger than I came away from successes. One of the joys in life is knowing that you have to work hard to get ahead. However, in this world, even if you fail, you stand a good chance of still being rewarded, especially if you’re already very well off.
Just look at people who head major companies. When a corporation fails, the CEOs still get bonuses. When a firm starts to crash and burn, and bankruptcy is declared, those at the top float safely away on golden parachutes. For some reason, we just let these people run this country’s economy into the ground while helping them carry their bags of money to their getaway car.
We may not be able to control everything, but we certainly can bring individuals to justice. We can even make the world a better place by how we treat others, even if the world itself keeps sending us earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, volcanoes and droughts. It’s better to go about doing and feeling something than to try to avoid feeling anything. I’ve never really believed in nothing.
Thursday, March 29, 2012
The Second-to-Last Frontier
There have been two exploratory events undertaken by wealthy private citizens in the past week, and they both highlight the forgotten mysteries of our planet, namely those in our oceans.
James Cameron rode down seven miles to the deepest point in the Earth’s crust, the Mariana Trench (which is located in the west Pacific). His submersible was loaded with cameras and he plans to do a TV special for National Geographic, followed perhaps by a 3D theater release. Sure, this may have been a cheap stunt to promote the re-release of Titanic, but still, it was a bold move.
Then, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos used state-of-the-art SONAR to find the Apollo 11 rocket engines that were jettisoned into the Atlantic ocean during its successful trip to the moon. Using his own personal fortune, he located and plans to raise the engines, which will be donated to museums.
These all reminds us just how much of our own planet we don’t even know much about yet. In a time when seemingly nothing new is discovered (in the natural world, anyway… besides the world’s smallest *insert animal here*), the watery depths still offer us many opportunities to boldly go where no one has gone before.
James Cameron rode down seven miles to the deepest point in the Earth’s crust, the Mariana Trench (which is located in the west Pacific). His submersible was loaded with cameras and he plans to do a TV special for National Geographic, followed perhaps by a 3D theater release. Sure, this may have been a cheap stunt to promote the re-release of Titanic, but still, it was a bold move.
Then, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos used state-of-the-art SONAR to find the Apollo 11 rocket engines that were jettisoned into the Atlantic ocean during its successful trip to the moon. Using his own personal fortune, he located and plans to raise the engines, which will be donated to museums.
These all reminds us just how much of our own planet we don’t even know much about yet. In a time when seemingly nothing new is discovered (in the natural world, anyway… besides the world’s smallest *insert animal here*), the watery depths still offer us many opportunities to boldly go where no one has gone before.
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
Thanks, Thought Police…
Ah, liberals… always telling us what we can or cannot say, because it might “offend” someone. First, you couldn’t make a joke at someone’s expense, because that’s “harassment” or “bullying.” Now, New York City won’t be using the word “dinosaurs,” and fifty other harmless terms, in its standardized exams.
What’s so offensive about the word “dinosaur?” Well, it might make someone think about evolution…
Yep, just as many of us “crazy, first-amendment people” predicted (and yes, I have been called that before… more than once), conservatives are using “political correctness” to censor our country and dumb down our children.
I decided to seek out the full list:
Jesus Fucking Christ, people… “Rock-and-Roll music” is on the list. Some of the other things are downright insulting to my sensibilities that some dumbass thinks it’s inappropriate to talk about them. Poverty, vermin, hunting, witchcraft, divorce, homelessness, death, disease… we can’t even discuss these things anymore, like they’re bad words.
No one has the right to not feel offended. If you see, hear or read something that offends you, you have the right to fuck off.
What’s so offensive about the word “dinosaur?” Well, it might make someone think about evolution…
Yep, just as many of us “crazy, first-amendment people” predicted (and yes, I have been called that before… more than once), conservatives are using “political correctness” to censor our country and dumb down our children.
I decided to seek out the full list:
- Abuse (physical, sexual, emotional, or psychological)
- Alcohol (beer and liquor), tobacco, or drugs
- Birthday celebrations (and birthdays)
- Bodily functions
- Cancer (and other diseases)
- Catastrophes/disasters (tsunamis and hurricanes)
- Celebrities
- Children dealing with serious issues
- Cigarettes (and other smoking paraphernalia)
- Computers in the home (acceptable in a school or library setting)
- Crime
- Death and disease
- Divorce
- Evolution
- Expensive gifts, vacations, and prizes
- Gambling involving money
- Halloween
- Homelessness
- Homes with swimming pools
- Hunting
- Junk food
- In-depth discussions of sports that require prior knowledge
- Loss of employment
- Nuclear weapons
- Occult topics (i.e. fortune-telling)
- Parapsychology
- Politics
- Pornography
- Poverty
- Rap Music
- Religion
- Religious holidays and festivals (including but not limited to Christmas, Yom Kippur, and Ramadan)
- Rock-and-Roll music
- Running away
- Sex
- Slavery
- Terrorism
- Television and video games (excessive use)
- Traumatic material (including material that may be particularly upsetting such as animal shelters)
- Vermin (rats and roaches)
- Violence
- War and bloodshed
- Weapons (guns, knives, etc.)
- Witchcraft, sorcery, etc
Jesus Fucking Christ, people… “Rock-and-Roll music” is on the list. Some of the other things are downright insulting to my sensibilities that some dumbass thinks it’s inappropriate to talk about them. Poverty, vermin, hunting, witchcraft, divorce, homelessness, death, disease… we can’t even discuss these things anymore, like they’re bad words.
No one has the right to not feel offended. If you see, hear or read something that offends you, you have the right to fuck off.
Snippet: Rejection
As someone who has been unemployed for almost two years, I can honestly say it’s been easy to avoid feeling defeated. It’s not hard to forget all the failures when they don’t even bother with a letter, e-mail, or phone call to tell me I’ve been rejected.
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
Some Comments on Trayvon Martin
While I was slightly fascinated by the initial story, I’ve once again been more interested in the reactions of Americans to the death of Trayvon Martin than in the case itself. The actual killing has taken a backseat to what is the near hysteria that is the public response.
Be forewarned: I have an opinion on this and I probably won’t change it until there is more evidence.
First, I want to propose what I think happened, so you know what I’m working with. I’m under the impression Trayvon was walking home and Zimmerman was out playing wanna-be-cop when he rolls up on Trayvon and calls 911. They tell him to wait for the police, but he ignores them.
So this high school student who has probably been racially harassed in the past has some guy following him in a car (which is quite an overt action). Trayvon doesn’t know this man, nor does he know what his intentions are (though if he did know, he’d probably have run). The guy gets out of the car and I presume asks Trayvon what he’s doing… a question Trayvon does not legally have to answer, even if Zimmerman were a police officer.
I’m assuming words were exchanged and tempers escalated. When I lived in Philly for seven years, I saw three fights start on the street within sight of me. You always hear them first… it’s usually “*murmur murmur murmur* out my FACE!” Then more yelling, until the fists fly. In one instance, the guy quickly took his shirt off before engaging the men he was fighting with.
All I’m saying is, I doubt Zimmerman got out of the car and Trayvon just began assaulting him. Obviously this is conjecture, but from my experience dealing with mall security and other private authority, one thing they often do is grab your arm or shoulder or basically try to touch you for some odd reason. Honestly, if a guy drives up to me and lays his hand on me, I would consider hitting him, especially if he were smaller than me.
So what we do know is, they get into a fight. Zimmerman claims Trayvon started it… gee, I wonder why? George Zimmerman shows signs of getting his nosy ass beat, notably cuts on the back of his head from a fall and grass stains on the back of his shirt. At some point, Curious George realizes he fucked with the wrong brotha, he pulls out his gun, like a bitch, and shoots the kid who was laying the smackdown on his meddling ass.
For future reference, if you harass someone and then start a fight with them, just take your licking and learn your lesson. George Zimmerman will [hopefully] never live a normal life again now, whether he goes to trial and is found guilty or not, and he would be fine if he had just minded his own fucking business or, if he just had to get involved, he could have just taken the beating he went looking for. Not only that, Trayvon would still be alive. And not only that… I wouldn’t have to see how unbelievably ignorant America is.
So tragedy aside, people have basically lost their fucking minds when talking about this. For one thing, you had liberals shouting about how a white guy had killed a black kid and wasn’t even arrested. Not that it matters what race anyone in the situation is, because it’s sad and pathetic in any case, but we’ve pretty well established now that Zimmerman is mixed race and culturally Latino.
I’m also of the opinion that Zimmerman isn’t that racist. By this I mean, I don’t think Zimmerman went looking to kill a black kid, nor did Zimmerman kill Trayvon because he was black, but I am of the opinion that a black teenager in a hoodie at night was suspicious to Zimmerman… which is kind of racist and was the impetus for all of this.
And real quick, before I forget… fuck you Geraldo Rivera. I hope you get robbed at gunpoint for wearing that smug suit. Seriously, blaming what happens to people on their style? Maybe Al Capone’s vault was empty because of your stupid mustache, because fuck reason.
While I find it sad that liberals have become the boy who cried “racist,” the way those who defend Zimmerman have handled it kind of makes me ready for another Civil War. I don’t want any of the people who I have seen defend Zimmerman to be alive anymore. There are ways to defend him, I can reason in my head that he may have felt justified and that perhaps it was self-defense, but that isn’t how it has been handled.
No, most people who support Zimmerman express a nearly maniacal glee in the whole ordeal. It’s really brought out the racist in a lot of people, and I mean real racism, like, “Just a few million more monkeys to go” racism. It’s really made me rethink some Facebook friendships.
A particularly strange, less racist, though equally ignorant “defense” is that people seem to think that if they can point to an instance where a black person hurt a white person, that it’s like off-setting penalties in football and the whole thing just gets dropped. I want to first point out that every example I have been given is about a black person who was arrested for hurting a white person. Sort of a key difference; black people don’t tend to walk free. Secondly… we aren’t keeping score.
The reason this is news is because a guy killed a kid and just walked free, without so much as even being taken in by the police for any questioning. The ignorance of this very basic fact (which is rarely if ever address by defenders of Zimmerman) indicates to me that those who support Zimmerman are probably just happy with the outcome, which is sickening.
But I’ll help the morons out and come up with a viable counter-example: OJ Simpson. OJ Simpson murdered his wife and her lover, there’s really no question about it. You can be happy for the guy because he got away with it, I can honestly understand that, but by now everyone should have come to terms with the fact that he did kill those two people. He’s not innocent, he was just found not guilty.
The outrage from the decision was palpable. I know black people who can’t believe OJ walked free, though out of cynicism. Some people even take a sort of, “Well, rich white people get away with murder all the time, so it’s only fair,” view, but we all know he did it and most of those who accept the not guilty verdict would probably not trust their kids with him. So, even when a black man gets away with murder, he’s a social pariah (even white women are not immune, ask Casey Anthony). Such may be the case with Zimmerman, trial and conviction or not.
Personally, I’m outraged that he wasn’t arrested. I don’t know if he’s guilty or not, but the guy shot an unarmed kid after getting into a fight with him. In fact, it’s not as though Trayvon approached him; Zimmerman approached Trayvon. That’s some scary shit, knowing that I could just be walking in Florida while some gun-toting vigilante might decide to drive up to me, hassle me, get into a scuffle with me, and then shoot me, claiming self-defense.
Just out of curiosity… since you can just murder people on suspicion, can I kill someone who asks me what I’m doing, out of fear they’ll Zimmerman me?
Be forewarned: I have an opinion on this and I probably won’t change it until there is more evidence.
First, I want to propose what I think happened, so you know what I’m working with. I’m under the impression Trayvon was walking home and Zimmerman was out playing wanna-be-cop when he rolls up on Trayvon and calls 911. They tell him to wait for the police, but he ignores them.
So this high school student who has probably been racially harassed in the past has some guy following him in a car (which is quite an overt action). Trayvon doesn’t know this man, nor does he know what his intentions are (though if he did know, he’d probably have run). The guy gets out of the car and I presume asks Trayvon what he’s doing… a question Trayvon does not legally have to answer, even if Zimmerman were a police officer.
I’m assuming words were exchanged and tempers escalated. When I lived in Philly for seven years, I saw three fights start on the street within sight of me. You always hear them first… it’s usually “*murmur murmur murmur* out my FACE!” Then more yelling, until the fists fly. In one instance, the guy quickly took his shirt off before engaging the men he was fighting with.
All I’m saying is, I doubt Zimmerman got out of the car and Trayvon just began assaulting him. Obviously this is conjecture, but from my experience dealing with mall security and other private authority, one thing they often do is grab your arm or shoulder or basically try to touch you for some odd reason. Honestly, if a guy drives up to me and lays his hand on me, I would consider hitting him, especially if he were smaller than me.
So what we do know is, they get into a fight. Zimmerman claims Trayvon started it… gee, I wonder why? George Zimmerman shows signs of getting his nosy ass beat, notably cuts on the back of his head from a fall and grass stains on the back of his shirt. At some point, Curious George realizes he fucked with the wrong brotha, he pulls out his gun, like a bitch, and shoots the kid who was laying the smackdown on his meddling ass.
For future reference, if you harass someone and then start a fight with them, just take your licking and learn your lesson. George Zimmerman will [hopefully] never live a normal life again now, whether he goes to trial and is found guilty or not, and he would be fine if he had just minded his own fucking business or, if he just had to get involved, he could have just taken the beating he went looking for. Not only that, Trayvon would still be alive. And not only that… I wouldn’t have to see how unbelievably ignorant America is.
So tragedy aside, people have basically lost their fucking minds when talking about this. For one thing, you had liberals shouting about how a white guy had killed a black kid and wasn’t even arrested. Not that it matters what race anyone in the situation is, because it’s sad and pathetic in any case, but we’ve pretty well established now that Zimmerman is mixed race and culturally Latino.
I’m also of the opinion that Zimmerman isn’t that racist. By this I mean, I don’t think Zimmerman went looking to kill a black kid, nor did Zimmerman kill Trayvon because he was black, but I am of the opinion that a black teenager in a hoodie at night was suspicious to Zimmerman… which is kind of racist and was the impetus for all of this.
And real quick, before I forget… fuck you Geraldo Rivera. I hope you get robbed at gunpoint for wearing that smug suit. Seriously, blaming what happens to people on their style? Maybe Al Capone’s vault was empty because of your stupid mustache, because fuck reason.
While I find it sad that liberals have become the boy who cried “racist,” the way those who defend Zimmerman have handled it kind of makes me ready for another Civil War. I don’t want any of the people who I have seen defend Zimmerman to be alive anymore. There are ways to defend him, I can reason in my head that he may have felt justified and that perhaps it was self-defense, but that isn’t how it has been handled.
No, most people who support Zimmerman express a nearly maniacal glee in the whole ordeal. It’s really brought out the racist in a lot of people, and I mean real racism, like, “Just a few million more monkeys to go” racism. It’s really made me rethink some Facebook friendships.
A particularly strange, less racist, though equally ignorant “defense” is that people seem to think that if they can point to an instance where a black person hurt a white person, that it’s like off-setting penalties in football and the whole thing just gets dropped. I want to first point out that every example I have been given is about a black person who was arrested for hurting a white person. Sort of a key difference; black people don’t tend to walk free. Secondly… we aren’t keeping score.
The reason this is news is because a guy killed a kid and just walked free, without so much as even being taken in by the police for any questioning. The ignorance of this very basic fact (which is rarely if ever address by defenders of Zimmerman) indicates to me that those who support Zimmerman are probably just happy with the outcome, which is sickening.
But I’ll help the morons out and come up with a viable counter-example: OJ Simpson. OJ Simpson murdered his wife and her lover, there’s really no question about it. You can be happy for the guy because he got away with it, I can honestly understand that, but by now everyone should have come to terms with the fact that he did kill those two people. He’s not innocent, he was just found not guilty.
The outrage from the decision was palpable. I know black people who can’t believe OJ walked free, though out of cynicism. Some people even take a sort of, “Well, rich white people get away with murder all the time, so it’s only fair,” view, but we all know he did it and most of those who accept the not guilty verdict would probably not trust their kids with him. So, even when a black man gets away with murder, he’s a social pariah (even white women are not immune, ask Casey Anthony). Such may be the case with Zimmerman, trial and conviction or not.
Personally, I’m outraged that he wasn’t arrested. I don’t know if he’s guilty or not, but the guy shot an unarmed kid after getting into a fight with him. In fact, it’s not as though Trayvon approached him; Zimmerman approached Trayvon. That’s some scary shit, knowing that I could just be walking in Florida while some gun-toting vigilante might decide to drive up to me, hassle me, get into a scuffle with me, and then shoot me, claiming self-defense.
Just out of curiosity… since you can just murder people on suspicion, can I kill someone who asks me what I’m doing, out of fear they’ll Zimmerman me?
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