It's Watch!... Neighborhood Watch. Not shoot.

Acted differently? You mean like not carrying a bag of skittles? Not wearing an evil hoodie?

 

If she hadn't been dressed like a slut she wouldn't have been raped.

 

It takes two to tango!

 

So basically unless the dead kid can prove that he didn't have it coming to him, he's just gonna have to lie there and wish he'd ... what, exactly? Not been stalked?

The kid got shot. He MUST have done something wrong.

 

If she hadn't excepted that drink from him she wouldn't have been raped. I mean what did she expect?

 

Although I agree with you 100%, I find that fact the post comes from your computer to be a bit ironic.

 

Why?

 

Asinine. Simply asinine.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-world_hypothesis
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blame_the_victim

 

I'll say this for YF, he is consistent. This argument follows along a similar pattern to the ones he's making on the Esquire Youth thread. He's of the mind that most of our society is a fair meritocracy, so if bad things happen, then they probably happened for at least a somewhat valid reason. I completely disagree with these arguments as they ignore much of what goes on beyond the individual in our society, but at least they are consistent.

 

It's a screwed up view of life. But it's his world.

 

Simple. It appears you took issue with YF's implication that the manner in which Martin "acted" contributed to his death that night. Like you, I don't think he should be implying that without factual evidence (unless YF is George Zimmerman or witnessed the incident).

Yet you've made similar statements on this thread. After it was reported that the PD wanted to make an arrest, only to be rebuffed by the DA's office, you suggested the PD screwed up so badly that night the DA's office might have declined to file charges because the office knew the charges wouldn't stick. (You then covered yourself with the classic "not saying that's what happened..." Sorry, you already rang the bell.)

You then implied the PD, which had been initially labeled racist but didn't look that way as more reports came out, still could have been racist by intentionally screwing up the investigation.

Later, you declared "every public official and every agency in any way touched by this case is now trying to cover its ass."

I'm sorry, but unless you are on the inside there's no way you could know this.

In my perfect world we'd all refrain from making rash judgments, defending a bounty placed on the guy's head, tweeting the address of folks who had nothing to do with what happened that night, etc.

But that's never going to happen. Knowing that, if you're going to make definitive claims or imply certain things unsupported by hard evidence, you probably should expect the other side to do the same.

And as I've said before, if the evidence leads to an arrest, trial and conviction, good for the system. If that doesn't happen but the stand-your-ground law is re-evaluated and perhaps changed or tossed I will at least take that as a small but important victory. In either case, I feel for two parents who lost a son. I just hope we someday have an accurate picture of what went down that night. Doubt we ever will, though.