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George Zimmeman |
I will be writing more on the failing of the vetoed Shoot First legislation separately, but I was struck this weekend by the racist overtones of a fatal shooting of a black teen by a white man with a violent past in Florida who had a legal carry permit. It is an incident that is pertinent, because so far, the shooter has not been arrested, despite the young victim having been unarmed and much younger and much smaller than the shooter, with the victim weighing in at 140 lbs. to the shooter's 200 lbs. - in other words, he was not a plausible threat to the shooter. The shooter had a concealed carry permit,
despite a background which included violent conduct, including against law enforcement officers. Zimmerman's victim had no violent events in HIS background, and in fact had saved his father's life, pulling his father to safety from a burning building.
More to the point, despite being directed by the police dispatcher NOT to follow this young man, the shooter did so. Under the Shoot First legislation, it is legal to shoot someone while in your car, if you FEEL threatened, regardless if you actually ARE threatened. The criteria for shooting becomes not objective, but subjective. The duty to retreat, the obligation to attempt to avoid shooting someone if you safely can, would no longer exist. It would be perfectly legal to go looking for trouble, to follow someone, to pursue shooting someone who was not pursuing or attempting to harm you. This case has a number of facets which underline the problems with the recently vetoed Shoot First legislation, especially that only ONE side - the shooter's version of events - can be told.
The case of the Trayvon Martin shooting also brings up the issue of violence and hate crimes. In the case of Trayvon Martin, the only basis that appears to exist for his being considered suspicious is that he is black, and was walking in a white gated community where black teens were not common.
If the right wwing can say that a foetus has a right to life, why do they pass these laws which violate the right to life of a full and complete person who can be said to be truly alive?
ReplyDeleteI thinkn laws such as this and the notion that deadly force can be a first option in most circumstances shows that the talk of right to life is pure nonsense by the right wing.
Thosw people who truly believe in the sanctity of life should be appalled by this.
I agree Laci; the right embraces the theoretical, the hypothetical, the coulda-woulda-might have beens on the basis of an assumed innocence, which is based on faith not science, and very selective faith at that.
ReplyDeleteReal people in the world don't fare as well if they are viewed as differing from the right, or in failing to conform; that seems to frighten and antagonize them.
The cases of Islamophobia and other religious intolerance on the right, of racism on the right, of gender war on women, of gay-hating, is all there, all laid out in examples of their point of view, and their legislation.
They are to one degree of another the Christian version of Taliban wannabees, especially segments of the religous right. They applaud executions, even when the people executed are innocent - as many have been proven by subsequent evidence that the largely right wing courts did not allow.
They practice enforcing conformity to their ideas, their beliefs, while they deny facts, evidence and science. They approve harm, in varying degrees to others.
Voter ID suppression is just one more example; they don't care if they hurt their fellow conservatives, or non-aligned voters, if they think they can stop legally enfrachised democrats from voting. That is evil, it is bad governance, and it is wrong...but all too right wing.