Posted on 07/19/2013 12:23:47 PM PDT by Mrs. Don-o
Dear Consistent Life,
It was unwise as well as detrimental to CL’s reputation for justice, for you to publish your comment on the acquittal in the Zimmerman case. [Their lastest newsletter, featuring the Zimmerman Aquittal article, found at Link] Its assertions are, at best, unproved, and at worst, examples of the very prejudice and bigotry which is deplored in the article.
Permit me to introduce you, perhaps for the first time, to some of the facts of the case.
"Racism is the most obvious; it seems likely that Zimmerman perceived Martin as a threat because he was a young black man."
“Seems likely”? This is a slander unfounded in fact. The FBI and the local/state LE investigators spent a year and a half interviewing dozens of people who knew or worked with Zimmerman, and did not find one instance of racism on the part of Zimmerman. If there were evidence, it would have come out in the trial. There wasn’t, and it didn’t.
On the contrary, what the investigators found was a consistent pattern of non-racist and even anti-racist behavior on the part of Zimmerman. This is a man who took a black date to his high school prom. Who spent his spare time tutoring minority students. Who voted for Obama (to be fair, a “white-African American”) . And who intervened on the behalf of a black homeless man who was beaten by the son of a (white) Sanford police officer: Zimmerman demanded the police cease their cover-up of this assault.
"Materialism: This incident occurred in a gated community, where those who have try to wall themselves off from those who have not."
This is egregious nonsense. Retreat at Twin Lakes is a neighborhood of modest townhouses in Sanford, FL, which is over 50% minority (roughly 20% African-American, 20% Latino, and 13% Asian, Middle Eastern and Caribbean, and 47% white). The basic units are just over 1,200 sq. ft. and have 2 or 3 bedrooms and a 1-car garage. Twin Lakes is not a “retreat” for wealthy whites, but a shelter for working-class and middle-class families of all races who want to raise their kids in an environment where neighbors care for each other.
"Militarism: Stand Your Ground laws represent the institutionalization of militarist ideology at the personal level. The 'solution' to problems is to kill someone who represents the problems."
Another unfounded media meme. “Stand Your Ground” was not a factor in the case. (Did you not even read the transcript?) It was cited neither by the prosecution nor the defense. Why? Because the assault began when Mr. Martin blindsided Mr. Zimmerman with a single sucker punch to the face which knocked him to the ground. The rest of the confrontation—according to the only eye-witness , Jonathan Good --- consisted of Mr. Martin straddling Mr. Zimmerman and raining down blows on him in a MMA “ground and pound” style.
“Stand Your Ground” applies only to a situation where the party can run. In this instance, with Zimmerman pinned to the ground, and enduring felony aggravated assault, there was no opportunity to retreat.
http://dailycaller.com/2013/06/28/eyewitness-describes-martin-zimmerman-struggle/
All of these points were supported by meticulously-evaluated physical and testamentary evidence in a 20-day trial. There was no countervailing evidence to suggest that Zimmerman initiated the assault, or that had a chance to run and did not do so.
After the trial, witness Rachel Jeantel, who was talking with Mr. Martin on her cell phone right up to the confrontation, told CNN’s Piers Morgan that she’d told Martin that Zimmerman might be a rapist, that Martin was ”creeped out” because he was not “that way” and --- in consequence of thinking he was being cruised by a gay guy --- decided to give him a little “whoop-ass” --- in her opinion.
http://tinyurl.com/CNN-Jeantel-whoopass
http://www.examiner.com/article/trayvon-was-giving-zimmerman-a-whoopass-for-being-gay
Neither you nor I should take talk-show “testimony” without a huge grain of salt; nevertheless, it shows that even Martin’s closest friend thought he was reacting, not to a “racially-motivated stalking,” but out of offense that a sexually-interested male might be trying to pick him up.
"The CLE [Consistent Life Ethic] stands against these paradigms. The importance of these broad paradigms is why we include racism and poverty in our key issues."
I can see that the author of this article had hardly a nodding acquaintance with the actual case, which involved real people who did not fit the meta-narrative. The author was not diligent to report, or perhaps not even interested in, any facts which could not be forced into the pre-established template :
| White = Racist | Black = Victim |
|---|---|
| Community = Rich | Boy = Poor |
| Neighborhood Watch = militarism | Smacking somebody’s head on concrete = whoop-ass = "just the way we do in the minority community." |
"To address wrong thinking prevalent in society obviously requires a multi-faceted strategy of which things like legislative changes only represent one small facet."
To address wrong thinking begins with facts. Recalcitrant facts. The jury found the only result consistent with the facts: acquittal.
Justice before “Our Key Issues.”
People before Paradigms.
Thank you.
[signed]
Thank you.
Thank you for this excellent-quality work!
Grrr.
ping
Keep us posted.
The Catholics that belong to the peace and justice movement in my community left our church and attend the local liberal Episcopal church down the road. They hate me (the deacon) and my pastor ( a no nonsense pro-life priest) so no matter what we say...we are oppressive troglodytes.
But I will use this in our local paper to agitate the heck out of the local libtards. Thanks Mrs. Don-o
God bless you and Don-o
Deacon Francis
Ping to FR original content
The self so called “Consietent Life Ethic” crowd are simply leftist pacifist cowards following in the poisonous footsteps of the late Joseph Bernardin. I spit at tbem.
I like how you nailed them on the “gated community” meme. The left pushed this angle hard until it became obvious that it was basically a middle-class apartment complex, then they backed off. But apparently this guy didn’t get the memo.
They are not particularly cowards. They do hold up an anti-abortion, anti-infanticide, anti-euthanasia line on the Left, which take a certain amount of moral courage.
Nor are they stupid (although this was a particularly stupid article). They are open to Left-Right dialogue and engagement, which preserves them from the sheer thud-headed doltishness we see so much of on the Religious Left.
In other words, they're not typically Jim Wallis. They're more in the Ron Sider camp.
I thought them worth my time and my aggravated love.
Extremely well done!
In other words, not uneducable and not invincibly ignorant, just not informed of the facts.
No surprise because the news media has continued to promote the completely false narrative - no doubt in the interest of (a) selling more papers/ad time; and (b) ginning up some riots, which will of course sell LOTS more papers/ad time.
As dear old Cicero said long ago, "Cui bono?" ("Who benefits?" or in free translation, "Follow the money.")
Well done.
:-)
Very good! I would have mentioned not so much that Zimmerman had black friends, but that Martin was behaving suspiciously, looking like he was “casing” the homes. That, and not color, is what attracted Zimmerman’s attention.
Adding the double-scored boxes to highlight the idiocy before completely dismantling the false premise clearly merited an 'extremely'.
p.s. check this thread out. No zot yet.
8^P
I hope I just gave them a "clue" that there might be a teeny tiny bit more they could look into!
Yes, there are a lot of facets.
Self-defense is not “militarism” either. Being a Christian does not require that we allow ourselves to be beaten to death.
Well done.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.