Media must find Zimmerman Guilty of Something

They simply have to find him guilty of something, don't they? George Zimmerman, presumes the media, is an evil man. There must be something which can be hung on him to sustain that belief.

Recently, it's been a domestic dispute. A dispute which itself has become something of a dead end: the police say they've completed their investigation, his estranged wife is less willing to press charges, and there is apparently no clear evidence about what exactly has happened surrounding the whole episode. Yet the story is still a lead article on the Huffington Post.

But why? Merely because Zimmerman must be an animal of some sort. If he a racism charge can't be held against him, then the media will go after the next best thing: domestic abuse, which is generally akin to sexism.

Let it go, liberal media. Take a breath, pump the brakes, and accept that you just aren't always right. Or at the least, that in both this incident as well as the Trayvon Martin case, the available evidence is insufficient enough for you to sustain your cause. Stop trying to create news; if the Martin incident had never occurred, you would have zero interest in the Zimmermans' imploding marriage.

That, perhaps, tells us all we need to know. The media needs causes; it lost one in a not guilty verdict. It is trying desperately to create guilt somewhere else. This is not objectivity. It's a witch hunt.

But we don't believe in witches anymore, do we?

It's Okay to Stand Your Ground

The Ann Arbor City Council wants to see the repeal of the Michigan Stand Your Ground law. But why?

Is self defense wrong? Because if it is, it won't be long until the criminals rule the roost. If an assailant of any type knows that you cannot fight back without endangering yourself before a more omnipotent force (which is the law), he will press harder and become bolder. Common sense tells us as much.

Because of Trayvon Martin? Zimmerman was found not guilty, folks. If anything, the case supports stand your ground.

Because some people will push the law to the limit? Yet that can happen with almost any law; if such is the basis for repealing laws, then repeal them all, for they all might be abused.

We will readily concede that there are times when common sense tells you to back down, to retreat, even, if circumstances demand that. We will even concede that some folks will make poor judgments which could lead to escalating rather than diffusing a situation. Yet we will at the same time assert that poor judgment by others doesn't mean a law, and that means any given law, is bad.

People do bad things; they make mistakes. If human perfection is your demand in anything, whether law, morality, or practical matters, are decided upon, you were born in the wrong universe. Humanity is not perfect; neither with its laws be. You simply cannot tie the hands of the reasonably rational majority for the sake of the stupid or evil. At that point, stupid and evil win.

Zimmerman is the Devil!

We notice this morning, in a headline on AOL, that George Zimmerman was pulled over for speeding. Further, he had a gun in his car (which he admitted to police shortly after having been pulled over). Further still, he was (gasp!) going nowhere in particular. Oh dear.

Give it up, mass media. The man was found innocent. Every detail of his life simply is not nor ought to be public knowledge. Why are you continuing your attempts to hang him high?

Because the media has to stir the pot. Also, the media can't be wrong. With the entire Zimmerman/Trayvon Martin ordeal, we have examples of both. There is the sensationalism which drives modern journalism hand in hand with the need to find Zimmerman guilty of something. As a result, he won't be left alone for a long, long time. He's evil, and it must be shown.

Yet who is really the evil one here? The man found innocent of a heinous crime, or the paparazzi of what Rush Limbaugh so rightly calls the drive by media?

Calm Needed in Trayvon Martin Case

The Trayvon Martin case marches on. Today, his parents and attorney attended hearings in the House of Representatives on hate crimes. The debate about his intentions the night he was killed, or of the attitude and intention of the man who killed him, however, will go on for quite a long time.

The real bottom line is we don't know what exactly happened that night. Whatever exactly occurred was surely terrible no matter what the background. If a young man, any young man, hate crimes be damned, is killed without just cause, then we are faced with an unspeakable atrocity. If a guy just doing his job is being railroaded, then we have a moral affront against him to consider. But we, the public, simply doesn't know which it is, or whether perhaps it is even something somewhere in between.

Yet there are forces in this country which can't have that, and they may well exist on both sides of the spectrum. No matter what they say, Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton don't truly know how exactly the events transpired that fatal day. But it does give them a cause, or, rather, fuels their fire about race issues. Issues upon which they rely for a forum. Does this mean that race wasn't involved in the Trayvon Martin instance? Of course not. But simply because of the obvious circumstances, it doesn't mean than race was involved either.

The defenders of George Zimmerman ought to be careful as well. They don't know any more about the case than what their counterparts on the left do; each side seems willing to believe what supports their basic creed and little more. That just is not fair to Martin, Zimmerman, or the cause of justice.

Nor can inflaming sentiments help the case. One of the problems with hate crimes is that, quite frankly, they dilute and distract from the real point of justice. If a young unarmed man doing nothing he was not within his legal and moral right to do was murdered, we have a terrible crime against him and humanity. But Orwellian crimes, made up essentially to support some blanket causes and not in themselves criminal, hamper rather than aid justice. Motive, no matter how reprehensible, can never be criminal, because motive itself is a thought, not a physical act. Unless, of course, you believe in thoughtcrime. We may as well round up everybody then, for there's few of us who don't commit that.

In the meantime, we need to stick to the facts, and let the proper authorities act as the facts dictate. Sure, call them on the matter if need be. Demand they act, if you have some really good reason why they should. Beyond that, don't make a young man's death a social or political football. His memory serves no purpose if used to divide the nation for mere sectarian gain.